Staying on Course Through Emotional Storms

I called my friend in a panic.

“I’m so anxious about my book coming out,” I told her. “What if it causes harm? What if I’ve quoted other’s voices too much or I am mistakenly appropriating from other cultures? Or what if I’ve centered my own voice too much and it’s full of egregious implicit biases or misattuned to the world around me? What if I shouldn’t be the one writing a book? I don’t know what I don’t know. How do I put anything out there if I don’t know how it will impact people. How will this book land in different countries when I’m writing from my own cultural lens? And am I inclusive enough? Do you think I’ve been divisive? What if I escalate our divisions instead of bringing us together? Should I take the politics out that will divide us? And all the divisive issues? But I can’t not talk about the big issues we face today, can I? Aren’t these the fractures we need to heal? Am I then being a silent bystander to injustice? Should I have allowed myself to be more radical? Did I regress into people pleasing by toning down my language too much to widen my audience? And how many important issues and voices did I miss? What if the book’s a success and I win capitalism on a book exploring the health risks of the inequities of capitalism? How can I best redistribute those profits? Is it safe to share my neurotic parts to the public? What if I’m messing up gloriously?”

You’re probably getting the sense by now that I have exceptionally loving friends who create the safety for me to express all my raw and undesirable parts. And yes, I know how lucky I am.

She listened, cradling every thought that spewed from my shame spiral, her soft voice swaddling me in her care.

“I haven’t had a shame wave like this in a really long time,” I told her, labeling my activation into this familiar state. I recognized the tsunami of shame-themed thoughts accompanying the emotional storm for what they were: passing symptoms of being in an activated shame state.

“I know, and it makes so much sense with the stressful month you’ve had,” she responded.

Shame is an evolutionary alarm that alerts us to situations where we may be rejected if we are to show ourselves fully. As we validated all the events of the month that pushed me into this state of shame, I no longer felt like my mind was randomly abducted by old patterns of suffering. It all made sense. I knew that all the thoughts and discomfort would quiet once my body came back into balance. And I’ve had plenty of practice surfing shame waves. Once I caught myself in these old habits of spiraling in unhelpful stories—whether they’re true or not—I shifted my attention to the sensations of my body and did the opposite of its urge to hide: I shared my messy insides with my friends and partner, who are safe to hold it.

“Putting yourself out there is terrifying, and you will probably receive a lot of hard feedback and criticism. Everyone does when they offer their work to the public. It’s not easy,” my friend told me. “And I know you keep writing because you’ve decided its potential to help even a few people is worth that discomfort,” she added.

I am writing in a world where many people and groups will likely reject me, so my shame alarm is both accurate and ramped up by the historical alarms of my own past conditioning. I’m not for everyone—nor could I ever be—and neither are my politics, practices, and ideas. Shame tells me to hide these parts of myself that could be rejected, or only share them with people that are safe to hold them. And I’m overriding its warning.

I anticipate that shame will be a recurrent visitor as my book comes out. And it will continue to be distressing. But these evolutionary alarms can’t see the bigger picture of the purpose we choose for ourselves. My core values are humility, connection, contribution, and compassion, so if my work has any potential to bring more unity and care into the world, even if just to a few people, it’s worth the pain of all the shame that might come along with living a life that matters to me.

When we feel the storms of emotional alarms, whether they’re alerting us to past or present threats and rewards, we need the compass of our values to keep us moving in our chosen direction. Living by our values may seem like a privilege that only a lucky few get to practice. We may feel that we must adopt the values of others to survive or fit in, without questioning if they serve us well. And too often, we’re jumping from fire to fire without much time to notice what direction we’re heading in. When we’re simply trying to make rent or keep our family safe, it may feel frivolous to consider our values.

The compass of values keeps us on course through emotional storms

Source: Johannes Plenio/Pexels

Yet in Man’s Search for Meaning, physician Victor Frankl documented how his focus on purpose provided the compass he needed to survive the tortuous conditions as a prisoner of the concentration camps that killed his wife, brother, father, and mother. “Those who have a ‘why’ to live for, can bear with almost any ‘how,’” he wrote, referencing Nietzsche.

We each hold unique values that describe how we want to relate to the world, other people, and ourselves. And that’s wonderful. The healthiest collectives depend on having many diverse members who work together in different ways.

Values differ from goals in that they describe how we globally act and relate to the world, not what we are specifically achieving in discrete contexts. You can explore your own values by asking yourself:

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• How do you want to live?
• What is most important to you in living a full and meaningful life?
• What qualities do you want to cultivate?
• How do you want to show up and behave?
• In your ideal life, how would others describe you in terms of what you stand for, how you have contributed, what you mean to them, or the role you play in the world?

Values also differ from emotional states, like happiness, calmness, or comfort. “Happiness cannot be pursued. It must ensue,” Viktor Frankl explained. “One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’” We can ask ourselves: How would I be showing up if I were feeling this way? What would matter to me? How would I be living?

We can’t heal by only feeling better in a sick world. We need to make a better world through actions that fix its problems. Luckily, we’re well equipped to navigate this tough landscape. Even when the world around us steals our freedom in a myriad of ways, we can empower ourselves from within by following the compass of our chosen values.