Emotions

One of the benefits to long haul trucking is the time spent behind the windshield.  Hours of silence that can be used to process and think.  I'm a contemplative person by nature and enjoy this opportunity immensely.  I was raised in an emotional vacuum and one of the challenges I have had to face is "what are your needs?"  Inability to identify and feel your emotions essentially leaves you unable to know who you are, let alone know what you need.  I started with journaling my thoughts and feelings in a notebook, struggling to identify what is really going on inside with all these sorrows and aches and longings and confusion.  It takes work.  There are often emotions behind the emotion behind the emotion.  I found that once I had really dug to the core emotion, something would click and expand in me almost like the emotion itself was saying "Yes!  You found me!  You named me!"  It's a strange, freeing and healing experience.  Anger is a typical surface emotion.  I would even challenge the idea that it is even an emotion - more like a tool used by an underlying emotion to give power to that emotion.  A very useful tool, yes, but hopefully not the only tool in the toolbox.  That would be like someone trying to fix everything in the house with a hammer.  Not always the most effective nor beneficial.  But discovering the emotions behind the anger can be very helpful.  It changes your perspective from "I'm feeling angry" to "I'm angry because I'm feeling betrayed."  Much more productive, because then the act of betrayal can be addressed.  The same can be done with frustration or anxiety.  To say "I'm anxious because I'm afraid of being alone" is much more helpful than simply identifying the anxiety.  Emotions are very powerful and can often send the mind into thought looping paralysis.  Unpacking all this takes time, effort, and practice.  It's a function that wasn't given to me as a child, and like a muscle, begins to get easier and stronger the more you practice it.  But the peace of mind, the clarity, and the self-awareness make it very worthwhile.  Then the question of "what are my needs?" become answerable.  You can also then discover your own path and live your own script.