According to the experts, emotions are a form of energy and the better we are at managing our emotions and understanding what they are trying to tell us, the more positive our outlook and the healthier our bodies. Over the years, I have had ups and downs in terms of how well I manage my emotions. Long term stress definitely takes its toll on me as I find when I am tired, it is easy to allow negative emotions to overwhelm me. When I sleep well, positivity comes more easily and my emotional watch dog is ready to spring into action at a moments notice and keep me balanced.
But there is another situation that requires huge amounts of emotional energy and it’s related to being a newcomer in a land where I am at once the outsider and the insider. I am an insider as my father was born and raised in Estonia along with most of the paternal relatives. I am also an outsider as I was born and raised in the USA.
The type of emotional energy I am thinking about today is the kind that we use to take on difficult challenges, enter into hard conversations, or put our selves into uncomfortable situations. You know what I mean: that job interview, conversations with your sexist/racist/homophobic family member, or doing something brand new that you terrifies you, but which you still desire.
Every day I am doing two or three or sometimes four of those activities that require loads of emotional energy just to show up and try again. Most days I manage it with the help of some dark chocolate and sheer grit and the belief that I can do anything (even if that doing is unfolding at a snail’s pace).
I am grateful for the emotional experience. In the USA, I understood on an intellectual level how hard life is for immigrants and I understood on a familial level as well since both my parents emigrated to the USA. Growing up first-generation American-born, there was always a distance between “in here” or in our family and “out there” or in the USA. However, by the time I was old enough to perceive this distance, my parents had already lived in the USA at least ten years, if not longer. I did not experience the steep part of the learning curve that my parents must have.
Now I am experiencing first hand how much emotional energy it takes for refugees to land in a new place, for new immigrants to get up every morning and create a new future, or how those separated from their emotional support system find the determination to get up every day and put themselves into a new and challenging situation.
I wish that everyone had the opportunity I am experiencing so that there would be more compassion in the world towards newcomers in our communities, no matter where or how they may be formed.
