—
If deeply emotional women are a mystery to you, here’s an insight into those of us who claim and accept that description.
Not all of us do; not all of us are. We too, wonder why.
After decades of observing and wallowing—at times drowning—in my own emotional meltdowns, I believe I’m now qualified to offer you valuable insider knowledge.
Emotional overwhelm can exhaust women—and their loved ones. As you emphatically nod, I admit that’s a given.
|
At age twenty I wouldn’t have been. At age thirty, on the brink of motherhood, no. Forty, getting there. Fifty, yes, most of the proverbial had hit the fan, with some really nasty stuff going off in the decade that followed.
Now sixty-two and having confronted, less than a year ago, a powerful and dormant Drama Queen buried deep within me, I was forced to slap myself over the face and declare, Enough is enough. Who is this termagant and where did she come from?
I put serious work into nailing down the answer and think I’ve done it.
Emotional overwhelm can exhaust women—and their loved ones. As you emphatically nod, I admit that’s a given.
When you come to know the nature of our explosive devices, it’s much easier to help us laugh at the absurdity of them. BUT—and it’s a big but—only when the firework is spent and sputtering on the grass. By this time your [mother, sister, wife, partner, daughter, girlfriend, significant woman, colleague] is gasping and looking as if she’s been through a front loader on hot wash—or a minefield.
If you’ve ever wondered, What the hell…? here’s what it looks like from the inside.
Warning: reading further might exhaust you.
At this point, I may succumb mixed metaphors and impassioned concepts, typical of an emotional woman’s mode of expression. But there are important hints here for how best to view and respond to your overly emotional women.
Let me take you on a ride … one I know well.
We are born to be overwhelmed.
We cry. We just do. We cry over stupid things at stupid times. It truly helps, but we feel stupid doing it. Crying can burst out at inopportune times.
We can lock down the cry response by becoming tough—really tough—harsh, hardened or cold-hearted, but in doing so we can be a bit bitchy unless we’re fully detached Enlightened Beings.
Next, our bodies overwhelm us from the day they announce our fertility, and every month thereafter until the power leaves us. [Thank you, menopause.] Then gravity overwhelms us. And you wonder why we have body issues?
Most women are programmed to nurture. We don’t learn this. We are this. It happens in spite of us. A creative force, using us: our bodies, our comfort, our arms, our love, our tears, our often-unwilling sacrifice and surrender—to nurture and protect new life, all life.
It might take time for many dedicated, total-control career women to succumb to it, but the biological clock is a cunning plan, especially if a powerful biological match appears in our lives. Oops, that wasn’t part of The Plan. Cue: maternal urges and incredible sex.
Our emotions, high and low, are the conduits to something greater than we are—they are every cell singing with joy or grief as we plug in via our feelings.
|
Our bodies overwhelm us even more, when new life grows within us—when we grow to bursting and can’t stop it. They overwhelm us with their powerful surges, pushing new life from us in its own time, not ours. Then breastfeeding…it’s a shock! How can such a tiny blob create such powerful suction? Aaargh! What is happening to my body? Cue: tears and emotion.
It overwhelms us that we’re compelled to sacrifice and surrender countless times. Not only our ideals of maternity, but also our professional selves. Overwhelmed and divided by loyalties. We were told we could have it all. Was that a joke? Like traitors to one or the other role—damned if we do, damned if we don’t. If we fail to surrender total control, we are destined for the analysts couch or the divorce courts.
Fighting and surrendering. A paradox of emotions. An emotional woman is a woman who is stretched too thin, or is not having her needs met. Hell, she might not even know what her needs are.
We express our overwhelming emotions because we have no choice. To leave them unexpressed is to build a wall around our hearts. To leave them unexpressed is to silence the feminine in us. We connect to life through our emotions. Our emotions, high and low, are the conduits to something greater than we are—they are every cell singing with joy or grief as we plug in via our feelings.
Science might say we’re at the mercy of our hormones. Believe what you will. A woman who connects with her deepest emotions won’t believe hormones alone explain everything. Something else can overwhelm us…something that takes huge courage to acknowledge and allow in this Age of Equality, Political Correctness and Powerful Women.
The woman who allows her femininity to fully express itself will feel shivers up her spine, shivers of recognition: Yes, this is what is real. This is what you are. This is what I Am; this is what Love is. Let me use you to express Myself.
This recognition of the profound feminine can emerge in different ways. Most typically via the deep and unbreakable love we feel for those who grew within us, and those for whom we deeply care. No matter what they do, or who they become, we can’t stop loving them and caring for them, until the day we die. They’re precious miracles, just as you were to your mother. Yes, hormones ensure an unbreakable bond (with few exceptions) in the early child-raising years, but beyond that…?
When we’re unable to soothe their pain or protect them from harm, our love expresses itself as overwhelming grief and sorrow. If the children we carried or raised reject us or abuse us with their words or actions, we’re overwhelmed with both love and pain for them. This grief and sorrow is in the heart of the feminine. It sits beside love and surrender.
And you wonder why we cry, sob, scream or blather?
We know how to love unconditionally. You don’t need to teach us or to request it of us. We have no choice. We have the endurance it takes. We know the pain and joy of it; you can learn from us.
We don’t give up on love. We love beyond what we can bear because we have no choice. We can even love you when you stop loving us…until all hope has gone. Only objectifying you can spare us from this.
It’s hell in there; it can border on delusional at times.
Even so, we hope for other lifetimes with you, other stories in which you are the one we believed you to be. Deluded? Perhaps.
Sometimes we simply don’t understand you—or ourselves—enough to express our very real needs and abilities in relationships. If our familial role models and pop culture hasn’t helped us understand, we struggle with it. We need new role models. Models that haven’t fully emerged yet—role models that emerge from conversations that no one else is having, perhaps.
If all this is gobbledygook to you, think of our meltdowns as our budget-level therapy.
One thing is a sure thing: we emotional women need a safe place to express the gamut of our emotions—including vulnerability. Our confidantes can only help so much, and sometimes not at all. They can’t live our relationships for us. Our relationships with you can provide the balance; the rational masculine that we sometimes need.
In other words, we need your tolerance and strength when the emotional part of us runs amok. We know that scares the bejesus out of some of you. It’s not that bad. Really. Don’t take it personally. Imagine what it’s like to be inside our heads. Yes, we show you tears or frustration, but these are just expressions of emotional overwhelm…
Wait… why are you freaking out? I’m just crying.
We don’t always need you to understand the why, just be there. Then we can laugh, lighten up and return to you. By providing a safe place, you help our love express itself through less dramatic emotions and feelings.
Feelings are our currency, our lifeblood, our connection to that which is greater than us. The emotions that baffle you are the expressions of our love in all its forms. Every one of them is powered by our core motivations: to love, to nurture, to express ourselves and find a safe place in which to do so.
If we are hurting it’s because our heart has been wounded, dishonoured or disrespected. If we cry or fall apart, it’s our cry for help and safety. If we crash upon you it’s because we found ourselves outside your protective safety zone and we are struggling to return to it.
Our love is innocent, confusing, fragile and precious—not only to you, but to us as well. It’s our greatest treasure and we want to fill you with it.
And we will fill you with all of it, if we feel safe with you. We will fill the world with it.
Be our safe place if you can.
Be the safe place for all women, even those you don’t know, those you see being harassed or struggling, dishonoured or breaking apart. Some will refuse you, some will attack you when you reach out, but most will not.
Imagine you’re our harbor—and we are trying to get in behind the breakwater.
We need to trust your strength implicitly. Within your harbour we’re stilled, and we fill you with our gentleness. Then we’ll be there for you when storms hit. We can calm you from the safe place we create together.
Without a safe place, we emotional women are easily tossed; it gets pretty deep out there. If we know you’re there, we can navigate more easily out of The Overwhelm—into peace from exhausting movement and relentless tides.
We need you more than you can ever know, but we are never allowed to admit it.
We’re told we don’t need you; toughen up, achieve, compete, win win win…and we end up losing you. We all lose.
Not every woman will agree with what you’ve just read. Neither will every man.
I didn’t write it for them.
This is for the men and women who know that together they are greater than the sum of the parts—even if they don’t declare it.
If the woman in your life seems like an emotional time bomb, tell her she’s safe with you…that woman who most needs to hear it.
Tell her you’ve got this. Tell her she’s safe with you and mean it.
You won’t regret it.
Jude is an Australian writer who has accepted that everything she ever thought was true might not be. She has no permanent home, writes from many locations and wrote this while in France.
◊♦◊
Photo: GettyImages
Thank you for writing this, Jude. Your writing is incredibly refreshing. I’ve read plenty from men and women that seems so inauthentic, so angry/accusatory toward the opposite sex, and like it’s somehow missing something. I guess it’s how hurt people react. This has been an enlightening read as I take time to learn as much as I can from a recent breakup. To add, I’m a young man who wishes to ‘get it’, if that serves as any encouragement.
So you don’t think men have depth?
Inferring men are not ‘deep’ is certainly not the intention of this article John. I apologise if it comes across that way.
The GMP forum has proven to me how deeply men think, consider and feel—contrary to myths and misinformation that would have us believe otherwise.
I’m frequently amazed at the poignancy of articles written by male contributors. They give me a new understanding of what goes on inside the hearts of men. From these conversations, I’m convinced men and women simply express their depth differently.
“Imagine you’re our harbor—and we are trying to get in behind the breakwater.” Honestly, I’d like to quote the whole thing, after reading it twice. It won’t get much play, unfortunately, because it does not feed into anger, resentment, or blaming men. It’s too refreshing, too honest, too authentically feminine for that. it does not raise its fist with the sista-hood, and it does not enrage the bro-hood. These young ones won’t get it. They are too fired up and ready to rumble (weren’t we all at that age), but get a few years under your belt, some misery, pain,… Read more »
Ditto, DJ. Beautiful job, Jude.
The glimpse behind your curtain was fun to see and I’ll share it with my men who are trying to make sense of it all.
Thanks for taking the time to wade through the depths, and for sharing the post Steve.
Thank you DJ. Your sincere comments on my first two GMP posts mean more to me than getting ‘much play’. I suspect some young ones do ‘get it’, but feel too uncomfortable to publicly agree. Confess I would have been back then… The years since have only served to increase the collective belief that we women are not supposed to need you guys, or be unashamedly emotional.