Life Experiences Define Our Identity ...
Staying Busy Keeps Unwanted Emotions at Bay
All of us have been emotionally scarred from traumatic or difficult
experiences as young people. Early in life, we experienced defining events,
the emotions of which contributed, layer by layer, to who we became. Let’s
face it: we all have been branded by emotionally charged events. As we
mentally reviewed the experience repeatedly, the body began to relive the
event over and over, just by thought alone. We kept the refractory period of
emotion running for so long that we journeyed from a mere emotional
reaction to a mood, to a temperament, and ultimately, to a personality trait.
While we are young, we keep busy doing things that, for a while, stave
off those old, deep emotions, sweeping them under the rug. It is intoxicating
to make new friends, travel to unknown places, work hard and achieve a
promotion, learn a new skill, or take up a new sport. We seldom suspect that
many of these actions are motivated by feelings left over from certain
earlier events in life.
Then we really get busy. We go to school, then possibly college; we buy
a car; we move to a new town, state, or country; we begin a career; we meet
new people; we get married; we buy a house; we have kids; we adopt pets;
we may get divorced; we work out; we start a new relationship; we practice
a skill or a hobby.... We use everything that we know in the external world
to define our identity, and to distract us from how we really feel inside. And
since all of these unique experiences produce myriad emotions, we notice
that those emotions seem to take away any feelings that we are hiding. And
it works for a while.
Don’t get me wrong. We all reach greater heights from applying
ourselves throughout different periods in our growing years. In order to
accomplish many things in our lifetimes, we have to push ourselves outside
our comfort zones and go beyond familiar feelings that once defined us. I
am certainly aware of this dynamic in life. But when we never overcome
our limitations and continue carrying the baggage from our past, it will
always catch up with us. And this usually happens starting around our mid-
30s (this can vary greatly from one person to another).