Through Emotional Chaos

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Through Emotional Chaos (Licia)

(Estimated Reading Time: 2 min, 34 sec)

Often, moving the pen on paper or fingers on the keyboard, answers, or solutions jump out and help me make sense of what I do and feel. So, I thought I would write on the Inner Observer this experience of mine.

Fear of making mistakes

Aurora Mazzoldi - Jane - through emotional chaos?
Aurora Mazzoldi; Jane; acrylic on canvas panel

In this period of inner research, when I have a question, several answers come. I choose “automatically” the one that seems most appropriate at that moment. Only later, I realize I have not found the best answer or acted coherently.

There should be a flaw — in the “automatic” way I decide or in my hidden anxiety — that let me make a mistake.

Occasionally, I realize I have goofed something:

  • I have not given a right answer to a question;
  • I could not reply to a request;
  • I have done a halfway job while almost forgetting what I was doing;

This makes me feeling like I’m incapable of doing anything right in life, and realize that I fix things more by chance than by conscious choice.

Self-criticism or self-deprecation?

My self-esteem drops. I feel full of fears, and shy. Things I’ve always found easy are now becoming difficult.

It’s clear that after a lifetime of trying to hide experiences — that I would have liked to eliminate for good — some things were eventually coming up.

I know this is right. It gives me the opportunity to know my deepest part so that I can “feel” it, welcome it and then let it calm down… Thanks to introspective research, I am learning to understand what I “feel” and to realize what happens inside and outside of me. It proves that there is in me a positive evolution.

Of course, sometimes I am still overwhelmed by the anxiety of making a mistake in whatever I do.

The bewilderment phase

I get lost in a sort of emptiness. It’s as if my neurons disconnect from each other and then reconnect, creating a new connection.

I hope it’s only a bewilderment phase that shakes up old patterns — an adrenaline-filled flight, that thereafter regains altitude on a new and maybe better trail.

Perhaps I feel victimized and judgmental in this processing period. Sporadically, I feel a lot of anger, and often the “sabotaging” part of me makes me remain stuck, confused, and unsatisfied with myself.

I don’t like to feel confused. But then, calming down all these sabotaging attempts, I can see in the bottom of my soul a ray of light… and this makes me feel that I’m on the right track… MY TRACK.

Licia

Fear of inner chaos (Aleramo)

Life is frequently chaotic. Chaos accompanies us everywhere. In the past, I tried to get rid of it. I could not bear it, and I admired people who looked calm; it seemed nothing could touch them.

“Why am I not like them? What am I doing wrong that I’m constantly assaulted by thoughts and emotions that I can’t control in any way?”- I was telling myself. I felt wrong, useless, chaotic….

Then, one day, I said to myself, “when you watch a movie, do you like it to be quiet, measured, repetitive? Does it bother you if someone raises their voice, if there are arguments, or even fights between the main characters?”

It was a flash! My vision of myself has changed a lot since then. Before, I was afraid to look inside, to discover my inner chaos, my struggles. Later, I got interested in that chaos. I had an inner movie that wasn’t flat, uniform, boring, dead. A movie that I could watch all the time, that would stay with me throughout my life….

Was it my inner chaos that was wrong, or was it my mania to impose order where there should be no order?

Aleramo