Welcoming the Visitors
As we develop, we learn to stand at the threshold of our emotions and determine which will pass into the home of our being and which will not. We learn to be the doorkeeper, hospitable to the attractive guests and turning away the unwanted, and in so doing, narrow the passageway to our interior emotional life.
When we grow up with messages saying certain feelings are welcome and others are not, we become inhospitable to the range of emotions. We learn to resist these emotions and constrict, leaving us closed and narrowed to the more difficult emotions present in our human experience.
We develop this way, given the messages we as men and women receive about how we should or shouldn’t feel. We learn to be in a combative relationship with “negative” emotions while over-emphasizing “valued” emotions. We emotionally constrict, closing here and opening there, learning to relate through emotions that are culturally acceptable.
We begin to limit ourselves, and we can hear this in our voice. In trying to control our feelings and ensure the most appropriate emotions are conveyed, we change our tone, volume, and even the personality of our voice. Actors know this avenue well and spend years developing their voice to be versatile for different roles and to convey subtle nuances. We have learned to adapt with different voices according to our posture of hospitality.
Control, however, is not something we can gain over our feelings and emotions, and when we try, we end up convincing ourselves of a reality that our minds believe, while our bodies keep signaling a different truth. The truth that shows up in moments of eruption, anxiety, or in a season of depression. These emotions emerge within marriages, towards kids, in close partnerships - revealing the difficult-to-face reality within.
Often, when I begin working with clients, they tell me something painful and I’ll ask them about their laughter, “Did you notice you laughed? Is there something funny?” They will say it’s not funny and they didn’t really mean to laugh. Their reaction (laughter) to their feelings is incongruent. They’ll often say, “I don’t know why I laughed.” The reactivity to their feelings has become barely conscious and out of alignment with their lived experience. In that moment, we’re given a window to a persona that has developed in relation to the unwelcome emotions.
Paying attention to our voice and working with our voice allows for a subtle and vital shift. We can unlearn patterns of inhospitability by opening up a welcoming pathway. Our voice can offer that pathway.
Clients will begin therapy at a crucial moment in their lives. Something is stirring beneath the surface that they can’t manage, or a relationship is no longer functioning. Among other things, we’ll engage in a mindful vocalizing practice. The emotions that have been unwelcome begin to find hospitality through this open passage. While it can be unnerving, and the unwelcome mat can return quickly, it also brings a welcome sense of relief and a new posture to practice.
Engaging the body through the breath and voice is a direct partnership with the reality that we are not in control, but we do have some power and choice. This breath that breathes in us can be partnered with, slowed down, made deeper and longer, given voice; we are not in control, this breath is breathing, these emotions are emoting, but we can participate and partner, becoming a hospitable host to the emotions that come to visit.
