Knock, knock, it's my feelings

Learning to notice & acknowledge feelings is like hearing a knock on the door after midnight and letting in a half-stranger...or an odd aquaintance.

Ever gotten tangled in your own emotions? Here's my feelings-rant:

1. There are too many. It's like opening a box of fairies...or bats.

2. Feelings are counter-productive. How am I supposed to get anything done?

3. Feelings make me vulnerable. (sigh)

4. I can't control them.

5. They are not reasonable or logical.

6. My feelings inconvenience other people.

7. Feelings mess with my appearance of having it all together.
8. I could get stuck in my feelings...especially the shadowy ones.

9. Fear of narcissism.

10. It's hard to honor someone's feelings when they conflict with mine.

11. I can't always discern what I'm feeling.

Here's what Annie Dillard suggests:

"It would seem that emotions are the curse, not death-emotions that appear to have developed upon a few freaks as a special curse from Malevolence. All right then. It is our emotions that are amiss. We are freaks, the world is fine, and let us all go have lobotomies to restore us to a natural state. We can leave the library then, go back to the creek lobotomized, and live on its banks as untroubled as any muskrat or reed. You first."