Why Live 2.4

2.4 I Value My Emotional Experiences

I’ve been the only female in most of my trucking jobs. As such, I’ve been haggled with sayings like “oh careful, she’s gonna cry about it" or “you can’t hold a logical conversation with a woman” and many more variations of ignorance.

While it is true that men and women both feel emotions….it is also true that women feel emotions more intensely and men process emotions differently. 

A man’s brain can be thinking or feeling. A woman’s brain, thanks to some nerves connecting both sides of the brain, is always doing both.

This is where the sexes have many issues that get “lost in translation”.

When explaining women, I ask the guys to think of the last time they were overcome with high emotion. Maybe a bar fight or the loss of a parent.

Then I ask them to explain what that was like in a few words. “seeing red" “blacking out" “jekyll and hyde" “hulking out" are common answers to describe how “out of control" they were in those moments of high emotion.

Then I ask the “how quickly were you able calm down after that?” 

The most common answers are: immediately or pretty quick.

I explain that they were in their thinking brain but then they went into their feeling brain. Once the feeling had run its course, they switched back over to the thinking brain. Most men seem to get this explanation.

Then I tell them “Now imagine that you were never able to switch between thinking or feeling but instead were always on some level of ‘seeing red/hulking out' that never left you.”

Usually the responses are “I’d be exhausted" and “No way, no one can function like that all the time!”

This is the point where I tell them now they understand why women are always exhausted and can’t seem to function logically.

When a man processes a situation, he is able to apply pure logical thought to it.

A woman is not. She must feel always and feelings are not logical.

Now, a woman can apply logic *after* she feels. Another reason why most women come back with an apology after a fight. 

The same is true that men apply emotions after the logic. “The chair broke and we easily afford to buy a new one. But now that you tell me your best friend gave it to you, I can see why you are feeling sad.”

I value my emotional experiences.

They are each little friends and confidantes that support me and guide me through life because I have taken the time to learn them, to understand them, and to nurture them.

But I do not ask men to tap into their emotions. I ask them to think about it logically and then guess at an emotion that might be a result of that particular situation. 

Just as I don’t ask women to think about it situation,  I ask them to explore how they feel.  Then I ask them to apply some logic to the situation. 

If men would let women feel first and women would let men process logic first, many relationships would blossom.

Women love the logic that a healthy man can provide such as making plans and figuring out finances. And men love to experience a healthy woman emotionally expressing herself such as dancing and laughing.

As I said, maturing is about learning the subtle variations in life. While men and women both feel emotions, they effect us differently. 

A woman is always a little illogical and exhausted, especially if she has a higher IQ.

A man is always a little emotionally insensitive, especially if he’s single.

Accept our differences and value our emotional experiences. 

We are amazing multiple systems wrapped in skin and that makes us all a little weird.

So embrace that you’re a weirdo and that they are weirdos too.

It makes life so much more manageable.