“I’m just not emotional.”

“Men are not as emotional; women are more so.” 

I’m sure you’ve heard these sentences if you grew up somewhere on Planet Earth. 

“I’m just not emotional.” Okay, many people have grown up thinking this, or internalized that at some point in their lives. 

But allow me to explain something scientifically based, non emotional, cold hard reviews for your fact loving friends: there is something called a brain (duh). And there is something called a spine (duh). And those two things, your brain and your spine, interact as functional pieces of something else called a nervous system. And the nervous system is the part of your body that when emotions run through it, it travels through there. And when it travels through it, they run through the body. Hence, if you have a body, you have emotions.

Ever hear of the fight or flight system (See: Moldy Cheese and Fire Alarm Systems: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn) that kicks in when you face a tiger, a lion, or wild animal?

So if someone identifies as a protector, and talks about how back in the day they used to have to protect against tigers, they sure as hell need a fight our flight system. And if they’ve got that, they have the same system emotions run through.

Men’s fight or flight has been historically spoken about in the context of wild animals. Women’s fight or flight has been spoken about in the context of emotions. But they are both the same system: and both genders have both tracks. 

Emotions are a physiological process, and a cycle our bodies need to finish. 

(Ironically, when we do not let them finish, we often end up making decisions based off them.)

I remember speaking a pseudo intellectual at one point (and the only reason is to sharpen your debate skills, not to reach any conclusion) and he was arguing about men being less emotional. (His version of a man was the macho maga type who smacks his chest and won’t help a woman if boo hoo she’s successful in the workplace.) I pointed out to him that military men – the biggest machos and workout bros that define masculinity to them – train for when they get flooded by a certain emotion: they name it in their body to calm down. To which he responded: “that’s different. That’s physical.”

To which I cried out, “and what do you think emotions are?”

They are physical processes running within the body that need to be completed and through completion, get release. 

They’re like thoughts, but the body’s thoughts. As Kate Gray, LMFT says: emotions are your body’s way of communicating to you. (In case you haven’t noticed, I quote her a lot. She’s absolutely life changing. Go check out her work right now at codependencykate.com).

High control systems rely on you not listening to your body. I can trick a mind that a certain harmful way of living is good, but the body will communicate to me that it’s hurting. Why do you think they have so many teachings that talk about the body being deceptive and untrustworthy?

Emotions are physicality and physicality is emotion. As humans, we all have physical needs; and we have another piece to us too: emotional needs. These two can equally trigger fight or flight if they are not met: and are unlike esoteric self fulfillment needs, which can cause depression and melancholy if not tapped into, but will not trigger fight or flight if not met.

We are a unique species where emotional needs are so ingrained in us, that it is viewed as a threat to survival if we do not have them or we are threatened with having them removed.

Also, remember: anger is also an emotion (it’s funny to point that out to all the men out there.) And women who have to negotiate, rewrite, and articulate around men who slam doors and get set off by anything – who is acting emotionally? And who is being the more logical one about the emotions present? 

Either way, remember: emotions take place in the body. But unlike digestion, unlike breathing, and unlike the heartbeat, we have to learn how to let those processes go through us. They run through our body, and need release. And everybody has them.