Brian- I appreciate your thoughtful perspective on the relationship between gender and the emotions of anger and sadness, as well as how these are transformed and developed in a mature adult. Your explanation of how within a mature woman, sadness evolves to warmth and a desire to nurture life and within a mature man, anger becomes strength and a desire to protect. This makes so much sense! I too am curious to explore how these emotions manifest in adults who have not adequately matured, the consequences for society at large, and possible avenues to remedy this.
I am touched by your heartfelt comment on your sense of deep sadness while teaching at Waldorf. I too experienced many moments of sadness while at CWS and feel that I was not where I wanted to be on my life path. I am sending you a virtual hug and thank you for your openness and vulnerability.
When I watched the movie the first time, I immediately identified with the dad. I actually use this example a lot with people to describe myself “you know the emotions in Inside Out? I’m like the dad. Anger is the driver.” I haven’t explored fully what that means for me but it doesn’t bother me. BUT, while it doesn’t bother me personally, I think I have felt the need to be somehow different because anger (and I think especially for women) is mostly seen as not having a place in polite company as you put it. So, I find your perspective very interesting on the poles and development of the emotions as we mature … you’ve given me much to think about!
I’ve also given some thought recently to a meme I saw that said, “honestly the best marketing scheme in history is men successfully getting away with calling women the "more emotional" gender for like, EONS, because they've successfully rebranded anger as Not An Emotion” and I think there’s something interesting there. I think it also relates to what you’ve said in this post but I need to think on it more to connect those pieces and what they mean.
When I was overworking in the Waldorf school, I was being overwhelmed almost daily with unexplained deep Sadness. It was usually when walking to school in the morning while listening to a song on my headphones. I'd have a good cry (sob really) and then go teach for the day. That was a first sign for me that I wasn't following the path I really wanted to follow at that time. You've inspired me to share my poem about Anger, I'll put that up here sometime soon.
Brian- I appreciate your thoughtful perspective on the relationship between gender and the emotions of anger and sadness, as well as how these are transformed and developed in a mature adult. Your explanation of how within a mature woman, sadness evolves to warmth and a desire to nurture life and within a mature man, anger becomes strength and a desire to protect. This makes so much sense! I too am curious to explore how these emotions manifest in adults who have not adequately matured, the consequences for society at large, and possible avenues to remedy this.
I am touched by your heartfelt comment on your sense of deep sadness while teaching at Waldorf. I too experienced many moments of sadness while at CWS and feel that I was not where I wanted to be on my life path. I am sending you a virtual hug and thank you for your openness and vulnerability.
When I watched the movie the first time, I immediately identified with the dad. I actually use this example a lot with people to describe myself “you know the emotions in Inside Out? I’m like the dad. Anger is the driver.” I haven’t explored fully what that means for me but it doesn’t bother me. BUT, while it doesn’t bother me personally, I think I have felt the need to be somehow different because anger (and I think especially for women) is mostly seen as not having a place in polite company as you put it. So, I find your perspective very interesting on the poles and development of the emotions as we mature … you’ve given me much to think about!
I’ve also given some thought recently to a meme I saw that said, “honestly the best marketing scheme in history is men successfully getting away with calling women the "more emotional" gender for like, EONS, because they've successfully rebranded anger as Not An Emotion” and I think there’s something interesting there. I think it also relates to what you’ve said in this post but I need to think on it more to connect those pieces and what they mean.
When I was overworking in the Waldorf school, I was being overwhelmed almost daily with unexplained deep Sadness. It was usually when walking to school in the morning while listening to a song on my headphones. I'd have a good cry (sob really) and then go teach for the day. That was a first sign for me that I wasn't following the path I really wanted to follow at that time. You've inspired me to share my poem about Anger, I'll put that up here sometime soon.