How to Reduce Restlessness
Date Added: August 29, 2008 03:25:18 PM
Our emotional lives often seem like the ocean. Up on the surface all may be smooth sailing, sunshine, and tiny manageable waves. But underneath strong currents may be pulling. After awhile, the strength of the concealed struggles disturbs the surface calm.
Our emotional lives often seem like the ocean. Up on the surface all may be smooth sailing, sunshine, and tiny manageable waves. But underneath strong currents may be pulling. After awhile, the strength of the concealed struggles disturbs the surface calm.All of us can think of times when we first became aware that some discontent or conflict was going on inside. A woman who begins to feel the stirrings of some demand inside herself paces about the house, instead of settling down to her book or her cooking. She may begin to go on spending sprees for things she doesn't really need, or plan a hectic social life with people who do not really interest her. In short she is restless. She has lost the feeling of serenity and harmony that comes when mind and body are both focused on a task that they know how, or are learning, to perform, and believe to be worthwhile.
There are many degrees of restlessness, from a feeling of mild dissatisfaction to a panicky state of extreme agitation. Many are the reasons any woman may experience this unease. The problem may simply be one of more energy than she knows what to do with. It is possible for a family to come back from a wonderful vacation to a situation in which the husband pitches right back into his work, and the children jump straight back into their school lives, but the wife finds she has very little to do. Her restlessness then will force her to realize that -she is uncomfortably under occupied. She will not feel any better until she turns her vitality into useful channels.
There are other times when the restlessness can fairly obviously be traced to its source. Many women experience a feeling of "what next?" about two years after the birth of a child, a primitive tug that frequently propels them into longing for, and then planning, another baby.
On other occasions we cannot perceive what it is that has us in turmoil. The restless feeling may be strong, but totally mysterious. It is never without cause, however. Generally what gets us into restless moods is an emotional conflict that has not reached our full awareness. It may be that a woman realizes her teenage daughter is getting serious about her boyfriend and, while she cannot help but like the young man herself, and appears to approve of the relationship, deep-down she is terrified that she is going to lose that daughter. She is realistic enough to know that one day her daughter will leave home, but mother enough to be tortured by the thought of it.
She cannot admit her feelings to herself— because she hates to see herself as a possessive woman. This makes it impossible to open the subject with her husband. Half of her knows that she must seek new interests and learn how to adapt, while the other half is desperately dragging back to keep things as they are. The only cure for her disturbed moods a gentle self-exploration; a willingness to admit to herself that she cannot bear to think of parting with her daughter. Once she admits her real feelings to herself, she can more easily talk them over with her husband. The only way to cure the hidden turmoil is to gradually bring it out of hiding. Then the energy that at present is being frittered away in moodiness can be harnessed to facing the changes that may really occur.
