Alanis Morissette on Emotions

"Having left the border of South Africa and entered Botswana, we drove along the pothole-ridden road towards our stop for the night: Elephant Sands.

With Alanis blasting on our radio, singing “I’m lost but I’m hopeful…” and the syrupy after-taste of a sweet still lingering, we pass an old man walking briskly with a walking stick in the opposite direction.

I wonder where he is going so intently. There’s nothing around but scraggly bush and dust, and the odd little herd of goats, as we’ve been bustling along over 100 km’s per hour.”

That was the start to my adventure to Zambia a few years ago, when I went on the Lost Palaces Expedition to explore where 21st century technology meets rural village life. (You can read more about that expedition and what we found here, and about that first day in the van here.)

I’m a fan of Alanis Morissette, and not just for her music! She’s been speaking out on many ideas related to conscious conversations and personal development, and I am learning from her.

Like this article of hers, where she talks about the role of emotions, and how growing up some emotions were not allowed, and so her coping mechanism (and for many of us too!) was to dissociate, to not feel, to put on a “brave face”.

And now, though, she has learnt how useful emotions are, and how being in our body, and experiencing and expressing our emotions in a healthy way, is a far better life strategy.

She shares 19 Tools to “come home to your body” as she calls it, saying “the truth is that life is a holistic human experience.”

Our body is amazing in that the energy of the emotion that we feel, is a clue to us that there is a difference between our expectation of the moment, and the actual reality of the situation we find ourselves in. It helps us learn what we need to do or change or just allow to be.

If we dissociate continuously (dissociating occasionally is useful for coping with extreme situation!) we lose a lot of information that helps us live a life that is more healthy and congruent to us, our needs, and our dreams.

So check out her tools, as it’s a useful list to help us develop our emotional intellig

And as we continued on that road to Zambia through Botswana, we also passed a donkey cart with some youngsters. And I reflected on how different our worlds were, yet so similar in ways, as we were all on journeys… going somewhere… on some personal mission…

And so it is with Alanis too, even with her fame and musical talent, she too is still human in her struggles with emotions and what it means to be human today.

We may experience life differently, but we are all the same too.

“…. and what it all comes down to,

is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet.

I’ve got one hand in my pocket

and the other is giving a peace sign”

About Telana Simpson

Telana is a Courage Coach and author, helping people to be brave and shine, and live a life they love. She coaches executives, individuals and entrepreneurs to have conversations that count by finding their authentic ways of communicating and expressing themselves and their inner potentials. She specialises in true self-esteem, controlling emotions, overcoming self-consciousness and the fear of failure, handling conflict, fear of confrontation and developing relationships. She is fascinated by consciousness evolution and goes on adventures to push her boundaries and preconceptions. She is also a possibility believer and is currently turning one matchstick into an office, to help start ups overcome the fear of failure.

(This article was first published on Inner Coaching)