The Visceral Life For Me

Some people are more vulnerable and on the emotional edge than others.

As a teenager I lost my family in a plane crash. I could not get to my vulnerabilities for maybe fifteen years. Getting married and having kids opened me to feeling more exposed everyday.

How can you have kids and not be at the edge of your emotions with love and worry every moment? For eighteen years until they went to college, it was my goal to know where they were, keep them safe, and at least get them to college before they were on their own.

Now I have the same love and concern, but I don’t worry about them running in the street. I like the feeling of being emotionally involved.

I, like others, love being a sports spectator because the competition resonates at a visceral level. It’s like watching gladiators where the best competitor wins.  People love their teams at a visceral level. Why else would you wear a cheese hat?

Surfing is visceral. There is the anticipation of an exciting ride and the fear of getting crushed. I love the TV show Bones because it is just as much about the pain and sexual tension in relationships between people as it is about solving a mystery.  This is my perfect combination.

I am thoroughly enjoying a few Harlan Coban novels because it is about murder and mystery but more about how everyone is personally stressed with decisions they have to make in their work and their complicated personal lives. I groan as I experience with them the difficulty of their dilemma and am not always sure which decision I would make.

I am inspired. Inspiration occurs at an emotional level. It is not an intellectual process.  I love to write to express myself. I am blessed that I can do it full time.

I have connected on a deeper level with how  everything on earth is similar on a cellular level (carbon) and yet humans are different through genes and environment that create their personalities and behavior.

We all have our personalities, but we can connect to each other through mirror neurons in our brains. They allow us to finish each others sentences and understand each others feelings.

Inspiration and visceral are the opposite of boring; they allow living in the here and now.  Our top down thinking that forms our personalities wants to filter out information and reinforce our world view. This leads to very little here and now and lots of boredom;  no fresh thoughts or creative energy; no excitement from a new stimulus; no stepping outside our fears to risk something that could change us.

Courage, discipline, and openness for risk create constant change and life at the visceral level.