Fear or Excitement? Emotion Confusion

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

11 Responses

  1. Leah, If we didn't have fear we would become complacent and we would never experience anything new or different. I wouldn't like to live that way. You have so much with your sewing, lecturing and now all the video archives you have. Life is to be celebrated and all the fears and excitement are part of it. Celebrate each day you have earned it. Chris

  2. Thank you for this insightful blog post and video. My way of dealing with the stress/fear/excitement of a trip is to just not think about it until the last minute. I miss out on the pleasure of anticipation and create unnecessary stress with last minute packing. I'm working on it. Love that you marched with a bass drum! You look great and I hope you had a chance to enjoy yourself in Denver!

  3. Terrific post! I know what you mean about suppressing the display of excitement. I know I do that. I think it is because, while I am always very happy to see other people excited and happy about something in their lives, I have had the experience many times of someone trying to burst my own excitement bubble. I think jealousy has lots to do with it. I have my own set of the deadly sins, but I have never been an envious or jealous person. I don't see life as a zero sum game where if you get yours, then I won't get mine. You strike me as a very non-jealous person too. And then there are the worry warts who think that if something good just happened, then something bad is right around the corner. It's tough to share excitement with those people too. I guess we just need to find our safe people, who will rejoice in our happiness, and then return the favor as needed. 🙂

  4. Leah, you are right. That feeling is all from Adrenalin and how we label it is how we interpret it. All from a chemical natural in our bodies. HIH

  5. Wow, great insight regarding how kids express emotions honestly, and at some point in our development that's not ok anymore. We get funny looks, are told to calm down, or that we're acting like children (so what?), or geeks, or we must be bipolar, etc. etc. etc. Maybe that's just envy on the part of those who perhaps are not so excited at the time? I don't know, but if shoving *negative* emotions down and internalizing them isn't good for us, then maybe failing to express *positive* emotions can be less than healthy, too. I just never thought about it that way until I saw your video today. Great job! And so poised and eloquent, too.

  6. Leah Day says:

    Definitely true Sharon! Adrenalin feels great or terrible, depending entirely on your frame of mind.

  7. Leah Day says:

    That's a really good point – do I suppress my excitement when I'm all alone? Do I only contain myself when I'm around other people who might be jealous or a Negative Nelly? I guess I am more likely to dance around when I get great news and I'm by myself! It's a good idea to then make the time to celebrate privately in as silly a way as possible just to let the emotions out, or as you said – with safe people who get it!

  8. Leah Day says:

    I do exactly the same think Lynn! But last minute packing is SO stressful that most of the time I really am channeling fear as I pack up in a massive hurry. Really gotta work on that one!

  9. Leah Day says:

    Absolutely! I'm not advising to avoid being afraid, but just know WHAT you're actually feeling. It's sometimes hard to figure out – excited? happy? fearful? overboard thrilled? without stopping and checking to see what's really going on.

  10. Leah Day says:

    Thank you so much Linda! Yes, I think expression of emotions is key. Whether it's negative or positive, all emotions are valid. Extreme anger, sadness, and even happiness can be hard for other people to stomach because we're all supposed to be "just fine" all the time. I really appreciate your compliments about the videos!

  11. Hi Leah, I am so happy to have seen this video today. A month ago I spoke for the first time at a guild and I was so happy to do it but I spent the day making myself almost sick over it. I wish I had realized that what I was feeling was excitement and not fear. I think I could have saved myself much angst had I taken a minute to figure out what was going on. Great series, thanks for the insight!

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