A recent study by Science indicated that reading fiction improves empathy. I think it not only allows you to understand the feelings of others, but also more fully allows you to understand & feel your own feelings. (Because it's happened to me!)
I tend to make myself a lot of goals, and value productivity a LOT. One such goal was to make myself read 52 books in 2014, so I've just been voraciously consuming fiction with every spare moment. During the school year, this feels like just another chore. Another thing to check off my list to make myself feel better when feel like I'm doing a lousy job at something (at least I'm being productive!!).
Valuing productivity over all else means that I don't feel like my summer is successful until I have deep cleaned and organized all the closets in our house. It means that if I have an extra hour or two, I'm going to try to run some errands to make the most of that time. It means that when I relax and watch TV, I want it to be a part of some larger goal, like catching up on an entire series. There is not a lot of space left in my everyday productivity-chasing to sit back and feel anything. It's a vicious cycle that has pretty much consumed my life.
But what has happened this year is that these books have wedged themselves into my heart and flooded it with emotion I haven't felt in a long time.
The sneaky thing about a book goal is that I allow myself the time to sit back and read because it is a part of my self-imposed challenge. It satisfies my deep need to be productive. Once I'm there, the books show up and do some work on my heart and it changes the game. I have found that the more books I read, the more I allow myself to go on the emotional journey with the characters, more fully immersing myself in each passing story. I'm now at the point that I will laugh out loud when a character gets killed in A Dance with Dragons (something you'd probably understand if you've read the A Song of Ice and Fire series), or start crying when a character experiences heartache. I am not normally like this! I am a machine of productivity with no time for emotions!!!
These books came in like a Trojan Horse to bring me back to a place where I am more fully able to feel my own emotions.
I love this quote from Zooey Deschanel:
She talks about someone stealing your tenderness, and I feel like I've done that to myself through my need to feel accomplished. I think on some level I've been telling myself: "Emotions are weakness that will get in the way of being able to complete all these tasks!!" (And everyone knows tasks are the #1 top best thing in the world... ?)
However, the emotional workout these books have given me has allowed me to be "in shape" to experience the world around me without fear of emotions. I am now able to walk into new experiences and be vulnerable. I am even more able to keep being vulnerable after experiencing hurt. Many times I think we default to being robots after being hurt, thinking that not feeling emotions will help us to better handle situations. I mean, if you don't feel, you can't get hurt... right? But experiencing hurt through other characters in these stories allows me to give myself more freedom to feel and love and hurt and LIVE!
So, basically what I'm saying is that if you see me crying about some baby birds on my front porch, just let it happen. Blame it on the books.