Why have emoko? What is the purpose of it?
I believe the purpose of emoko is to practice the skills to heal, to protect, and to love.
To heal
Many of us have hearts broken from past attacks – things that happened when we were kids, teenagers, or even as recent as a few days prior. These things may affect our current outlook on life and our future outlook as well. For example, an old romantic rejection may make us more timid to seek new romantic interests; a previous professional betrayal may make us more suspicious to engage with new business partners; or a previous intellectual praising may make us more hesitant to share new academic successes.
The purpose of healing is to resolve these past breaks, to bring us closer to ourselves and closer to others so that we can have better interactions in the present and in the future.
To protect
Many of us don’t know what to do in a fight–not only a physical one, but an emotional one as well. We seem to either avoid the conflict or escalate it, based on what we’ve seen growing up, primarily with our parents. Some of us saw our parents avoid most conflict, and we didn’t see them get aggressive or if they did, they would do so passive aggressively. Others of us saw our parents escalate most conflict, meaning they would get into open fights with each other, one insulting the other or blaming the other back and forth until it may have reached physical violence. I think a third option is we saw one parent escalate and one avoid, where one parent got louder and other got more quiet–the first would get angry, the other would get afraid, one leaning in, one leaning away, until sometimes the first one gets really angry and the other one starts to ignore them, often with the silent treatment.
What many of us HAVEN’T seen is our parents resolve the conflict. Probably because most of the resolution probably happens in the bedroom and we weren’t purvy to see that.
The purpose of protecting is to help us defend ourselves and other people without attacking back–to prevent us and the ones we love from gaining wounds that will affect us in the future.
To love
Many of us don’t have many people in our lives with whom we feel comfortable openly expressing ourselves. We hold our cards close to our chest, hesitant to share the real us with not only strangers but also some of the closest people in our lives. Many people are talking about a loneliness epidemic that is sweeping across the species, and many of us feel it. We have friends but they’re more like acquaintances. We’re surrounded by people but we feel alone. Nobody will ever understand who we are. They won’t get it. They don’t know what it’s like to be me.
The purpose of loving is to show ourselves and others that no matter what happens, we will always care about them. To remember that we are not alone in this world, but we are deeply connected to it, whether we want to be or not.
Current conclusion
These three sub-purposes drive emoko for me. To get better at healing myself and others, at protecting myself and others, and loving myself and others. And emoko is a way to practice the skills that will help me do these things.
What do you think?