I don't own my emotions unless I can think about them. I am not afraid of feeling but I am afraid of feeling unthinkingly. I don't want to drown. My head is my heart's lifebelt.
Interpretation
Being mindful of one's emotions is crucial to avoid being overwhelmed by them.
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in managing emotions. Jeanette Winterson suggests that while it is natural to feel emotions deeply, one should strive to understand and reflect on these feelings rather than being consumed by them. By acknowledging and thinking about her emotions, she prevents herself from feeling lost or overwhelmed, symbolically describing her head as a lifebelt that keeps her heart afloat.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a mental health awareness event to encourage emotional intelligence.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
Prosperity inebriates men, so that they take delights in their own merits.
Let us drink for the replenishment of our strength, not for our sorrow
I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I've kept that mentality. Just because there's a hurricane going on around you doesn't mean you have to open the window and look at it.
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.
Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.
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