Chapter 2: Understanding Your Emotions
If the title of this chapter evokes images of crying over your breakfast cereal about every little insignificant episode of your life, don’t worry. Getting in touch with your emotions does not mean that you need to be outwardly emotional. This is good news, as many people are withdrawn about showing emotion, and the idea of sharing their feelings with others and wearing them on their sleeves is far from appetising.
You are at the centre of your emotions, and it is important to explore them within yourself to understand them fully. Of course, getting an alternative perspective from a third party like a therapist or trusted friend can help you sort out the root causes of your emotions, but you know yourself better than anyone. You will likely be more comfortable exploring your emotions internally first.
So, where do we start? How can you suddenly just be in touch with your thoughts, feelings, and emotions? Simply, you cannot. This is a process that takes a bit of practice to master. More likely than not, your emotional life has been put on the back burner, cast aside for more important things like making money, living a socially acceptable life, and the like. Your emotions have probably not been front and centre since you learned as a child to squash those emotions and just do what you are told.
It is not that you do not have emotions, just that you have been trained to ignore them for the sake of fitting in and obeying your elders. That, right there, was your first hour of therapy. Understanding this fact can help us uncover our old emotions, which have certainly not gone away.
There are many exercises we can try to become more at one with our emotional selves. The ideal exercise will vary by person but could include meditation, exercise, talk therapy, or even just sit quietly. No matter what you call it, investing in quiet time to simply reflect on your current and past emotions is crucial. Let’s say that meditation is your first attempt at emotional awareness. Simply sit quietly and comfortably in a dimly lit room to get started. There should be no distractions, so that you may just concentrate on the task at hand.
This task may feel completely foreign to you, as you normally rush through life, getting things done, avoiding how you are feeling. Just sit back, focus on your breath for a few moments, then ask yourself how you are feeling. Avoid answering your own questions with the typical, “I feel fine,” “I’m okay” pleasantries you would use on the street. Give a reason you feel fine, or why you are having a bad day. Elaborate, explore the feelings.
For example, your answer may be that you are feeling overwhelmed. It is completely normal to feel this way, and the worst thing to do right now is to push that feeling away. Just sit with it for a few minutes. Allow the stress to shine through, Feel it all over your body. Feelings are natural, not to be squashed entirely. You must feel them begin to understand why it is you feel them in the first place.
Logically, you would next respond with why you feel this way, even giving a list of reasons. While this particular part of the exercise may make you feel even more overwhelmed, taking the next step is crucial to alleviating it. The next step is to rationalise your feelings of anxiety logically. I bet you cannot.
Most stresses and anxieties in life are unwarranted. We worry about small things that have no real consequence on our lives. For example, if you feel overwhelmed, probably half of those problems you listed are actually inconsequential. Like, grouping your looming work deadline in with picking up the dry cleaning and making dinner. Those two things are not life or death situations, and really, neither is that deadline.
Next, think about the worst-case scenario for your failures to meet this deadline. What can you do to increase productivity? Make yourself a schedule? Enlist the help of other co-workers? Do you need to pick up the dry cleaning today, or is tomorrow better? How about just picking something up for dinner on the way home?
While this was a pretty straight forward example, other emotions are certainly more complicated to manoeuvre. However, if you use the same kind of framework to rationalise your emotions as above, the result can be the same. Also, don’t forget to consider your body’s physical reactions to certain situations. If you are not sure why your stomach is sick when you are in a particularly stressful situation, this is your body telling you that something is wrong, the physical manifestation of emotion. Don’t ever ignore these signals. Your body and your inner self know you better than you do, so it is vitally important to consider these cues to navigate your life.
Don’t expect to be able to rationalise your emotions within just a few minutes of meditation. Sometimes it takes a lifetime of self-awareness to make sense of something you are feeling. Don’t let that be discouraging. There is plenty of time, and as long as you make an effort to understand your emotions, you are headed in the right direction.
With acute emotions, like getting angry about something in the moment, it takes a little bit more skill to manoeuvre. We have all been there. A car cuts us off in traffic, or someone says something that just cuts to the core. At the moment, you feel your face flush and anger boil up inside of you. It takes all of your willpower not to lash out at them.
In these moments, it is crucial to practice self-awareness and do a split-second analysis of your feelings. Start this process off by taking one big deep breath, in and out. With your exhale goes a bunch of pent up energy that is just waiting to burst. Next, think quickly about what has just occurred. Were you truly offended or have your feelings been blown out of proportion?
Next, think about how you will feel after you have given that car the finger or reamed out this person for what they have said. You may feel validated for a quick second, but the negativity of your bad reaction will linger with you much longer. This step allows you to curb your reaction to avoid personally feeling worse later on.
If you simply do not know what to do, do nothing. It is better to take some more time to react to a situation than it is to overreact at the moment. Yes, a witty comeback to a snarky comment may make you feel on top of things at the moment. But remember, taking some time to reflect on where this altercation had come from may make you realise that this person never meant to be rude, or if they did, that it is coming from a place of self-consciousness, anger, and insecurity. Perpetuating those feelings only bring negativity to life, and nothing good. Responding negatively only brings more problems your way.
You may have noticed in the past that your common reactions to stressful situations, like an argument, is to one-up people. That is, have the last word, and cut to the core just to feel like you have won. What has this gotten you?
Lastly, if you have chosen the high road, and did not choose to respond to this acute stressful situation, take sometime later to reflect on your true feelings. Were you really mad at that car for cutting you off, or did that just push you over the edge on top of being stressed about work?
Would that person really have deserved a lashing via car window, or were they just trying to merge with traffic?
Putting some time between you and the situation gives the brain time to make sense of the emotions logically. Perhaps you made a rash decision in the heat of the moment and lashed out at your coworker who made a nasty comment. You may have responded with something just as rude, and you are now regretting it. Things may not have gone that well, but it can certainly be a learning moment. Explore the feelings you had before, during and after this altercation to learn a bit more about your emotional patterns.
For instance, if you recognise that you had been stressed about something else before this conversation began, you were already in a heightened state of agitation. Understand what it feels like for you to be stressed, so that when it happens again (and it certainly will), you will be able to sense it and take steps to calm yourself before continuing.
Think about the comment that was said. Was it truly nasty or was it meant to be a sort of constructive criticism from your co-worker? This really could go both ways, but if you had not been agitated, to begin with, do you think you would still have been offended? If you would have been, would making a nasty remark back really make you feel better? Resolve the situation, or just make things worse?
Reflecting on all of these things after the moment has passed trains your brain to think about things logically, instead of just stewing about the encounter afterwards. As your mind gets used to doing this constantly, it will be able to think this way very quickly at the moment with some practice. Rather than going over what you could have said in return to infinity in your mind, do something constructive and pick apart your feelings about the event instead.
Whether you are new to getting in touch with your feelings or if you are an old pro (nobody is) it helps to get an outside opinion. While you should learn to trust your gut feelings, it can help to consult with someone outside the situation, who can see above all of the feelings to see the logic. For example, imagine that you are in a new relationship and you are head over heels for your new partner and really want things to work out, everything seems perfect. Yet, you have a nagging feeling that something is not quite right.
While you may not be able to make a valid conclusion on your own, consulting with a friend who has your best interests in mind may be able to shed some light on some suspicious behaviour that has been bothering you. Instead of ignoring your suspicions for the sake of hoping the relationship works, your friend may be able to knock some sense into you if something is really off. Don’t be afraid to consult with others if you cannot quite make sense of your feelings, and even if you cannot find a logical reason or cause for the emotion, don’t just dismiss it. The emotion is not happening for nothing, you just may not be able to find that reason yet.
As you practice these techniques, you will become more emotionally confident, in that you will quickly be able to understand what you are feeling and react appropriately, as you are in touch with those feelings. This takes a great deal of regular practice, and new situations will always be emerging. Consciously take part in your emotional health every day, at any given moment. Squashing feelings to deal with later only brings on more trouble.
Being on top of your emotions constantly can be very draining and counter-productive. Bad feelings are meant to propel you to make changes, some of which you may not be ready for. It can be mentally exhausting to feel like you need to feel happy and content constantly, so give yourself a break. If work stresses you out, it is okay to live with that feeling for a little bit until you have the strength and wherewithal to handle making a change.
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