It's More Important To Understand Your Emotions Than You Think
Your underlying beliefs about emotions—whether or not you’re aware of them —can affect your happiness in life.
PART I
We are emotional creatures - period.
Whether you like it or not, your emotions are the steering wheel of your life.
Every day, Everything you do (or not) is based 'by reason' of your emotions.
You can be a passenger, allowing your emotions to control you,
or, you can have your hands on the steering wheel navigating your life.
We measure our life by the degree of our happiness
We try to cling on to happy moments when we feel them. So much so that in our happiness, we tighten up with the fear of it leaving us, of “the other shoe falling off”, “The rug being pulled underneath our feet.
That, of course, interferes with our ability to fully enjoy our happy moments of happiness.
Sounds familiar?
Emotions are complicated
They mix up one with another. They confuse us. It’s sometimes hard to tell where they come from and why.
We categorize emotions in two groups: Positive Emotions: The Emotions we like to feel and experience - and seek for. Negative Emotions: The Emotions we’d rather not have and not experience - and run away from.
We wish we could be happy all the time, but we know that it’s impossible.
Sad things happen.
Losing a job.
People annoying us or “pushing our buttons”.
The passing of Someone we love.
Trying something new that scares us.
Emotions serve important functions and are very necessary, even though they can be really painful at times.
Think of your emotions as another sense, just like your vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, because they provide information just like any of those other senses.
Recognizing your emotions and understanding the layers and reasoning behind them is one of the most important skills you can have.
Happiness is more than simply feeling pleasure and avoiding pain
Happiness is more than simply feeling pleasure and avoiding pain.
Happiness is about having experiences that are meaningful and valuable.
All emotions can be positive in some contexts and negative in others, regardless of whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.
Happy people are those who embrace the unpleasant emotions and accept them as part of the human experience.
Lets take grief for example.
When my father passed away, I was devastated, heartbroken with an intense pain of loss.
The painful wrenching emotions were there because of the love I had for him. Without that magnitude of love, the pain would have been more bearable.
Our grief is a testimony of our love.
We respond when we are aware and understand our emotions - We react when we don’t understand our emotions.
It's a challenge to manage our responses to our feelings and act in ways that feel out of control.
We routinely fall into the trap of our emotional triggers.
who haven't found themselves saying something you didn’t mean to someone in the heat of your emotional storm?
And then, once you calmed down, you realized that your emotions got the better of you and you wish you handled it differently?
Overall, it seems that being accepting of whatever emotions arise, while having strategies to counter difficult emotions, might be valuable for our well-being.
Understanding that emotions may be benefiting you in some ways is crucial to living an emotionally healthy life
Understanding the reason behind your emotion
Our emotions are like an internal compass, helping us to figure out how we feel and why.
We need to be able to recognize when we have an emotion.
Being able to to observe the thoughts behind your emotion.
Only then can you fully understand yourself, and know what it is trying to tell you.
Our thoughts are interconnected with our emotions, our feelings, our reactions, our triggers, our relationships and every aspect of our lives.
By allowing ourselves to feel our emotions, even the toughest, yucky, ugly dark ones, we are giving ourselves many gifts: the gift of courage, of being there for ourselves, of freedom, of making the monster feeling shrink into a hard feeling that we can move away from to see how strong and resilient we really are. Knowing and understanding all of that will help you not only enjoy your life more and love others in new ways, but will also enable you to love yourself even more than you ever thought possible.
Allowing the negative feelings to be felt wholeheartedly, and pass through us, we are making more space for the better feelings to enter and the freedom to enjoy those precious, joyful moments to the fullest, completely and wholeheartedly.
Feelings are there for us to guide ourselves through life.
Feeling is living, and feelings make us human and who we are.
Denying an emotion is like trying not to think of the pink elephant
Let’s Try An Experiment
For the next 30 seconds, think about anything that you want to think about. You can think about the most recent sports game, that funny viral video, a conversation you had with your best friend, or what you’re having for lunch (that’s probably what I’m thinking about). But whatever you do, DON’T think about a pink elephant.
Okay, I’ll wait. No cheating!
How long did you make it?
My guess is, not even 5 seconds. I bet you’re wondering how that happened. I mean, when is the last time you’ve thought about a “pink elephant?”
In psychology, this phenomenon is known as the “ironic process theory,” whereby deliberate attempts to suppress certain thoughts or emotions actually make them more likely to surface!
What I’m saying is that when you allow yourself to sit with your feeling, allow yourself to fully feel it all the way through you—name it, say it, experience it to your core—it then moves away and leaves you. You are completely clean to move on to your next feeling. Feelings just don’t stay there forever unless we cling to them.
We make decisions based on our emotions.
Better Communication = better relationships
As you practice and become more aware of your emotions and their underlying thought patterns, will you be able to understand yourself and have better control of your emotions.
With that, you will find yourself communicating better. You'll be able to explain yourself better, and people will understand you better.
You will find yourself responding, rather than reacting, (which means less of those emotional storm and less of ,your emotions got the better of you')
Once you are skilled at recognizing your own emotions, managing them and communicating them to others, inspiring them to do the same!
Nothing Lasts Forever
The Secret to Happiness: Feeling Good or Feeling Right?
At the end of the any negative, uncomfortable, annoying, painful emotions.
When we sit with our sorrow and all the hiding from unknown monsters, there are wonderful friends of courage and openness, as well as the gift of self-esteem, resilience, confidence, and calm.
One can bask in precious happy moments without fear and in complete relaxation.
There is a wonderful place that embraces each and every feeling, respectfully, allowing them to pass through, and to make room for the next feeling to enter clean of any residual effects from previous feelings.
At the end of every emotion there is another emotion, maybe worse, maybe better. It’s like the tides of the sea or the wind that blows in tumultuous fashion and then becomes a breeze. Emotions are like the clouds—they are forever changing.
At the end of every emotion, when we allow it to pass through us, there is another emotion. If we don’t allow ourselves to completely know what we are feeling, we will deny the next feeling from fully entering us.
Those who are willing to face the darkest of paths are those that come out shining brighter than ever.
So I’m inviting you to take a deep breath, just one breath at a time.
Feel...
Allow yourself to really feel. Curl up on the floor and cry your eyes out.
The interesting thing is that at a certain point you will need to get up and go to the bathroom, or the phone will ring and you'll pick it up. Something will distract you.
And then, perhaps you will want to go back to lying on the floor in the fetal position and cry some more, but it's more likely that you will look at the floor and decide it was way too hard and uncomfortable and move to the couch.
The point is, you will not stay there forever (although it will feel like it).
Eventually, something will change.
And both you, and your emotions, will move on.
are You Willing To Embrace The Rainbow Of Your Emotions?
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THE MEANING OF YOUR EMOTIONS
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