On emotions…
We desperately need an emotionally healthy society. We currently don’t live in one, though I am hopeful that a shift is happening. I believe part of why people struggle to identify feelings, experience them, and move through them productively is because of a lack of awareness and education. So allow me to provide some education about what feelings are, how they function, and why learning to tolerate a full range of feelings is important for your health. Also, for the sake of this post, I’m going to use the word feeling and emotion interchangeably, though they are slightly different.
Emotions are essentially physiological states or reactions that are associated with various behaviors. Let’s break this down. Let’s say you just received a promotion you’ve been wanting (an experience). Your nervous system responds according to the felt emotion (physiological response) and you smile, speak words of gratitude, and call a friend to share the news (behaviors). You will likely have thoughts related to this emotional experience, but thoughts and feelings are not the same. Even though you might have the thought, “I am so excited I just received this promotion”, the experience of thinking this thought and feeling joy and excitement are different biological processes.
Feelings have functions
Emotions are messengers. They alert us when we are in or perceive danger (fear), when our boundaries have been crossed (anger) or when we need some love and support (sadness). Emotions are full of purpose and meaning. We must learn to listen and tolerate them long enough to let them deliver the messages they are so eager to bring. Let me offer you a few more examples of functions/purposes of specific emotions:
Guilt lets us know that we acted out of alignment with our personal values and it gives us the energy we need to make a different choice next time or to repair a relationship.
Shame lets us know that we might need to practice self-forgiveness or self-compassion. It also lets us know that we need connection, both to the Self and to others.
Happiness and joy communicate to us that circumstances or relationships are going well or that we’ve just experienced something we value and desire to have more of in life.
Jealousy lets us know that something is important and points us in the direction of what we might need to invest in for ourselves.
·Anxiety signals to us and gears us up to deal with a real or imagined threat. It can also show us the things that are important to us and energize us.
Anger is a clue that something is wrong (in a relationship or in the world) and gives us the energy to make things right. Anger can be a catalyst for change and justice.
Get curious about what your feelings are trying to teach you and show you. They often carry with them wisdom waiting to be realized.
Emotions are experienced in the body (*not just the brain*)
Feelings are physiological. In fact, your body experiences your feelings before they even enter your conscious awareness. For example, before your brain is able to think, “I’m feeling afraid”, your body has already armored itself for protection; your heart races, muscles tense, and adrenaline surges. Emotions in many ways help prepare and mobilize us to respond to our environment. Think of emotions as energy. Because that’s essentially what they are.
In other words, physical sensations are at the core of all emotions. One of my favorite images depicting this is based on a research study conducted by Finnish scientists who used heat maps to show where in our body’s certain feelings typically manifest. This is what they found (*image on the right).
Anger, for example, is a high energy emotion that is typically experienced in the upper body (in the head, shoulders, and arms). Anxiety is also an upper body emotion but is also experienced in the chest and the gut. Take some time to reflect on this graphic. What do you notice?
Western culture tends to devalue the body, which has been really detrimental to our mental and physical health. We are embodied beings created to be intimately in touch with our bodies. And while trauma surely disrupts and disconnects us from our emotional experiences, it’s so vital that we reconnect to them. We can do this through therapy, meditation, mindfulness, and even by learning about the emotion-sensation connection and becoming curious about our emotional world.
Becoming emotionally intelligent has some really awesome payoffs
Emotional intelligence simply means that you’re in touch with your own emotional world and that you can recognize the emotions of others. According to Daniel Goleman, the American psychologist who helped to popularize emotional intelligence, there are five key elements to it. They are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
Becoming aware and in touch with your feelings has some really amazing benefits. Here are a few that have been informed and supported by research.
More compassion and empathy
Stronger relationships (personal and professional)
More open to criticism
Better decision making
Positive interactions
Easier life adjustments
Better teamwork skills
Better communication skills
Psychology has focused heavily on what people like to call the “negative emotions” yet experiencing positive emotions are vital for our health
When it comes to talking about emotions, the focus tends to be on the ones our culture has deemed “negative”, feelings like sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, and disgust. This is in part due to the pathologizing of psychology and the focus on symptom reduction. People don’t typically come to therapy saying that they want to experience more joy in their lives. They say they want to be less anxious and afraid. Thus, the focus is anxiety and fear.
But it’s just as important to identify and experience positive emotions, like love, contentment, peace, gratitude, and joy. Positive affectivity (a fancy word for the experience of positive emotions) has been linked to better physical and mental health, greater life satisfaction, stronger relationships and even living longer. The field of Positive Psychology has and continues to provide strong evidence that intentionally experiencing positive emotions can lead to better mental health. According to research conducted by Dr. Alice Isen, Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, when people experience mild, positive emotions they are more likely to help others, be flexible in their thinking, and be better problem solvers.
I am not suggesting bypassing the hard stuff. I am not promoting emotion suppression and I am absolutely not claiming that just “trying to be happier” is going to cure your anxiety and trauma. Toxic positivity is incredibly harmful and dismissive *and* the experience of gratitude, connection, and kindness have direct effects on overall wellbeing. Both things can be and are true.
Feelings don’t have a moral value
I wanted to end with this nugget because I think it’s really important. There is this trend in America where people label their emotions (and just about everything else) as either “good” or “bad”. This is really problematic, especially when it comes to our feelings because feelings don’t have a moral value. Feelings simply ARE. I’m not a big fan of cancel culture but I do support phrases like “bad emotion” and “negative emotion” being banned from our vernacular. All feelings are our friends.
I hope by now you’re thinking, what can I do to become more emotionally aware? For starters, you can learn how to pay attention to your body and the way it talks to you. Next time you’re feeling (*insert any emotion you want), notice where you feel it in your body. Do a body scan. Take some deep breaths and get curious. Another practical tip is simply increasing your emotional vocabulary. And to this end, I highly recommend this website: http://atlasofemotions.org/
Dr. Paul Ekman has done extensive research in the study of emotions and specifically their relation to facial expressions. He created this tool, called the Atlas of Emotions, to help people build their emotion vocabulary.
Cheers to creating an emotionally healthy world. It starts with us.
xoxo,
Rach