Refer-Online

Our emotions are internal sensors that let us know what is going on for us at any one time. E-motion is a great way to think of them, as they are key drivers on how we think and behave, so therefore, they give us movement in one direction or another.

Our values make sure we are being true to ourselves, following the right path, mixing with the right people, living life the way we want to etc. and our emotions are the internal barometer that measures how we are doing in those areas - how we are feeling good or bad.

From the moment we are born our emotions begin to develop (some may say even before birth), guiding us to let us know where we are lacking something, or where we have what we need. The so called ‘bad’ emotions develop when our needs are not being met. Emotions such as anger, sadness, fear and guilt are probably the top four negative emotions, under which all others are a sub set i.e. frustration and irritation are a sub set of anger etc.

Emotions can have a profound effect on our behaviour and our thinking. When we are happy, excited, passionate, confident, or motivated, our thoughts tend to be along the same lines. Our thoughts will mirror our emotions, and of course then our behaviours follow suit. When we are experiencing our positive emotions we might be full of energy, standing tall, smiling, talking clearly, and getting things done.

Bad or negative emotions do exactly the opposite. They affect our behaviour and our thinking adversely, which can lead to a vicious cycle of thoughts and behaviours we sometimes wish we had not demonstrated. These negative emotions get quite bad press, when in fact each and every one that we experience is absolutely valid for us. They are ‘designed’ to let us know that something is not right in our life, that we have a need for something else or that we have to sort something out.

We are great at saying – “she made me angry” or “he hurt me”. The hard bit for some of us comes in understanding that we are solely responsible for the way that we feel - emotions are inside of us, how can someone else make us ‘feel’ them? They are not a physical thing so how would they do that?

The key is accepting that we ‘choose’ to feel them. Now this choice is not necessarily conscious, it is usually at some unconscious level, so it is only after the event that we realise we were being ‘run’ by our emotions.

As you become more aware of your reactions, you are better able to choose your responses. So for example, it is up to us when someone says “you are stupid”, whether we think they are right and get upset, or whether we think that is their opinion (which they are entitled to) and we can choose to ignore it.

If this is difficult for you to accept, think about the last time you felt angry and then notice what specifically about that situation made you feel the anger? What was it about the other person’s behaviour or the situation that made you respond the way you did?

Invariably, we experience negative emotions when we have ignored a part of our self that has a need. The more we ignore our internal requirements the more our unconscious has to find a way to get through to us – negative emotions are a great way for it to do just that forcing us in the end, through feeling bad, to sort things out. Maybe it is something important to us, maybe it is an outdated belief we hold about ourselves or maybe it is something that we need to learn about ourselves that we are unaware of or currently denying.

All of this means it is your responsibility to do something about your emotions when they occur if the impact on your behaviour is unacceptable to you. They are a valuable source of information and the worst thing that you can do is to ignore them. By ignoring the message they bring, you will find that they have a tendency to resurface in many different guises until you do something about the problem. Like a pressure cooker, each perceived slight in the future will just be added to the pot until at some point there is no room for any more and you will display the emotion more powerfully than if you had acknowledged it and done something about it at the start!

Typical reactions to suppressed emotions include ‘exploding’, ‘breaking down’, become ill, destructive or violent.

The good ones are never a problem so how do we handle the negative ones?

Acknowledge and express them:
The first thing you need to do is acknowledge your feelings by allowing yourself to experience them. This may be difficult with something like anger, as it can be quite a challenge for onlookers. The best thing if possible is to remove yourself from the situation and go somewhere quiet where you can work your way through it.

There are many different ways you can work your way through these emotions such as:

Do something active to work out your aggression;
Go to the gym, walk, run, swim

Get creative and privately express your feeling for yourself;
Writing is a great way to get things out of your system. Put everything you feel at that moment down on paper, allow yourself to acknowledge it and then make sure to shred or burn it afterwards. We suggest this for two reasons, firstly you need to ‘let it go’ in order to be able to move forwards and secondly this writing is often best not seen by a third party!

Understand them – what do they mean about you?
Begin by asking yourself lots of questions such as what happened there? What was it specifically I was unhappy about? What was important to me? What can I do about it? Is there something that I should be doing, or I am doing that is no longer really what I want?

This is how you can start to take control over your own emotions, if you can understand where they come from, you can deal with them. You will begin to see that your reaction has a lesson for you, letting you know that something that is or was important is being missed in your life – that you need to be doing something differently and this is your invitation to change it!

Take action
Once you have recognised that you need to change something, you may want to look at going back to the other person involved in the situation to explain that you were angry/sad/tired and you didn’t like what happened. Let them know how you would like it to happen in the future by giving them examples. Really talk with them in a calm and rational manner as this demonstrates that you have taken some responsibility for your emotions and by remaining detached you can minimise the potential of future outburst. Also, be mindful of the fact that any emotion that they displayed was about a violation of something that was important to them too – so you may need to change the way you interact with them! (Please note that you can only deal with your ‘stuff’ and they need to deal with theirs!)

Be aware, sometimes this sort of conversation is difficult when the relationship you have with the other person is either not good to start with or is non-existent. Regardless, recognise what needs to happen differently for you that means future encounters are much better or minimised completely. The better we get at understanding our negative emotions, the fewer instances we come across that provoke them.

Our emotions play a major part of our life, it makes sense that we appreciate the knowledge that they can give us. Once we recognise that they are a reflection of what is really going on for us, we can really begin to take responsibility for ourselves!