Emotions. Sometimes they just overwhelm me, take over my thinking, and my behaviour becomes completely irrational. Or at least, later I realise that it was a little ‘out-there’ and I probably could have responded with a little more self-control. Or could I?
Ever wonder why, sometimes when you respond, the other person goes quiet or perhaps reacts back? Wonder why something the other person said triggered such a reaction, or response in you, that suddenly your whole vocal stream is on ‘auto-pilot’ and you have no idea what is coming out of your mouth?
Perhaps later you think about what happened and then label your emotions, blame them, and consider them either ‘wrong’ or ‘right’. Feelings of shame can then accompany those later thoughts.
I am not going to encourage you to cut yourself off from your emotions or suppress them but to learn to stretch yourself out an arm’s length from them, so you develop the skill to be able to observe them and understand them. Accepting your emotions helps you to be more accepting of yourself, more grateful for who you are and will lead to you being kinder to yourself. Observing and accepting your emotions helps you to like yourself more.
I am going to help you to recognise the emotion, observe it and understand it so you do not judge it or try to get rid of it, rather you work with it.
How do you do this?
So how do you do this? Emotions are quite powerful and can take control of how we respond in any given moment. It is time for you to take control of your emotions.
#1 Breathe
I swear by oxygen being your best friend and will always suggest breathing as a tool in anyone’s emotional tool kit. Before I even go into the topic further, I will suggest if you are experiencing an emotion and want to understand it more, then breathe out. Breathing out is the first step to self-regulation. Identifying and understanding your emotions is a practice of mindfulness. So, breathe out. Go on – do it now. Breathe out and release any tension and energy. Do it again. How does that feel? Feel your body supported on your chair, your bed, or through your feet if you are standing. Breeeeeeeeaaaathe out……
#2 Identify the Emotion
Tune into yourself and feel the physical sensations. How do you feel? What is going on inside you? What are you thinking? Can you label the emotion? Perhaps there are many but focus on only one for now and give it a name. It might be sadness, anger, fear, resentment, excited… Write the name of the emotion on a piece of paper.
#3 Put the Emotion at Arm’s Length
Now look at your piece of paper and read the emotion. Place it an arm’s length from you and think about how you feel. Close your eyes and think about what feelings you are feeling inside your body. You are observing the emotion and the effect this emotion is having on your body. What is going on?
#4 What Does the Emotion Look Like?
Give the emotion a size, shape, colour, and texture if you like. How big is it? What colour did you make it? Keeping your eyes closed, consider the emotion for a minute and recognise it for what it is. Take as long as you like to do this, and again, breathe out.
#5 What Does it Mean to You?
Thinking about this emotion, what does it mean to you? What triggered this emotion? Was it a reaction to something? Why did you respond with this feeling? Where did it come from? Keep the emotion at arm’s length whilst you observe it some more. Do you welcome this emotion? How did this emotion influence your tone, body language, facial gestures, and words? Consider the emotion with your response if there was one. Was there a reaction? Did the emotion influence you?
#6 Take the Emotion back
Now, take the emotion back and accept it. Be comfortable with the emotion. Understand the emotion and feel comfortable that the emotion appeared. This may be hard to do at first, but then try again.
#7 Reflect
Were you able to recognise the emotion? Were you able to label it and put it at arm’s length? How did you feel when you thought about your physical feelings? What colour, shape, and size did you give the emotion? Did you feel different when this emotion was at arm’s length from you? When you took the emotion back, how did you feel?
For most of us, even just stopping and breathing out for a few seconds feels completely uncomfortable. It is a behaviour we do not consciously practice often, unless perhaps we are into yoga. The exercise above can feel quite strange when you complete it the first time, but as with any new behaviour or action, the next time we do it, it feels less strange. Try and do this every day, with positive or negative emotions you are experiencing, but you are effectively training your thinking around emotions. You are practising mindfulness and connecting with yourself.
The key is to accept your emotions, not to dismiss or ignore them.
Was Your Emotion Triggered?
An emotion rears its head regularly through the day. You may be excited about lunch with a friend, nervous about a meeting with your boss or sad because you had an argument with a loved one. An emotional trigger is a little deeper. It is an emotional reaction related to an experience, event, or memory, regardless of your current mood. Most of us have emotional triggers, but they will look very different from one person to the next because they are so personal and linked to a memory or event. Some examples of feelings that may trigger an emotional response could be feelings of betrayal, helplessness, insecurity, exclusion, aggression or loss of control or independence. Many more exist, but these are some.
What is an Emotional Trigger?
An emotional trigger may bring physical feelings of discomfort, such as sweating, heart racing, upset stomach etc.
If you feel an emotional trigger, you are most likely to notice the physical changes first, and then the feelings come. I’ll give an example. Maybe you have had a long hard day, walked into your home and hubby and kids are lounging around expecting you to suddenly start waiting on them. They have not eaten, the sink is full of pots and the bin has not been emptied. They carry on watching television and yell, “what’s for tea?”. Your heart sinks, your jaw clenches and you feel your face tense up. You want to yell, growl and shout at them for being so selfish and inconsiderate. You feel like this happens every day.
Everyday you walk in to the same expectations, and every day you walk in and feel the same feelings, but choose to keep your mouth shut. You repress the emotions, ignore what is going on inside you and say hi, then carry on cooking tea. That night though, you go to bed and sob. You feel sad, helpless, and worthless. You feel as though nobody appreciates what you do, and they all expect more than you feel you can give.
Look Back into Your Past
Has there been a situation that has created similar feelings before in your life? Have you felt like you were trying to please someone, and struggled to meet their expectations? Have you felt any of this previously? Maybe as a teenager, you felt that you tried hard and it was never good enough. Maybe you have memories of doing all the chores in your home and nobody noticing or appreciating you. Be curious and think hard about whether this response was an emotional trigger, linked to past experience.
Should you Avoid Situations?
No. You should not avoid a situation or conversation because you may experience unwanted feelings or unpleasant emotions when you do. It is impossible to avoid your emotions and you cannot hide from every situation. You also need to prepare yourself for those unexpected moments that will crop up. If you respond to a situation without practicing mindfulness, your emotions may well encourage a behaviour that you will later regret.
To delve deeper into this response and to understand it, follow the exercise outlined above, but being kind to yourself and patient as you take your emotion, observe it, and consider how you felt.
Recognising an emotional response takes practice and the more you do it, the better you will be at observing and understanding it. An emotional trigger takes longer to comprehend, as this may mean revisiting a memory or event that might bring up pain or hurt.
Why Should you Understand your Emotional Responses?
If you can learn to understand your emotional responses, then you will retain a greater self-control over your reaction to a situation and you will feel less distress, pain and hurt, not only for you but for the other person. Navigating your emotions, feelings and thoughts brings power to you. No greater power exists, other than self-control.
My biggest tip will always be to take a breath and be present. Be present with yourself, your feelings and in the situation. The more you practice this, especially when feeling an emotional response to a situation, comment, or behaviour, then the easier and more natural that practice will feel he next time.
My second tip is also to consider your communication style. Try and be aware of non-spoken gestures such as facial expressions and body language but focus on the response and tone. In the example above, when having dinner and everyone is relaxed, calm and eating, you could share how you felt when you walked in. You could try, “I do love coming home to you all relaxing after a tough day. I love that too. I would love to see the bin emptied tomorrow afternoon and it would really make me feel happy if the leftovers can be warmed up for tea, please. Do you think this is something you can manage? It means I would be able to sit and relax with you all.”
You share, you communicate, and you let them know your expectations but with a positive angle to it. They are more likely to listen to that positive, than if you had reacted with anger, frustration, aggression and yelling.
Never try and dismiss or ignore your emotions. They are sending you a message. The key is to recognise, understand and get better with your response to that emotion.
Ella 💕