emotions – Sunflower Coaching

All emotions are justified, lets just start there. If you are feeling something, you are allowed to feel it, you are allowed to express it, and you are allowed to seek an understanding of why you feeling it. But sometimes, when we feel, we can react in a way that later may seem exaggerated, or like an “over-reaction”. Is that because the emotion you thought you were feeling in that moment was not the correct emotion for the situation?

Lets look at it this way, you walk out the front door in the morning, you have freshly washed hair and brand new shoes. You are running a little late, and in your haste have forgotten your umbrella. As you leave, it starts to rain, you don’t have time to go back for your umbrella. In your frustration, you are not looking where you are going, and you step in some dog muck. New shoes ruined. Hair ruined. and with all the stress, you miss the train you were racing for. What emotion are you feeling?

We have so many reactions to different emotions, but understanding the core emotion is the most important thing. If we look at Marsha M. Lineham’s work, we can divide our emotions into ten different core emotion categories: Happiness, Fear, Anger, Disgust, Envy, Jealousy, Love, Sadness, Shame, and Guilt. All our reactions or secondary emotions can be separated into these categories, but understanding which category it goes into is really important in how we understand and process that emotion, which will ultimately help us move forward, and not get hung up on feeling potentially the wrong thing.

So, lets return to our scenario. Instant reaction I would have would be probably to cry. But why? What emotion am I feeling? Anger? Sadness? Shame? Disgust? Maybe a mixture of a few emotions, but what is my primary emotion? In being able to identify this emotion, we can identify a reasonable way to react to it, or we can ask ourselves, is our instant reaction, the correct one? So is my instant reaction of crying right for that situation?

Lets imagine a child falling down, the child is shocked, he cries. Why? Because they are expecting to feel pain, or because they are shocked? Because they have actually hurt themselves and are injured? Or because they are upset or embarrassed? A child falling down can help you understand core emotions, and the correct reactions. When we pick up a child after falling down, what do we ask them? We ask them, are you hurt? Where hurts? More often than not, it is an imaginary pain that they cannot understand, so a magic kiss will always make it better. Can adult emotions be fixed as easily? Can we take a moment to ask ourselves, are you hurt? Where hurts? And what is the magic kiss we need in that unique situation.

So, What hurts in my awful morning scenario? am I physically hurt? No. Am I emotionally hurt? Maybe a little, but why? Is it my pride that is hurt? Potentially yes. So what core emotion is connected to pride and embarrassment? That would be shame. So what we are really feeling in that moment is (potentially) shame. Once we understand that, we can try and push the other emotions of anger or sadness away, because they may not make sense or be justifiable in that situation. And instead we can seek to understand how to make ourselves feel better from that context of the primary emotion of shame, whilst not loosing ourselves in other emotions. Will crying help? unlikely. Will it make us feel better? Maybe. Is there a better way to feel better? Probably. What is that? Well that is something only you can answer. (For me, always start with a cup of tea!)

Understanding emotions can help us see the woods through the trees, it can help us process what we are really feeling, and it can help us understand what our instant emotional reaction may be, and whether that is appropriate for every situation. It may take some reflection, and it may take some practice. But if we are able to start understanding the appropriate emotion, and then subsequent reaction to each situation, we can then handle ourselves in a much more emotional regulated and calm way.

Remember, a day can always get better, do not let your emotions overwhelm you. Process, react, move forward! Do not let a bad morning set the trajectory of your whole day! To work on more skills around emotional regulation, and how you can improve your wellbeing, get in touch to arrange a coaching Chemistry Call now!

Marie Kondo changed the landscape of cleaning and decluttering when she encouraged people to ask one simple question, “Does this bring me joy?”. Across the world, people were suddenly able to free themselves of their hoarding habits, and even find a more pleasing way of tidying their sock drawer. The freeing logic was that if something does not bring you joy, you eliminate it from you life, and for cleaning and de-cluttering, this magic works. But, does it work for other aspects of life?

I saw an inspirational quote recently which read, “Find the joy inside, and the joy will eventually burn out the pain”. This quote troubled me, and made me reflect on why we have joy, but also why we have pain, anger, love, fear, and every other emotion out there. According to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, all our emotions are founded in our primal instincts for survival, and it was necessary to have the pain, because it tells you something is wrong. It was why I was always told as a child, if you do not understand why you are feeling pain, for example with a sore tummy, then do not just take a tablet to block it out, instead seek to understand if there is something more sinister happening, or in fact, you just ate too much cake. The pain we feel is there for a reason, it is there as an alert, to tell us something is not right, to inform us that we may need to rest and recover, or even to seek help and treatment. It is also why when people are stressed, often physical signs show on their body before they ultimately realise, because if you hair starts falling out or you are suddenly rapidly changing weight, you are meant to stop and ask yourself, what is going on?

So if we look at the quote again, and we consider that joy is their to burn up the pain, I can in some ways see this as a very simplistic outcome. In short, when we have pain, of course, finding something joyful will of course make us feel better. I am a BIG believer in laughter being the best medicine. But I disagree that joy is a sustainable method of blocking out pain altogether, and ultimately I do not believe that eliminating all pain or negative emotion is the goal overall.

When dealing with depression, the general emotion one may feel is sadness. Sadness in an overwhelming, all encompassing way. In the short term, one in the midst of depression may believe the goal is just to seek joy, and find happiness. But actually the goal is instead to just be able to feel. When your emotions are so taken over with sadness, you are actually no longer feeling anything, because everything falls under that same label. So instead the focus should be on feeling your reality. Now, this can be hard. And at times more painful than the sadness, as the sadness may be there as a form of protection from allowing you to feel the true situation or emotions around you. But if you are able to start identifying the emotions away from sadness, and also recognising when you are actually feeling genuine sadness, for a sad reason, rather than another emotion, you are then able to start also feeling more positive emotions as well. And even more importantly, if you are able to identify a real emotion, and then ask the question of, is this a suitable emotional response to that situation or incident, you can then start to understand where your emotions are driven from and what events may result in what positive or negative emotions.

As someone who has suffered from depression, this logic blew my mind. For years, I had said “I just want to feel happy”, or “I just want to escape my feelings”. However, what I needed was not to avoid the feelings washing over me, but instead, seek to understand them, name them, and then treat them in an appropriate way, just as I did with my tummy aches when I was little.

So of course, continue to ask yourself, does this thing/person/activity bring me joy? but do not let that be the only question you ask yourself, instead continue the conversation and ask, “if this thing is not bringing me joy, what is it giving me?”, and then based on that outcome or emotion, act appropriately to you and your values.

Life is not just about feeling joy, it is about the joy of being able to feel life.

Tag: emotions

When do our feelings reflect real emotions, and when are they misdirected into making a bad moment, a bad day?

The goal is not to always feel joy, it is to always feel.