4 Insights into Understanding Your Emotions

I am fascinated by people who don’t want to talk about their emotions – almost as if they are ‘less than’ to admit what they feel. On the other hand, I am intrigued by people who lead with their emotions—those who act, speak, make decisions as if in response to an emotion. They act as if they are not responsible for their words, actions, and behaviors because ‘that’s what they were feeling’.

Our emotions protect us, they provide signals, and they feed our thoughts. They drive our actions. They exist to benefit us and to be considered in partnership with our thoughts. Understanding your emotions, paying attention to them as if they are vital governing guides, and regulating them to serve you well is possible. It is what successful people do and it makes a significant difference in your well-being.

Four important things to know about emotions

Insight 1. Understand the message of your emotions. Pause right now and think, ‘what am I feeling’? Often, we label our feelings with the big 7 main emotional categories: happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust, and contempt. However, we, as humans, have much more depth and complexity to our beings that those 7 emotions would infer. Look at the outer ring of this emotion wheel and pause again....considering these emotions, what do you feel right now?

As you determine the actual emotion, it provides more clarity. Can you identify the source of that emotion? Is it a valid response to the given situation or is it resulting from past histories, triggers, or habit. By pausing and quietly assessing your emotion, you can then respond with intention instead of reflex.

What happens when you don’t pause to assess the ‘real’ emotion? It is easy to react with a less than helpful response if you are responding and reacting more than you are assessing. When you recognize the real emotion with intention and insight, your choices are now different.

Insight 2. Connect emotions to physical being. As you become skilled at assessing the actual emotion in the moment you feel it, you can also assess where in your body you feel it. For example, think about a recent, strong emotional experience. Focus on that emotion and recognize where in your body you feel it.

For example, I feel emotional responses to stress in different ways and I can now, quickly identify what’s happening. When I have a headache in the back of my neck at the base of my head, I know that I am in a conflict with myself; that my values are being challenged and the stress headache is a signal to consider the situation carefully. When my gut tightens, I heed the warning as a stop sign about a decision I am about to make.

Practice connecting your emotions to your physical reactions AND recognize the warning signs of stress.

Insight 3. Control your self-talk. Your emotions and thoughts feed each other. They provide real assistance to one another, but they can also spin each other up into a downward spiral. This spiral effect of negative emotions can take you into a narrowing funnel where fewer opportunities and possibilities are seen. Can you think of a situation where your self-talk fed an emotion to increase in intensity, which led to more negative self-talk, and so on and so on, until your ability to see the situation broadly is impaired. The ability to see the situation in different alternatives or to see connections is almost impossible when this cycle is in force. The good news is that you have power to stop the cycle and to change the narrowing. You have the ability to tell the self-talk to stop and to challenge yourself to see the situation in a new light. If that voice was a friend standing next to you all day long saying the same things, would you really let them continue? You would stop them, wouldn’t you? The same thing can be true for your own voice.

Insight 4. Choose your actions. After you asses the actual emotion, regulate your thoughts to serve you well. Then decide what to do. If you are feeling anxious about a decision, consider the real emotion – look at the wheel and identify what you are really feeling. For example, if it is ‘overwhelmed (fear + anticipation), what is driving that feeling? Where is it coming from? What can you do about it i.e. organize better, ask more questions, delay the decision? Consider the options in your control. But what if the emotion is a sign that you may not be making the best choice?

The reality is that while our emotions can benefit us by providing much needed guidance, we can also be good stewards of our emotions. It's possible to listen to the signals our body sends and to regulate the emotion to serve us well. I encourage you to experiment with the tips above -- what are you really feeling in the moment? Can you change the habit associated with a specific triggered emotion so that it improves your reaction and can you listen inward to act outward in a way that benefits yourself and those around you? When I think of experimenting ... as if my situation is a laboratory ... then it takes the pressure off and I can just test my reactions and begin to change old habits into new ones. Watch for an upcoming course in Identifying and Regulating Emotions for Your Benefit.

To learn more about how your emotions impact virtually every aspect of your life or to discover your purpose, contact Tammy today for your free consultation!