Many people make the mistake of not letting their emotions into their consciousness. They think that the emotions they feel, especially the more negative ones, will deter them from being more effective in life.
What they don’t realize is that the experience of emotions is integral to the experience of life itself. In fact, there is even reason to believe that not acknowledging emotions only leads to more suffering.
Additionally, if a person does not get in touch with what they feel, they’ve already lost more or less a third of the experience.
Knowing how to handle emotions make things a lot easier not only at home but also at work. This website, for example, talks about just how stressful the law profession is for attorneys who handle birth injuries. Without emotional efficacy, these attorneys will easily find their jobs overwhelming.
With that, it’s important for everyone to know how to acknowledge, feel, and deal with their emotions, no matter how unsettling they are. In this article, we present ways that can help them achieve this goal.
Label your emotions, and be as truthful as possible
Oftentimes, people want to get rid of their emotions because they don’t know how to manage them. Some emotions such as intense anger are rarely triggered, so people often don’t have automatic responses for them.
What they get instead is uncomfortable disorientation that can lead to a rather incoherent pattern of responding.
But there is nothing wrong with this. There is always room for learning, even about new emotions and patterns of responses to them.
To facilitate this, the person must label the emotional experience using words that are as descriptive as possible. These words can serve as anchors for when they experience the emotion again.
Be aware of the physiological responses that the emotion arouses
Together with labeling the emotion, the person must also try to actively observe the physiological responses that they have.
Did their temperature rise? Did they feel their cheeks burning? Did the hairs on their arms stand on end?
Awareness of these things can help activate their cognition, making them better able to think through their actions.
If their cognitive faculty is impaired or at least inactive, the impulsiveness of emotional response can take over and create the incoherence described in the first point.
Acknowledge and accept that emotions are part of life and you can never do away with them
Wishing for emotions to just disappear is like wishing for the sun to not rise the next day; it’s impossible. Instead of suppressing or masking them, individuals should allow themselves to breathe life into the emotions that they feel. If they’re happy, let it be known by everyone around them.
If they’re upset, they can express such negative emotion in acceptable ways such as talking with someone that they trust or simply meditating.
Acknowledging emotions and allowing their expression are not always easy things to do. But we must be able to learn how to do these things in order to live our lives completely. Emotions, after all, are parts of us that we can never do away with.
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As a founder and chief author at InsightState.com, Bulgarea Candin helps readers on their spiritual journeys. His writings are designed to inspire creativity and personal growth, guiding readers on their journey to a more fulfilled and enlightened life.