Emotions: Helpful Guides or Wayward Tyrants?

Life gets crazy.

At times it can even feel as though we’re stumbling through life with absolutely no guidance and very limited understanding.

Although life can feel this way, we’ve actually been blessed with some helpful guides to join us on our journey: emotions. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, we are seldom absent of emotion.

I would argue that the presence of our emotions is one of the most crucial aspects of being human.

I know what you must be thinking: “When has being emotional ever solved anything?”, which is a completely valid question.

Considering the countless number of times our emotions have gotten people into trouble, one might seriously conclude that life would actually be much easier without them.

Yo could wish for that reality as much as you like, but since it’s never going to happen, you may as well hear the better alternative: work towards emotional mastery.

Since we cannot get rid of our emotions, learning to control them is really the next best thing. And once you consider what it means to control them and powerful they can be in shaping your life, you’ll never wish you could get rid of them.

This is the very first step to becoming a master of your emotions. Embrace the fact that your emotions have a specific use that you are yet to explore...

Most people have quite a reductionist view of emotions: just chemical reactions that tell us how we’re feeling based on what’s happening – and to an extent that is true – but there is so much more complexity to our emotions than we care to admit.

And this is where we slip up a lot of the time.

Failing to understand these facts is the reason why our emotions tend to go ignored and unaddressed.

Instead of identifying emotions and understanding ourselves through them, we unknowingly identify as the emotions and fall under their complete control. For instance, instead of feeling angry and processing that emotion before responding, we embody the anger through our thoughts, words and actions.

We may not realise it in the present moment, but when we ignore our emotions, not only are we missing out on learning vital information about ourselves, but it affects our long-term emotional health. This has a knock-on effect to all other aspects of our health.

Even more than that, it cripples our ability to navigate situations that require emotional understanding of ourselves and others, such as building relationships and friendships, conflict resolution or even just working as part of a team.

This blindness to our feelings doesn’t just show up in isolated moments, but it has a cumulative effect. The longer emotions go unrecognised and unprocessed, the more power they will have to completely consume you. Especially with the lack of practice in regulating these emotions on a daily basis, it’ll be difficult to hold back when you’re going through intense feelings.

It is important that you frequently practise being self-aware and staying in-tune with your emotions, not just when you’re going through turmoil.

This self-awareness gives you the ability to self-regulate and manage the actions that follow the feelings. But remember, it’s a process that takes place:

1)   Acknowledgement

• Accept that you’re feeling something

• Identify what that feeling is

2)   Impulse

• What does that feeling make you want to do?

3)   Evaluation

• How would that impulse impact you and those involved?

  • If it would have a positive impact, then great!

  • If not, you need to go against your natural instinct

4)   Response

• Take the right course of action according to your evaluation

  
  

Now, this 4-step process takes place in a split-second, but could literally be the make or break of our lives in a critical moment.

Following a process like this helps you practise shifting from an emotional state of mind to a rational state of mind to optimise your decision-making in the heat of the moment.

You’ll get better at knowing when to lead with emotion, logic or intuition and your overall emotional health will benefit.

I also want to briefly touch upon what it means for there to be an absence of emotion and how to cope without them as guides?

From what I understand, apathy (or lack of emotion) can be just as much of an indicator as any emotion...perhaps even more so, because it can manifest situationally. It can even be an indication of certain psychological or neurological conditions.

So even a lack of emotion is something we should pay attention to.

It just goes to show how much guidance we actually have built within our very biology.

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Want to learn more about emotional mastery?

Click here (or below) to watch my YouTube video on the Be You Channel right now, where we go even deeper on the topic of emotional intelligence and mastery AND talk about the "5 Ways Authenticity Boosts Your Emotional Intelligence".

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