How to Embrace Our Emotions ?

TOPICS IN THIS EPISODE

• How to acknowledge, express & regulate emotions?
• How to use emotions as our feedback system? 

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Transcript

Today, we are diving into emotion, emotions and feelings. And we're going to talk about everything that comes to our mind when it comes to expressing our emotions and understanding our feelings.

So let's start by defining what emotion is. So, Emotion is a feeling that rivering from one's circumstances. So our moods our relationships with others events that we participated in the word emotion also means energy in motion. That means that the events we take part in, cause us to have certain thoughts, and certain interpretations and make certain conclusions. And from that thought, we experience a feeling. So depending on whether we are thinking something positive, something joyful, or we are feeling something negative, something that perhaps makes us anxious, as a result of that, we then create a feeling and we do it subconsciously we are feeling sad, or we are feeling joyful, or we are feeling happy. And emotions are what is manifested on the back of that feeling. And there are many different types of emotions we experienced during the day. But just to mention a few most common ones, it could be joy, interest, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, self-hostility, fear, shame, shyness, or guilt. And we humans are all about emotions.

Emotions are really, a really big part of who we are, and much more than we think. And I feel like it's maybe because we can't see it. We live in a physical world where pretty much everything that we do, and everything that exists around us has consistency. So we are surrounded by objects, we are surrounded by items, physical items that we can smell or taste or touch. It's all visual, but our feelings and our emotions do not exist inside us. And just because we can't see them, it doesn't mean that they're not real. So sometimes we don't realize what emotions we have inside us, we are not aware of them or we don't understand where they come from. And we could be also harbouring our emotions, some of them since our childhood since our young age, and not releasing them, not managing them. And those emotions can be so real. And it means so much at the moment that they are old, or that they're recent, or that there are futuristic.

So we experience a huge range of emotions during our life. And sometimes it can feel to us like emotions can just serve us from nowhere. So they can just show up, they can just manifest in tears or outbursts of anger or laughter. And then they subside and they go away. And in cognitive behavioural therapy, we usually focus on our thoughts, behaviours and the relationship between those thoughts and behaviours. And we also focus on our moods and how we are feeling. And the basic aim of this cognitive behavioural therapy is to learn to manage the way we think and act in order to change the way we feel.

So to put this in practice, I think it makes sense to explain that we have to have an event first and depending on what the event is and what the situation question that we experienced is about we create certain thoughts about this event, and our thoughts cause us, our thoughts might be the interpretation of the event, right. And those thoughts cause us to feel in a certain way, and they cause us those emotions, and on the back of those feelings, we, on the back of those feelings, we behave in a certain way.

So we create a pattern of behaviour, that can become a pattern that continues that we could, we could subconsciously, or consciously continue. And that be our behaviour, more often than not, brings a set of beliefs with them. Because we start experiencing something, we build certain interpretations of that we then feel a feeling or emotion. And then we behave in line with that feeling of emotion. And it's a cycle. Because we on the back of the behaviour, we are forming the beliefs that every time I do this, this, and that happens, for example, and it's, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. That means we build a set of beliefs. And by doing so, very often, these are subconscious beliefs, and there are limiting beliefs, we are inviting that event or that situation, again, to our life.

So we humans are very complex, and our brain works in a complex way. And it's, but certain processes are easy to understand, and emotions and how emotions come about. And what to do with them, and how to manage them is something we can all learn. So emotions are a mental state that is generated from our own neuro-physiological changes, we create our emotions when we have a thought about something. And like I said, throughout the day, we will be feeling different things based on different events that have happened. And our thoughts cause those feelings. And those feelings convert into emotions. And like I said, it could be anger, it could be sadness, it could be happiness, and we express some of those feelings, or we harbour them inside and don't express them. And sadly, most of us were not thought how taught sorry, how to regulate our emotions, or manage them properly. Probably the majority of us were not taught that.

But of course, it's never too late to learn. And it's important to learn that, but to our credit, and many of us as children, from a young age, experience, various emotions, and we were often told to suppress them, we were often told, told things like, "Oh, stop being silly, darling, there's no need to cry, stop crying, please stop crying", perhaps a parent would be very tired of the crying of our hopelessness that we as children, and express through tears, right. And, and, and we need to release that we don't know any better way to release that than through tears. And, and we are told, Don't do it, don't cry, there is no reason to cry. But emotions need to be released. They need to be acknowledged. They need to be felt and they need to be released for our bodies to be healthy. Harbouring them and not expressing them can cause long-term loads of different serious illnesses in our bodies, and can really negatively impact our self-esteem, our relationships and our mental health, to name a few.

So we create our emotions, but often they are created due to that situation we experienced when something just happened to us and we might feel that our emotions are heightened or hijacked. or out of control, because of any event or another person. And it's very important to try to understand why is that happening. And is that happening on regular basis? Is that something that happens to us? When we get involved in a certain activity? Or when we spend time with a certain person? Why do we feel that emotion that keeps coming back? Does that feel heightened? Right? And how do we express it? We often might blame the other person. Because of them, we feel certain emotions, and it hurts so much. And it's making us feel really mad. And it's, it's making us angry, perhaps, and it's just so much easier to blame someone else for it, then, then take responsibility for it. But the fact is that we create our own emotions, and somebody might just trigger them. So there's a big difference between those two.

So we create our own emotions based on the interpretation of the event that has occurred. And it's not someone that is making us angry, is not something that makes us angry, it's that something of someone acts as a trigger, to our subconscious mind to remind us that something like this happened before, and now it's time to be angry. So we need to take responsibility for our emotions, and not blame other people for them. No matter how angry or sad they make us, it's our responsibility to learn how to manage and release our emotions. But of course, as I said, certain people could be a very strong trigger for us. But I think it's worth pointing out that people are very unlikely to deliberately want to make us feel sad or angry or anxious. That is very, very rarely their plan. It just happens that something they say, or something that they do, triggers us into certain emotions. 

And emotions are like food, we eat food, to enjoy it, and we eat food to feed our body, and feed our needs. And that is the purpose. And once the food is consumed, it flushes out of our system, and our body takes what it needs to take from it, and releases the rest. And that is the digestive system, right? And the same thing is with emotions, emotions are our body's feedback system. And they are here to alert us to something when they surface, they're asking us to acknowledge them. They are asking us to be felt and to be digested. To make us aware of something, write something that might be very important to us to deal with. For example, if we harbour an emotion, if we hold it in, for many years, if we don't deal with our past traumas, from our childhood, or our previous relationships, if we don't, if we have some unfinished business happening, and if there's something a very inexperienced or event of other high importance that happened in the past, that we didn't process, we didn't feel the emotions related to that. Perhaps we didn't allow ourselves to grieve the enemy think anything, but some things more than others could be a trigger for that emotion to come back many years later.

So it is not healthy to suppress emotions, it is very healthy to release them ideally, in a healthy way and what I mean by that is not physical violence towards anybody, although these things also happened of course are not recommended. But releasing them through tears, releasing them through physical exercise, releasing them through sadness, and one great way to release our emotions is having a journal and it's it can be really, really helpful to have a journal so you know. It's such a small thing, but it's so practical. Get yourself a journal and get rid of every feeling you have on paper. Literally, write it down. And now never mind how silly it is, never mind how embarrassing it feels to start with, it will feel weird. It will feel like who am I writing this to? Who am I talking to? This is ridiculous. But don't think that and don't overthink it. Take a piece of paper, and start writing about every feeling you are experiencing. Dedicate 10-15 minutes a day. That's all it takes to flush out those emotions, those thoughts and those feelings that you experience on a regular basis. And even if they're horrible thoughts, even if they are something you're not proud of, most of them will not be something that you are proud of. We are humans, we are here to experience all different emotions, not just the good ones.

So the idea is that if you don't have someone trusted to talk to on a regular basis about your emotions, if you perhaps feel a massive, complex emotion that you can't understand, you don't know where they come from, and they really bother you. Perhaps some of them are really blocking you from making progress in life. Or you feel like you hold yourself back by taking action because you feel tearful. Are you feeling anxious? Write them down, write them down. And if you do it on regular basis, you will feel lighter afterwards. And by having a journal, you're giving yourself a beautiful gift. You're giving yourself an opportunity to meet yourself through your own thoughts and support yourself through your own thoughts. And that self-acceptance and self-love are the basis is the fundaments to introduce a positive change in your life.