Emotions are our Friends

We are all familiar with the experience of being taken over by our emotions. The arrival of a simple text can lead to heart pounding, quickened breathing, and flooding thoughts of “bad things are happening.” Similarly, you wake up one morning with a sinking feeling that things aren’t okay. The next thing you know, you are in a spin cycle of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors that confirm it, which might last hours, days, or even longer. Or perhaps you experience a “failure” on your part, and it begins a pattern of feelings and thoughts you cannot recover from; you can’t get back to the surface. Maybe it is even deeper but less clear, and you find that you feel different about yourself at your core than you want to, and this feeling nags at you, eats at your very soul, your sense of self. You look for any reprieve, any chance to feel better, to be confident. You’ve perhaps developed an antagonistic relationship with your emotional side.

Don’t fight your emotions or scare them off; thank them. That’s right, the obstacle is the way. I can teach you how to develop a productive symbiotic relationship with your emotions. They are, after all, your personal couriers of information; they are your ‘check engine’ lights. They let you know if your values are being protected and honored or are under threat and devalued.

Emotions allow us to get real-time information about what is happening to our insides, psyches, and very cores, and offer us opportunities to regulate, organize, and decide what course of action is needed. Learning how to weave values, cognitions, and behaviors into a system of response to emotions is how to navigate life with meaning and existential resolve. This is where cognitions (thoughts we have on purpose) come in and where our actual agency lies.

So, once we recognize our emotions for what they are, allies in life’s journey, how do we practically proceed? What is the next step that keeps us growing and gaining strength and resolution?

Check out the next post to find out.