Emotions, and Why We Love to Hate Them.

Emotions are natural, instinctive responses to the outside world. Our emotions provide us with information essential for survival and well-being, and each emotion can serve an important function in our lives. However, many of us walk through life on autopilot, trying our best to ignore, downplay, or shut away our emotions. We have several good reasons to do so—emotions can feel uncomfortable, confusing, inconvenient, and embarrassing. In part, this is because emotions come with associated physical symptoms and they can further impact us by influencing our thoughts and behaviours in ways we don’t like.

Another reason for this is that emotions have a bad reputation. We have confused emotions themselves with unregulated behavioural expressions of emotion. This fundamental misunderstanding means that to be viewed as emotional in our current social landscape is to be viewed as unintelligent, irresponsible, unpredictable, and/or out of control. In addition, we’ve taken some of the most natural forms of human expression, behaviours that help us work through and share our emotions with others in constructive ways and have made them into unattainable skills that are only socially acceptable to engage in if done well (art, music, writing, dance, sport, and so on). This means we have a lot of emotions that may have nowhere constructive to go. 

Many of us have been raised and/or socialized not to openly feel, express, or show most emotions. In many cases it is not considered socially acceptable or even safe to feel anything other than happiness and gratitude—toxic positivity, anyone? However, our emotions will happen regardless, so this leaves us in the position of having to lie to ourselves and/or others in order to be accepted and therefore, socially safe. The problem with this, is that denying our emotions means denying our needs and our true selves, and ignoring the important function our emotions are trying to serve. Denying our emotions can keep us socially safe while simultaneously leaving us physically, mentally, and emotionally vulnerable. In fact, repressed emotion has been connected to a number of long term health consequences.

So, what are we supposed to do with this information?

• Learn more about emotions. What function does each emotion serve for you? For example, is anger trying to protect you? Is anxiety trying to motivate you? Is sadness trying to get you to rest or seek support? Is happiness trying to get you to keep doing what you are doing?

• Explore how emotions feel in your body. Do you experience a racing heart, chest pain, or muscle tension with fear? Do you feel tightness in your throat, heaviness, or fatigue with sadness? Physiological symptoms can help us identify our emotions early on.

• Ask yourself reflective questions. What happened before the emotion began? Is it in anticipation of something about to happen? Is there a pattern to this emotion? Does it tend to come up in the same situation or with the same people? What is it trying to tell you? Is this one emotion, or a mixture? 

• Enhance your emotional vocabulary. Naming what you are feeling helps you understand more about what is happening and that information can help guide your response. For example, noticing the difference between feeling hopeless and feeling helpless can lead to two very different interventions. This can also improve communication with others about emotion.

• Find ways to express and regulate your emotions that you can feel good about. This may mean working it out through exercise, body movement, breathing techniques, mindfulness, creative expression, hobbies, or assertive communication. Perhaps even learning to be comfortable saying the words “I feel angry” or “I feel sad” out loud.

• Start to treat emotions as an important, instinctive form of intelligence rather than something shameful. Emotions support our learning, communication, decision making, and motivation. Feeling the entire spectrum of emotions should be viewed as an accomplishment rather than a failure. 

• Recognize the consequences. If you find yourself in a pattern of avoiding, denying, or shutting out your emotions, reflect on who this practice benefits and who it harms. Does it lead to internal conflict, or intense outbursts of emotion?

Be prepared that connecting with your emotions after years of denying them may be a painful, overwhelming experience in the beginning. It may also be incredibly freeing, empowering, and validating. Either way, consider seeking support before embarking on this journey.

Go paint that painting. Sing and dance to your favourite songs. Embarrass yourself a little. Give yourself permission to be a whole human.

Sources:

Brackett, M. (2019) Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive.

Chemaly, S. (2019) Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger.

Nagoski, E. & Nagoski, A. (2020) Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.