How understanding your emotions can change your life
Me in the rain
We’ll all go through millions of emotions during our lives and understanding them better can help us avoid or resolve conflict and move past difficult feelings more easily.
It’s Autumn and, after a dry and sunny start to the season, it’s been pretty wet lately. Changeable I suppose is how we could describe it.
I was out with Bob the dog the other day on an early morning quick walk and within 10 minutes the weather had gone from sun peeking out from grey clouds, to pouring rain that soaked me right through to my underwear, to rain stopped, to sun peeking out again, to a rainbow, to blue sky and glorious sun.
My glasses were covered in rain and I couldn’t see a thing until I unzipped my coat and wiped them on my top. Yet, I found myself smiling at how quick it had all happened and marvelled at what I had just witnessed.
That period of 10 minutes has stayed with me since then and it felt right to make it the subject of this month’s blog post. Why, I hear you say?
Well ….. it seems to me that those 10 minutes are a perfect way of seeing how our emotions and feelings affect us. First though I thought it might be useful to explain the difference between emotions and feelings.
What are emotions and feelings?
Some people use the words emotions and feelings interchangeably and there is nothing wrong with that as long as the person they are talking to whilst using those words understands what they mean.
There’s a bigger question in that really, about understanding and communication, and I talk about that more below.
In the world of psychology, emotions are associated with bodily reactions that are activated through neurotransmitters and hormones released by the brain. Feelings, on the other hand, are the conscious experience of emotional reactions.
So first we experience an emotion, usually a subconscious automatic response to what we are experiencing, for example sadness which is a natural reaction to something that causes emotional upset or pain.
Feelings come after the emotion, often very quickly, and are the conscious experience of the emotion, such as grief.
There are thought to be 6 basic emotions :
Sadness
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Happiness
Surprise
Anger is often referred to as a secondary emotion as there is usually another emotion under the anger.
The average emotion lasts around 90 seconds from start to finish if we are able to just let them pass, although this does not include sadness which can last much longer.
But how often are we able to just notice our emotions and let them pass? If you’re anything like me then your answer will be “not very often”.
Why is that?
It’s human instinct to want to make sense of things. If we are confused or unsettled by something our brain is hard-wired to make up a story that makes sense of the situation.
That story, though, isn’t necessarily true.
We can get trapped in the theme of that story, the main thought or feeling, while it loops round and round our mind and often we end up believing it as truth. Whereas if we are able to notice the story, ask ourselves if it’s really true and let it pass, we are more likely to let the emotion run through us and not get stuck in it.
How emotions and feelings can affect relationships
To illustrate what I am saying, imagine this: “old me” hears my husband storm into the house obviously pissed off at something and I ask him what the matter is.
He says it’s nothing but I know something is up and my brain makes up the story that he won’t tell me what the matter is because he’s pissed off with me. I know I have been taking it easy, resting and I think that’s the reason he’s pissed off. I mull this over for half an hour or so while he continues stomping around the kitchen and I get more and more annoyed that he is pissed off that I am resting. I busy myself making the tea, sorting washing out and tidying up whilst seething that he doesn’t respect my need to rest. I stomp off to bed early and am asleep by the time he comes to bed.
Next morning, I am still annoyed and he doesn’t understand why he’s getting one word answers when he tries to make small talk. Eventually, after a couple of days, the atmosphere thaws and we’re back to normal except there is still the niggle in the back of my mind that he gets annoyed when I rest.
My initial response to him storming into the house was fear because I have a history of a chaotic childhood and when anyone was angry it felt unsafe. My inner child is activated by my husband’s anger and I go to a place of fear.
The story my brain makes up, telling me he is pissed off because I am resting, is a safer place for me to be as I can stop resting and he will stop being angry. I need to rest but I stop because I want to feel safe.
The problem is that as this happens more often I become resentful as I perceive I am not allowed to rest without him becoming angry.
I am trapped in this loop of thinking he will be angry if I rest.
How life coaching improves relationships
Here is the “new me” version of this story: my husband storms into the house obviously pissed off. I say to myself it looks like he’s pissed off about something, I wonder what has happened.
I am resting because I am worn out and I need to rest so I carry on reading my book sitting on the sofa. After half an hour I am feeling a bit more energetic and I go into the kitchen curious about what has made my husband so angry.
I ask him and he says it’s nothing. I say it can’t be nothing and I’d like to know if he can share it with me. He tells me that someone at work has broken something of his but no-one will admit it.
No wonder he’s annoyed and I tell him what a rotten thing to happen (that is not my exact words but you get the drift!). I ask him if he wants a cup of tea and we then cook the meal together.
In this scenario I have noticed his anger, given him a bit of space to cool off and made my resting my priority. I have been curious about what had happened and given him space to talk about it.
I didn’t feel fear initially like in the “old me” version because I have been working on regulating my sensitive nervous system and I am not as quick to react so my nervous system isn’t triggered into a flight, fight or freeze response.
I am able to be curious but also know that I am doing nothing wrong by resting so I am not feeling unsafe.
All of this allows me to stay grounded and not end up stuck in the loop of fear-based story I told myself in the “old me” version.
Why having life coaching can change your life
Those are real examples from my life, about 4 years apart.
The second one happened a few weeks ago and I realised how far we have come to be able to do that. How far I have come really from counselling and self-coaching through my inner work, but he is doing his work too.
I realised that my mind makes up “bad” stories all the time and rather than getting stuck in them I am much more likely to be curious about what is going on and try to get to the bottom of it without making assumptions.
It isn’t always easy and it takes real work but it ain’t half good when you work something out like the second example rather than the first.
So the point I am making with the weather is that my husband coming in angry is like the rain starting.
By noticing my first reaction to his mood and getting curious, I allowed the rain cloud to pass without getting stuck in it (or under it!) and in time the rain stopped and a magical rainbow appeared where his frustration was heard and I understood what was happening rather than making up my own story. Then the sun came out again when we both returned to normal.
How things have changed over the last four years!
If you’re interested in having life coaching so that you can begin understanding your own emotions and feelings, improve your relationships and change your story, click the button below to arrange an informal chat.
Who knows what might change?!
