The Psychology Behind Emotions. Don’t Let Them Fool You
It’s about becoming more emotionally responsible
Courtesy Common. Wikimedia/Workshopped
Emotions color our world and give us a perception of our internal thought processes. But what happens when our emotions feel like they control us?
If you base your life around your emotions, you will continually be up and down like a yo-yo, running around in circles, contradicting yourself, changing your mind, and forgetting what you’ve said and done to find and maintain the next high.
Emotions are strong impulses that drive us to take instant action based on fundamental needs, such as survival, designed to propel us into action without overthinking: “Run from the gun-yielding man before I get killed!”
Being emotional and leading with the heart can be great qualities. Leaning into our feelings makes us self-aware and helps bond us to others. But if we let our emotions influence our lives, it can lead to depression and anger.
Pleasant emotions don’t always secure happiness, wealth, or health. We may rejoice momentarily at eating a sugary scoop of ice cream daily, watching our favorite television show until midnight, or dating someone who reminds us of our father. Still, none of these might make us healthy, happy, or stable in the long or short term.
A good case in point is the ongoing social strife we’re experiencing today that results from these meta-feelings. Moralizing pack of wolves on both the political right and left see themselves as wronged and unique in every little hurt or setback they experience.
Right-leaning talk show hosts fuel the flames of self-pomposity, creating a craving for ridiculous fears that people’s society is crumbling around them. Political memes on the left make the same self-righteousness, but instead of drawing on fear, they appeal to the superiority of intellect and authority.
Greed skyrockets while the rich flaunt their richness in conjunction with the swelling degrees of depression and anxiety as the lower and middle classes hate themselves for feeling left in the dust.
And just as you decide to stop feeling bad about anything, consumer culture goads you to make decisions based on feeling and then congratulates you for those decisions. Yay!!!!
So, what would you say if I told you that feelings don’t mean a f — -k? Ha?
They don’t. I bought into it for most of my young being.
As a compassionate person who feels things deeply, I have realized this lesson the hard way. It took me years to grasp that all emotions develop from thought. As a young woman with low self-esteem, I didn’t understand that my negative self-talk and sensitivity to others’ opinions profoundly affected my emotions and moods. At the time, I had no idea that each negative thought had a compound effect on how I viewed myself and my life.
With my flawed thinking about who I was and what I had to offer, I turned to popping pills or doing other stuff to ease my discomfort. Instead of simply experiencing the emotion and moving on, I dragged it into the next moment. And then, the next, letting it define the hours or even days to come.
My emotions took control of my life. I chose to ignore the bad feeling. I thought I was “controlling my emotions.” In reality, by rejecting them, I was being dishonest with myself.
The older and wiser me learned to be aware of my emotions and to check in with myself on various levels before allowing them to have the final say.
Self-control and resilience are crucial skills for managing feelings. You can’t choose which emotions you experience. You can, however, decide what you do with them.
Acting based on feelings is easy. You feel it. You do it. Right? It’s like scratching a burning itch. There’s a sense of release and cessation that comes along with it. It’s an immediate satisfaction. But then that fulfillment is gone just as quickly as it came.
And what are you left with then? Bubkes!
Is it simple? Not so fast. Like many things in life, it sounds simple. But self-control doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy. Because we don’t like to feel conflicted about decision-making, we do mental gymnastics to avoid discomfort.
You know you shouldn’t cheat on your husband, but your feelings say, “I feel the urge, and I’m going to give into it.” Or something like that. And once this occurs, you’ll start conning yourself into believing that your feelings actually matter. But in truth, you were too reckless. Or too self-righteous and thought yourself the center of the universe.
Feelings have a way of doing that, you know?
Maybe you hate hearing this because you grew up with parents who worshipped your feelings, protected those feelings, and tried to buy as many presents and the expensive sneakers you wanted as necessary to ensure those feelings were fuzzy and protected.
Think about it. Your feelings can’t tell you what’s best for your career or what’s best for the environment. All they can do is tell you what’s best for you. And even that is debatable. They only exist at the moment they arise. Period.
So what’s the answer?
I don’t really know. But I know that consciously responding to complicated feelings is what emotional resilience means. The idea isn’t to prevent the emotion itself. Instead, it’s avoiding the activation of automatic reaction that matters. It’s pretty clear why reacting to emotions isn’t the best action. It pushes you to act out of momentary wants, out of fear-based beliefs that cause drama.
The ability to de-couple meaning from feeling and decide that just because you feel something doesn’t mean life is that something. This skill is crucial to living an emotionally healthy life, weighing before reacting.
Not to say that all feelings are not meant to be felt. Emotions serve a purpose: they are the brain’s way of informing something good or bad is happening. So how do you listen to and respond to your emotions instead of reacting?
Ultimately, you’re in the driver’s seat if you recognize that feelings don’t mean anything until you choose to give them meaning. This means it is possible to completely control how to react to those things when they occur. Note that I said how we respond. We can’t control what thoughts, feelings, or emotions will pop up, but we can control how we react.
Now, go and seize the day!