If we made resolutions, we’ve had five days to practice them, and maybe you’re already feeling a difference. The mind is a mighty builder. Stay with them, or modify them to get closer to what you really want. This week,
If we made resolutions, we’ve had five days to practice them, and maybe you’re already feeling a difference. The mind is a mighty builder. Stay with them, or modify them to get closer to what you really want. This week, we’ll continue with helpful actions we can take for the emotional body. Remember, it takes 21 days to make or break a habit.
Emotional health is harder to assess than physical health. Sadness isn’t measurable like a fever is. Anger doesn’t show as blisters all over the body, but the body is affected by the emotions, and if a woman is pregnant, her baby is affected too. Continual anger and/or stress may cause the baby to be born premature, and extreme anxiety during pregnancy may double the baby’s chance of becoming hyperactive.
Many people believe that they are not supposed to be emotional except for the socially acceptable ones of happiness, peacefulness, reasonable confidence, etc. And even then, one shouldn’t be too confident, or one is conceited. All emotions are valid and can be used as personal teachers. They teach us about what we believe about ourselves.
Emotions are somewhat conditioned by home life. I remember reading about a family that didn’t believe in happiness. They always had problems and were always sad about something. When the daughter went to college, she discovered a whole new world. She tried to bring it home, but the family couldn’t embrace happiness. Also, there are families where people are frequently angry or sulking about something. Children need to know how to honor and process their feelings and do something about them.
The Reverend Paul Solomon taught a class in mastering emotions. His first goal for humanity was that we would learn that we were loved by our Creator, who was open to two-way communication with us. His second was that we not feel like victims, but be responsible for our own feelings, and that we would use our negative feelings as springboards for making changes to become happier people living in alignment with our highest ideals for ourselves.
This wasn’t by denying our feelings. It was by examining them and finding out what need in our belief system wasn’t getting met. Then we were expected to take positive steps in either modifying our beliefs, or moving toward getting that need met. Sometimes the expressing of the emotion was the best thing to do for a time.
Here is the list of how he defined emotions. They are meant to pique one into behavioral changes.
Anger: Loss of control over others or self, and attempt to regain it.
Anxiety: Incapacitating the self to avoid preparing for a situation.
Boredom: Not taking responsibility for my own happiness or entertainment.
Confusion: Laziness of mind to keep from dealing with a situation or making a decision.
Depression: Indulging in helplessness as a luxury.
Fear: Entertaining a fantasy of a danger that has not occurred.
Grief: Loss of control over a source of attention or love.
Guilt: Indulging in concern over a past situation in order to avoid taking action now.
Hate: Misplaced expression of love.
Home-sickness: Loss of source of attention and a source of self-identity.
Hurt: Denial of responsibility for ones own feelings or a feeling that another person is not doing what I want them to do.
Jealous: Feeling of inadequacy to a known or unknown competitor
Regret: Feeling sad or inferior because something didn’t go the way I wanted.
Rejection: Unsuccessful attempt to gain approval from another/
Self-pity: Indulging in helplessness as a luxury (a substitute for self-love)
Self-righteousness: Feeling superior to another in order to feel good about oneself.
Shyness: Waiting for someone else to tell me I’m alright.
Worry: Incapacitating the self to avoid preparing for a situation.
Armed with these definitions we followed nine steps that would bring us to a more appropriate expression to get our needs met.
1. Recognize that you are having an emotional response.
2. Describe it honestly (as in from the list above)
3. Accept responsibility for your emotion. Ooooo, that is my least favorite, but it’s become easier over time. It doesn’t mean that what a person did wasn’t wrong, but we always have a choice in how to feel. Sometimes it changes! After my divorce I went from being hurt, to angry, and finally to relief and happiness. It did take about three months.
4. Identify the 3D occurrence (catalyst) that caused you to feel this emotion. For example in my case it was the divorce. It could be that you heard someone gossiped about you, etc.
5. Identify the real cause of the emotion. It is some belief we hold about the catalyst. i.e. I believed that the marriage would last forever. You deserve better than being gossiped about. You wish that people would come to you directly if they have a complaint.
6. Examine the truth of the belief. I had to ask myself if I really did want the marriage to last, and realized that I wouldn’t want to be married to someone who didn’t want to be married to me. Then I felt I wasn’t “good enough”, but a dear friend helped me when he said, “Hey, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with you, it’s just that David doesn’t want to be married to you.” So I changed my belief about “forever”, and my emotions followed.
7. Identify what it is you want or need. I want to be loved by a life partner. I got emotional because I believed I wasn’t. You want to be loved by your friends and believe that you can trust them to be open and honest with you. While it may be what you want, we can also understand that people who gossip about others, are not at peace in themselves.
8. Make an emotional success assessment: Did the emotion that I was negatively expressing get the result I wanted? My hurt and anger didn’t get my ex to stop wanting to divorce me. Feeling hurt probably won’t get others to stop gossiping about you. In fact, it might fuel it. Sometimes anger gets people what they want — control, but they sacrifice relationships and the respect of others.
9. Select a more appropriate action. If the emotion you first chose isn’t getting you what you want, consider a different action, something that will get you what you want. For example, I didn’t contest the divorce. I got a new hairstyle. I hung out with people I enjoyed and respected, and eventually married a man who really loved me.
May your emotions become your friends, teachers, and allies.
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Hale ‘Opio Kauai convened a support group of adults in our Kauai community to “step into the corner” for our teens, to answer questions and give support to youth and their families on a wide variety of issues. Please email your questions or concerns facing our youth and families today to Annaleah Atkinson at aatkinson@haleopio.org For more information about Hale ‘Opio Kauai, please go to www.haleopio.org
