KNOW ABOUT EMOTIONS & SKILL BUILDING

Similar to our other human senses, emotions have a purpose: to communicate useful information to us. Emotions are expressions of a finely tuned information system there to guide, protect and support our wellbeing. They tell us where we are and what we need. Our emotions are companions, protectors and enhancers of our quality of life. Imagine what life would be without them!

 

How we perceive our emotions greatly amplifies the experiences we have in life. We see this in the way we emotionally colour the stories we tell others about life and ourselves. The good and bad stories have happy or unhappy endings. What we have felt about our life events has mattered the most.

 

The slow evolution in the human collective of understanding and appreciating emotions is understandable; very few of us have had the benefit of an emotional education. Instead most of us have unconsciously absorbed ways of coping with them.

 

Common beliefs are that emotions pre-exists inside—they happen to us—and that we are powerless over them. It is quite typical in contemporary cultures to feel at the mercy of our emotions rather than empowered by their fine-tuned guidance and support.

 

When we believe ourselves to be victims of emotions, it is only natural that we come to fear the more difficult emotions and put much energy into keeping them at bay. The coping mechanisms we pick up during the early years of conditioning could be anything from repressing, numbing or dumping them on others, or obsessively chase those emotions we believe we must feel. 

 

A strong ideal in contemporary cultures is to be in control of our emotions. It is rare to be encouraged to explore a fruitful collaboration with a wide range of them. As it turns out, emotions are neither good nor bad; they simply serve as master teachers of navigating life and subjects like becoming interpersonally intelligent. 

 

Looking closer at the fascinating world of emotions reveals many surprising details. Who would have guessed, for instance, that emotions are so much faster than thoughts? Emotions are truly formidable in their power and influence: 

 

Emotions literally change the chemistry of every cell of your body, and affect the world outside your body. 

— Candace Pert

 

When we constructively engage with our emotional nature, we have stepped onto a life path of liberation and empowerment. There are many skills we can grow while exploring, discovering, understanding, hearing, expressing and cultivating emotions. 

 

We learn to experience our emotions instead of avoiding, fearing and feeling at their mercy. We become more skilled at picking up the messages that emotions carry and benefit from their intrinsic wisdom. We can begin to cultivate emotional states into being and change how we feel in various situations. We learn to respond creatively to our emotional reactions and discover safe ways to release the charge of emotional baggage. With skills it is way easier to also understand our own and other people’s emotional needs, and how to communicate them cleanly. Everyone wins when emotional skills become an intrinsic part of who we are.

 

To identify the tools that work for us, we simply experiment with different methods, techniques and ideas. Those are added to our tool box and put to practice in daily life until they have become second nature.

 

Some tools and techniques have immediate effects, some are more subtle and others build their beneficial influence over time. We can work on our skill-building while emotions are actually happening or by briefly remembering an emotional experience from our past. If dwelling in emotional states is something we do out of habit, we need to approach our past in other ways and this is addressed under ‘releasing emotional baggage.’

 

Some of us find it difficult to connect with emotions at all. If this is the case, connection can be supported in different ways. Simple physical gestures can stimulate connection to our emotions. We can, for example, put our head down, lower the gaze and bring our hands to the chest or solar plexus and feel into the inner world for a moment before engaging with skill-building practices. 

 

Emotions communicate for our benefit, and with the willingness to listen out for their communications, we also discover beneficial responses for different situations. We change our lives for the better when we become receptive to the messages our emotions communicate. Then feeling good becomes more a question of remembering to pay attention to those communications in everyday life, and to cultivate emotional states we enjoy as well.

 

Becoming emotionally skilled not only benefits our own wellbeing, but others as well in our circle of friends, family and community. Sharing our knowledge of how to wisely relate to our emotions is a beautiful gift to share with  others.

 

Helping others become emotionally skilled enriches our lives exponentially!

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