How are you feeling this season? Are you happy to be spending time with family? Are you sad because the virus is restricting your movement? Or are you anxious about the uncertainties of the times? Check yourself. Whatever you’re feeling, have you ever stopped to wonder where these feelings are coming from?
We’re wired to believe that showing too much of our emotions whether good or bad is not acceptable. We are conditioned to hold back, and when we hold back or put our emotions in quarantine, we don’t realize that it’s still going to linger within us, causing our reactions to heighten. Trapping our emotions isn’t the wisest thing to do. Depressed individuals and those with mental health concerns who are seeking treatment can attest to this.
Every emotion has two dimensions: the reaction and the response. The emotional reaction can be seen as the initial phase; it is something you are not in control of. The emotional response is how we deal with the emotion and it is completely up to us on how we’re going to express what we are feeling.
So what can we do?
BE AWARE
Awareness points us to a need. For example, when we feel frustrated, is it automatic for you to blame other people? The government? A truly emotionally mature person is able to own the emotion, claiming it as one’s own. It is essential to be able to say, “My emotions are mine” and “It fully depends on me on how I will react to things that are outside of my control.” Awareness calls for the ability to sit with one’s emotions. It is not attributing it to other sources.
NAME AND ACCEPT THE EMOTION
“I’m okay” and “I am fine” are classic-go-to-answers when someone asks us how we’re doing. But deep inside, we are feeling something specific. We should never allow our emotional vocabularies to deteriorate. Just like how
preschoolers are taught how to point to emotion cards to help them with their feelings, we should recognize how essential it is to be able to know what we are feeling. It is through doing so that you will be able to accept it and think about how these emotions are affecting you. Be accepting of how you feel because it’s part of who you are. To foster healthy emotional well-being, it is imperative to be able to accept all of who you are without preconceived notions, judgment, or a sense of denial for what you feel.
OWN YOUR EMOTIONS, AND BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEM
Doing so will improve your self-awareness. It is knowing exactly what kind of situations trigger you. It is attributing specific situations with feelings, and having the capacity to step back and realize how it’s influencing how you think and behave instead of being so quick to attribute your emotions to the people around you, or the circumstances that stir these emotions.
Make it a habit to be able to say: “My emotional well-being starts with me.” When something is particularly difficult to handle, make it a habit to pause and pray. There is no need to rush to responding and expressing emotions. Sit with it, be aware of it, accept it, and be accountable for it. Your emotions have the power to dictate your mood, words, and action. Further, it has the capacity to influence other people, our loved ones, and our home life’s emotional climate. As Leon Brown has so wisely articulated, “You must be the master of your emotions if you wish to live in peace, for he who can control himself becomes free.”