There is a lot of credence given to emotions in this time that we live in. This is not just a pandemic thing but something I have noticed over the last decade or more. I am not convinced this is a good thing. Hear me out.
People start statements with “I feel…” and that seems to validate the words that follow. It is as though opinion is fact if it has a feeling associated with it.
It is as though opinion is fact if it has a feeling associated with it.
There is a lot of research into the emotions making long term memories that stick. I will let you google that. People remember moments associated with strong emotions more than they do boring ones. Negative emotions are very easily remembered thanks to the amygdala being tuned to prioritise them. I won’t try explain the science because that is not my area of expertise.
What I am trying to understand is why people put so much trust in their emotions.
Whether that emotion is fleeting like millisecond psychological reactance; minutes to hours; days to weeks; something recurring; or something triggered — people seem to assign meaning to those emotions and act on them without validating the cause.
More than a decade of practicing mindfulness and investing effort and time in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) has allowed me to work on catching myself in that moment before I react. I am not always successful as anyone who as elicited my wrath can attest.
The way I see emotion is that there are reactions to events that cause us to feel things. Some emotions are base emotions that are strong and fast to hit. We prescribe meaning to those base emotions but they are driven by more complex emotional states like anxiety, insecurity and fear of the unknown. Even fear of the emotions that are causing discomfort. Sometimes that cascades out of control — Reacting to reacting to reacting.
We now live in the a time of uncertainty and it is scary. People are dying in the millions. Thousands every day in the US. It doesn’t even shock me anymore to hear that someone who someone I knows, has died from COVID-19 related causes.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) brought out the crazy racists and white supremacists. Anyone non-white is a lot more aware of the colour of their skin and a little more afraid that any white person on the street could turn on them. And who would help them — the racist police?
In the US, Trump has lead a campaign of Us versus Them by generating fear and outright lying. In Australia, an inept Prime Minister takes vacations as the east coast and most populated part of the country is burning or when the country’s largest city has a big coronavirus outbreak. The UK is run by a clueless right-wing clown who is neither able to handle the virus nor manage Brexit in any productive way. You’ve got to ask yourself what you are doing when the Scots want to leave the party.
If people were not feeling strong emotions in reaction to the state of the world then I would be shocked.
The problem is that everyone is being pushed out of their comfort zone and unlike those of us who visit regularly or live here, these emotionally fragile tourists are not coping. They are then prescribing reason to those emotions and a lot of that is extrinsic. It must be caused by someone around them who makes them uncomfortable. Someone or something that they never liked but now feel they can point at and voice their opinion because it is based on HOW THEY FEEL.
The thing is, emotions pass.
The thing is, emotions pass.
Some do last for long periods of time and they should be dealt with through therapy, self-growth, lifestyle change, medication or even walking away from the root cause. Flight is a valid strategy to emotional distress. Never let anyone tell you that you are weak for leaving.
It is the emotions that come and go that I refuse to hold on to or invest too much time in ascertaining the cause.
Yes, I get angry and let that anger out. Usually a tirade of abuse yelled via text at the object of my displeasure. I am working on not doing that… be it slowly.
Yes, I get sad and I cry. An old friend and colleague (Raymond Maung) wisely told me that “tears are our bodies way of letting out the pain“. That is a wonderful way to interpret a normal reaction to what hurts us physically and emotionally. It gave me permission to cry without guilt or feeling like a failure.
So yes, I get scared and I run away (flight), push back (fight) or am paralysed (freeze).
These are normal feelings. It is OK to feel them. Often they leave as quickly as they arrived. That is why I don’t invest too much time in where they come from, if I don’t see an obvious cause. They will leave.
What I do invest time in is trying to manage how I react to those feelings and not why they happen.
I do this by asking myself these questions:
- Is this intrinsic to me?
- Am I feeing this because of something internal to me like insecurity or rejection or disappointment?
- Note: Those are my three biggest triggers. Your question may be different.
- If this is not due to something in me then is the cause extrinsic?
- Is this due to another person or event?
- Is there an external cause?
- Either way, is the thing I am thinking or perceiving really happening?
- Am I overly tired?
- Do I lack the bandwidth to emotionally regulate?
- Have a perceived a slight that is not what the external stimulus intended?
- Is this a valid thing to react to?
- Is this empathy? A lot of the time, empathy has me feeling like something happening to another person is happening to me when it really isn’t. It can sometimes not be my place to react but to instead support the person it is happening to. Park my emotions until later.
- Is someone trying to make me react for some reason? Do they want me to lose my cool.
- If this is really happening then what can I do to react to it?
- Is there a way to ask for whatever is happening to stop?
- Am I in a safe enough situation to share what I am feeling with the person or thing causing this?
- Should I react at all?
These questions helped me cope with some of the most difficult situations and people when I worked at Amazon. There is no tougher place I have ever worked and this strategy helped there and in my personal life.
What do you do to catch your reaction before it leaves you?
Damana Madden 