Emotions are what we use to connect ourselves to others. If used correctly they can give us a positive slant on our lives.
Emotional Awareness
Emotional awareness is all about identifying with your own thoughts and feelings so that you understand why you feel what you feel. Once you have made the connection and you can identify with your feelings, you will understand how to make the connections between what you feel and how those feelings play out in your reality.
Emotions form the foundations
Emotions form the foundations and are the backbone to everything we do in our lives, without control of them we will automatically spiral into negative thought patterns, isolation and confusion. When we think positively, we not only communicate positively, but will also want to communicate. We will also use those positive thoughts to help us build more on confidence, empathy and trust.
Recognising our emotions
The hard part of course is being able to recognise all our emotions, but once we have we should begin to control the way we react to our emotions, our issues and challenges that we're constantly having to deal with. Emotions incorporate different feelings, like fear, anger and sadness.
When we become emotionally aware we will find it easier to empathise with other people and what they deal with. Unfortunately, failing to deal with our emotions positively means we will always struggle in one way or another.
Finally, learning how to develop our emotional awareness also allows us to handle our emotions without feeling completely overwhelmed.
Yes I agree with you. If we can't recognize our emotions how can we empathise with others? We can't. It's not possible.
My daughter doesn't recognize how she feels, so she doesn't understand how others feel. That's one of her main problems I think.
Our emotions are such a main part of who we are and knowing them helps us relate to others.
Thanks Lisa. You're right our emotions are such a main part of who we are that do help us relate to others, but that they also help us relate to ourselves which is more important in the longer term.
Great information here today, good insight. Thank you for this.
Thanks Randy. You're very welcome. Pleased it helped.
Boy, this is a tough one since I've spent so many years living like a vulcan, where I suppressed all my feelings and thought they weren't really important.
People ask me how I'm feeling sometimes and my standard answer has been that I'm 'okay.' I disconnected from my emotions when I was 12 or so, due to ways that I was behaving at that time and haven't really felt much since then!
It has caused me to miss out on so much in my life and I'm only now just starting to feel more than I used to. It won't be comfortable for me to do, but I really need to reconnect with my emotions, so that I can actually enjoy living for a change.
We do tend to miss out on much of life when we fail to connect with our emotions, in more ways than we'll know. I hope you manage it soon Randy.
I can empathize with people, but have a problem understanding why at times I get angry with someone.
For instance, my mom starts to give me a recipe for a herbal tea and my husband remarks to me afterwards that was acting like I was upset or angry. Not sure where this all comes from.
It is something that I am going to speak to my therapist about. Hopefully we will be able to figure out where all this anger is coming from.
I don't want to keep getting angry with people or come off negatively to them. I'd really like to get to the bottom of this, as I seem to take that anger and just behave badly (so it has been told to me).
I'm no expert Maria but a lot of what we play out has a lot to do with our past, issues not yet resolved!
You've been through a lot Maria. Some of what you've been through could have something to do with the way you handle certain situations. We all have something we struggle with that changes the way we behave.
You're not alone I'm sure.
I think we are programmed to put a lid on our emotions from an early age so that we are compliant. I have learned this just internalises everything and can make us ill.
I know several people who have lived to a ripe old age to their late 80s and 90s. They were stubborn, self-centred and said exactly what they felt irrespective of the outcome. They expressed how they felt and put a lid on nothing!
I guess the key really is compromise, but its not easy achieving that balance.
More people are now talking about their feelings, but I agree certain generations we're programmed to internalise everything.
I have seen that too but still believe our genes play its part in that scenario. That said, it's important to express ourselves. We must never internalise our feelings. Internalising everything just adds to chronic illness in the longer term.
I have seen that happen with my family.