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queernerdywitch · 4 years

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I just learned how to listen to and process emotions and wanted to share with you all!

*Update* Also, how to differentiate between thoughts and emotions!

Backstory: I can identify emotions somewhat when not overwhelmed. But when overwhelmed, I just automatically numb it out and focus on solving the problem at hand. I've gotten this far in life by just focusing on how to handle various situations- which certainly helps- but I never learned how to actually process emotions until now. I suppose it had been going on in my subconscious but now I can handle them consciously. Here's how to identify and process emotions:

Emotions are the energy of thoughts moving through us. They're supposed to move, but sometimes they get stuck, and that doesn't feel good.

1. Emotional awareness: Identify emotions when not overwhelmed. Learn to listen to this voice (for me, she's just a whisper I'm learning to pay attention to). It can be a thought or something you feel in your body. Doing this is like exercising a muscle that will get stronger with time.

-Check in with yourself regularly to see how you feel physically and emotionally. How does the emotion feel in your body? Do you have anything that's bothering you?

- Use an emotions chart. Start with: is it a positive or negative emotion? Positive ones tell us things are good. Negative ones tell us things are bad, and something needs to change.

- Types of negative emotions:

- Unease: a sense that something just isn't right. Go somewhere quiet and listen, what emotion is under that?

-threatened

-Anger (Annoyed Irritated Aggravated Frustrated Angry Mad Hostile Hateful Irate Furious Enraged) Anger is a top- layer emotion that typically has one or more of these emotions underneath it:

-fear

- physical pain

- emotional pain

- depression- (anger turned inwards)

-sad- these are types of sadness:

- guilt

- mom guilt

- agony

- grief

- loneliness

- put the emotion on a continuum or scale of 1-10: ex.

- anxious -- afraid -- terrified

- annoyed -- angry -- infuriated

- Write it down: "I feel ___ about ___ because ___" These are called IFAB statements.

2. Emotions are messengers! See what the message is, what the emotion is trying to tell you.

3. Ask your emotion if she needs anything. Sometimes she just wants to be heard, and sometimes she needs to cry or scream (into a pillow) or dance or run or walk to stretch. All these things are "movements" to move the eMOTION. Time also moves emotions, albeit that can take longer. Those "coping skills" we learn about are typically ways to move emotion.

If you learn to do this in the moment you have emotions that you can identify, then you can learn to do this in the moment you have emotions that would normally be overwhelming. If there's an emergency, you can numb out until you're done problem solving, then use this technique to resolve emotions.

After dealing with a particular emotion:

1. Try to notice other's emotions. You can ask loved ones how they are feeling today.

2. Emotional intimacy: Share your feelings with others. Use IFAB: "I feel ___ about ___ because ___"

- See how others rates your emotion vs your own rating- ex. If angry, how angry you think you are vs how angry your SO/ loved ones thinks you are.

This contains information from my friend, from my therapist, and from Emotions 101 by Michelle Haas.

**Update**

I told this to my therapist and she was very pleased! She said that if we apply this towards emotions I've had in the past, that that's how you do trauma work.

Well now. This could get interesting.

After practicing this for a week, I had another breakthrough yesterday: how to differentiate between thoughts and emotions.

When you can identify emotions, you can tell which thoughts are true, and which ones are emotions. Emotions do not necessarily speak truth, they tell how you feel about something. They are not to be taken literally!

If I think I'm stupid or that I'm not enough, that's emotions talking, and for once in my life, I know that it's not actually true that I'm stupid or not enough. It only represents that I feel that way.

My 14 month old daughter had me up from 3:15 am- 6 am. This was the 2nd night in a row that I had to tend to her in the middle of the night, and she had been sleeping all the way through the night for at least a week and a half to 2 weeks without me getting up. I was so tired and hoping to sleep all night, and wasn't able to. Here are my thoughts about that.

"How dare she get me up. I need sleep!!! If she wakes up her father, he'll be on my case for not tending to her sooner and that he needs to be up early to go to the grocery store. Her grandparents are going to start jumping to conclusions that there's something wrong with her when there doesn't seem to be. I'm going to look like I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe I don't. What's the point when nothing I do matters anyway?"

When I consider what I recently learned about emotions, I realize that these thoughts are emotions talking. These are not my actual thoughts, this is not me, this is just my emotions talking. These are the emotions of frustration and hate. These emotions are telling me that I need sleep. What do I need to move the emotion? Sleep. I feel tired and sad about not getting sleep because I need sleep.

This is actually huge because in the past I would have thought all this to be true because I didn't know it was emotions talking. I didn't know how to differentiate between my own rational thoughts and what emotions were saying. I thought it was just my own rational, logical conclusions, but if it's emotions talking, there's nothing rational or logical about it at all. They're just messengers with a message, and the message is that I need sleep, and now it's been 2 nights I haven't slept right.

I don't need to accept the notion that I'm not enough- it's only a feeling. It doesn't state the truth, it states a message. The message is, I'm frustrated because I didn't get the sleep I needed. It's embarrassing that I used to think that the thoughts of emotions were the truth.

Also, I've kept her alive for 14 months so I can't be doing that badly right?

Emotions are messengers and sometimes you have to read between the lines. They're not to be taken literally!

How long have I spent with emotions at the wheel, disguised as logic? I didn't know I was having emotions.

I thought that not feeling emotions made me logical, but actually, they were in control much more than I realized, I just didn't recognize that it was emotions, not logic, at the wheel. Being in touch with emotions actually makes you more logical because you can tell which thoughts are your real thoughts and which ones are just emotions talking and saying illogical stuff.

I used to think I was stupid and worthless and that since I thought those things, that this was true. Now I know that was just emotions talking, with the message that I felt I was stupid, but feeling that way doesn't make it true.

#mental heath support #mental health #emotions #emotions 101 #I'm just learning this for the first time #SAHM #sahmomlife #sahmlife #sahm #coping skills #therapy #how to process emotions #how to listen to emotions

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