We all have moments where our emotions might get the best of us. However, we need to permit ourselves to thoroughly experience them without allowing them to completely consume us.
When attempting to comprehend the idea of emotions, it’s easy to instinctively fathom their meaning through reflecting on our personal feelings and experiences. However, it becomes much more challenging when we try to precisely articulate our emotions in perceptible explanations. In a concrete dictionary-derived definition, we can understand emotions as an instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge. A large part of our relationship with our emotions is constituted through our ability to regulate them. However, before diving into regulation, it’s essential to analyze the process of facing our emotions.
Emotions exist as a tremendously broad spectrum- fluctuating from feelings of resentment, disappointment, sadness, and anger on one end, extending to feelings of joy, excitement, and gratitude on the other. People are generally presented with a lot of pressure to limit their experiences with negative emotions. However, it’s essential to highlight that allowing oneself to undergo such emotions does not correspond to their weakness.
We are not created in a manner that expects or permits us to feel emotionally content all the time. Instead, we are preordained to endure all types of emotions, regardless of their nature. Allowing ourselves to experience and process all our emotions thoroughly isn’t only beneficial but also crucial. The negativity associated with certain emotions portrayed as destructive (such as sadness, anger, despair, etc..) does not occur as a part of merely feeling the emotions. Instead, the associated negativity extends as a part of the potentially harmful manifestations of the emotions. Thus, highlighting the significance of our ability to regulate our emotions rather than shunning them.
Emotion regulation refers to the ability of individuals to apply control over their emotional circumstances. Instead of posing obstructions in an attempt to reject certain emotions, we should foster that energy and relocate it towards finding mechanisms that allow us to regulate them. Bottling up negative emotions could construct a sense of adverse heaviness, which through time becomes more difficult to manage and could result in unhealthy expressions such as lashing out at a loved one. To deal with our emotions in a healthier manner, we can allocate the necessary time and space for the thorough expression of such emotions, which would allow us to let go of them, and avoid their prospectively harmful consequences.
Emotion regulation is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach and is liable on what’s considered effective on an individual basis. Some might use reappraisal to regulate their emotions by reflecting on themselves. In contrast, their emotions are being prompted to gain a sense of control over their reactions. In contrast, others may regulate themselves by supplying their mind with calm thoughts as a mechanism to control their responses towards certain feelings. Emotional regulation is not limited to influence by moderating “negative” emotions but can also heighten and incline an individual’s responses to certain emotions and circumstances.
We all have moments where our emotions might get the best of us. However, we need to permit ourselves to experience them without completely consuming us thoroughly. Developing a healthy relationship with your emotions and finding ways to regulate them is a process that cultivates with time and results in self-growth and a better understanding of oneself, and leads an overall more sustaining life.
Resources:
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/emotion-regulation
- https://www.verywellmind.com/emotion-regulation-skills-training-425374
Sign up to Sail Newsletter
Never miss another article!
Thank you for subscribing.
Something went wrong.
