Observing emotions

Hello coaches,

I’d really appreciate some clarity on work that I’m doing trying to observe my emotions. At the moment I’m trying to observe how I respond to other people’s emotions as an indicator of how I respond to my own. I feel excited about times when I have experienced more space before responding to another person, but I also wonder whether in noticing my emotion and labelling it, I almost censor myself.

An example is my husband accidentally shrinking one of my merino wool jumpers in the wash!!! I noticed the anger (waves) and frustration (grit in chest) and acknowledged them out loud. After this I felt like I didn’t know how to respond and felt stuck- my husband was so sorry and it’s happened with other jumpers so I didn’t need to say anything to help him in future!! But I felt the energy inside of me, but having rationalised it, didn’t really feel I could express it. Looking back, I think there are other ways I could express it like dance around or sing loudly! My go-to was to intentionally remove myself for some space, and was proud that I was able to move through the emotion and spend a lovely afternoon with him (I think we’re on jumper no 5 now so the frustration was real!! And previously when experiencing emotions I find uncomfortable, my go to is to unintentionally withdraw and go into dorsal).

It felt a little similar to jumping into an intentional model without sitting with the unintentional one but I think it’s a slightly different situation. Perhaps it’s to do with my perception or comfort/ discomfort with anger.

 

 

Answer:

A lot of us think that to feel an emotion you need to react to it. When we’re talking about anger, what have your reactions been in the past? Did you like them? Do you want to continue behaving that way? Did you feel better afterwards?  There is no right or wrong answer, just explore. it sounds like you have some previous shrunken jumper scenarios that you can reflect on.

I would offer that instead of thinking about the anger, feel it in your body. Notice and allow the energy. Let it move through you. Let it stay as long as it needs to.

Give yourself lots of grace, this is new! Anything new takes practice. How can you give yourself lots of opportunities to allow yourself to feel anger and be the person you want to be?