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"In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels"
Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence - Why it can matter more than IQ
Humans are emotional Beings, feeling and emotions are part of what makes us human they are innate to our human experience.
Over time many of us have been taught and conditioned to subconsciously suppress, repress or just plain ignore what we are feeling.
Feelings and emotions have a very rich source of information to enable us to be authentically in control, heal our trauma’s and distress, face our daily challenges and offer us intelligence beyond our intelligence quotient known as IQ. Emotional Intelligence or EI is not thought to be fixed at birth, and we can all discover the ability to understand, use and manage our emotions.
Four Components of Emotional Intelligence
Our emotions have three main functions:
Communicating with ourselves - Our emotions provide us with a rich source of information and this information alerts us, keeps us safe, tells us that we may be in danger and at the opposite spectrum can offer us peace and contentment that all is well in our world so we can relax.
Communicating with others - Humans are not solitary Beings we are meant to connect with both ourselves and others, this is to ensure the species survive, emotions bridges the gap between the never-ending depth of our internal world and the world that exists outside ourselves
Gets us ready for action - Whether this action is to motivate us to rest and digest or to get ready to fight, flight, freeze or fawn when we are faced with danger. Our emotions are connected to our Central Nervous System and along with our senses orchestrates both bodily and neurological responses when faced with a stimuli.
We don't choose which emotion we feel at any one time, they are automatic and spontaneous. How we handle them once they make themselves known makes the difference between whether we have a good quality of Mental Health or a life ruled by chaotic emotions and all that brings.
One way to enhance our emotional intelligence is to sit with our feelings. But what does that really mean?
Whilst we don't choose what we feel when we feel, we do have a choice on what we do with the feeling once we recognise them. We do this with conscious intent, effort and self-compassion as we explore and get to really know what we feel.
Sitting with our feelings is really about becoming consciously aware of what the feeling is when it is evoked and what it is trying to impart to us.
The best time to do this is when we are calm and relaxed, its fruitless to try get to know the feeling when it is intense.
This is where we start to take back our power and control over our emotions. By fostering mindfulness and focus, create a safe space within our being. To let the feeling flow and just be what they are in any given moment, in order for us to get to know the feeling is use and manage them in our daily living healthily. Being able to recognise, hold and work with the emotion enabling us to be aware of where our body responds to stimuli and how we process them in a healthy way that enhances our overall mental health and well-being.
Human emotions are complex, the more we can recognise them, name and claim them the more we tame them through self-understanding, self-awareness, self-compassion the more health, contentment and peace we will enjoy and the more compassion we can show to ourself and others. This is emotional intelligence (EI).
Sitting with your feelings
The more we avoid our emotions the more they will push and prick us to gain attention. When we constantly ignore them, we set up a negative cycle of hide and seek in that the emotions seek to be known, and a part of our psyche wants to banish them, because it’s too afraid to feel them.
In reality we have nothing to fear but fear itself
Is it time to get comfortable with the uncomfortable?
Once we become aware we understand there is no good or bad emotion, they are what they are. Its more healthy for us to restructure our language away from opposites or extremes and find the middle ground. As in this case emotions are part of the human condition and experience, we can't get rid of them, because they make us human and they all enhance our overall mental health, all our feelings have a role to play in our well-being.
The more we avoid our feelings the more they will disrupt our lives by ‘leaking’ or ‘acting out’ subconsciously e.g., in anger, anxiety, depression or physical and emotional pain.
Over time this can become detrimental to our Mental Health and stunts our personal growth and development, setting up a patterns of habituation, dissociations and stuckness. Emotions then start acting like memory foam, we implicitly get comfortable with their shape, feel and they become our comfort zone and negative patterns of relating with others and ourselves which imped our living.
It makes sense to get to know our feeling so they don't rule us and by getting to know our feelings we can gain more self-awareness, understanding and alleviate our pain and distress.
Instead of letting our emotions have free rein to do as they please and control us.
Is it time to take back your authentic control in your own time and on your own terms?
If the answer to this question is yes, then there is much we can do to help ourselves.
Here’s what I used to reclaim my feelings from trauma and anxiety to live with my emotions more intelligently, using them to guide, motivate and empower me to live authentically, with appropriate emotional expression and empowerment. Often called autonomy and agency.
Before you start prepare by:
read this part to the end to get familiar with its contents before you start.
having a journal or blank paper, a pen or coloured pencils ready to write or draw any of the sensations around the feeling and/or the feeling you invite to be known.
have a grounding object such as a pebble, blanket, soft toy, pillow, prayer beads, something you can hold throughout this exercise that offers you comfort and helps keep you anchored and grounded in the here and now.
have a glass of fresh water to drink throughout this exercise to stay hydrated, emotional work is thirsty work.
When you’re ready to practice getting to know your feelings.
Sit or lie in a comfortable safe space, get yourself relaxed before you start this exercise. Ground yourself in the present moment, use a visualisation to get yourself as relaxed as you can. Once you are physically comfortable take a couple of deep breaths in and out again when you feel ready invite one feeling consciously to step forward into the light to make itself known. Take a deep breath in and relax and wait for the feeling to arrive.
Breathe into your chest deeply feel your lungs fill up with life oxygenating air, do this several times before you begin to notice the feeling arriving.
Start to notice the feeling moving towards you without judging, without engaging with it fully, ‘as if’ you are stood in the corner of a room, and the feeling is stepping into the middle under a spotlight where it can be seen clearly.
Set your intention and boundaries with the feeling by silently saying to the feeling. Today whilst we are meeting you are not allowed to drift around the room (body) you are to stand or sit in the spotlight. Then Just notice how it passes you calmly, gently, notice how it comes into your conscious mind, observe how it moves into this space, is it fast? Ask it to please slow down, letting it know it has all the time it needs.
Breathe, wait, observe, allow the feeling to flow to take its position under the spotlight.
Take another deep breath in before you begin to notice it by:
· Observing, wait, notice if it has a colour.
· Notice how big this feeling is. Can it fit in your hand or is it bigger?
· Notice any shape it forms, or does it change shape?
· Does it bring any particular smell with it?
· Does it make any sounds?
· How intense does it feel on a scale of 1-10?
· Have you felt this feeling before?
· Does it speak any words or is it silent?
· If it speaks, what is it trying to tell you here and now?
· Does it feel familiar? Have you felt this before? If so, reflect when?
· Does it have a name? If it does what does it say it is?
· If it can’t tell you its name, can you name, it?
Don’t try to hard, just notice, observe and wait, a name will come to you when you are ready to hear what the feeling is trying to impart to you
Stay as present with the feeling as you can, for as long or as little as you can, resist the feeling or thought that wants to dismiss, suppress or send it back to whence it came.
Remember it’s a feeling not a fact and this time you are in control.
You can choose to stay with it or let it go.
Welcome the feeling with curiosity, it can’t hurt you now you have hold off the reigns.
Begin to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, slowly start with 30 seconds of feeling the feeling then let it go, practice this step over and over until 30 seconds becomes 1, 2,3,4,5 minutes and until you can sit with the feeling and understand what it is and have named it and claimed it, fully accepting it is part of you and a part that hold richness, wisdom to empower and motivate you.
Sit with the feeling for as long or as little as you can muster in anyone sitting. Its OK to allow it to just come into view without allowing it to enter your consciousness fully, if it feels to big in the moment let it go back once you’ve seen it. End the practice for today and return again when you are ready.
There is plenty of time to practice observing, noticing and waiting for it to impart its wisdom.
Remember you have the reigns its your choice how much or how little you sit with any feeling.
Once you get a good measure of the emotion ‘name it’ and ‘claim it’, this will begin to tame and reduce its hold over you. This may take several practices you have all the time you need to practice.
After each sitting and once you have sat with the feeling, write about or draw the feeling in your journal, write any information you noticed, observed and/or it imparted to you.
Write what you noticed about this feeling and how it felt in your body and where in your body you felt it, this may be in several places, write it all down.
All this information will support you next time you invite this feeling into the spotlight, the more information you can write down the better you will get to know the feeling when it is not present.
This will also expand your emotional language over time.
Engaging in this exercise will enrich your self-awareness and build your emotional intelligence putting you in full control over your emotions, offering you a deeper connection to yourself, helping you understand what makes you tick. It also helps build clarity, resilience to daily challenges and strong Mental Health along with self-compassion and compassion for others.
All feelings exist on a continuum, no emotion is either good or bad they are ALL part of our human experience and the more we experience our feelings the richer our world will become.
Are you ready to allow your pendulum to bring you peace?
Please note: If you are very fearful of your feelings or are experiencing high levels of anxiety its better to enlist a counsellor to help and support you through this exercise.
It may take many practice session to fully name, claim and tame your out of control emotions, take patience, calmness and self-compassion with you as your chosen tools of comfort.
"If you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed"
David Viscott
I offer a free 30 mins video call so we can meet before our first session. Contact me at email: pendulumofpeace8@gmail.com text or WhatsApp message to 07867938630 and lets connect and realise your fullest potentials.
Resources: Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence - Why it can matter more than IQ
Lisa Feldman Barrett - How Emotions are Made The secret life of the Brain
Kindle Edition
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