Coming from a childhood home and marriage filled with abuse, emotion is not something I related to. At a very young age, I taught myself to not identify with emotion. As soon as I sensed anything resembling emotion, I would stuff and hide it immediately. I could not chance having my abusers think that they impacted me. Plus, having a narcissistic mother that preyed on any detectable emotions, it was best to keep them controlled and hidden.
As I have been in counseling throughout the years, the first thing they try to get me to do is, identify and connect to emotion. They show me a chart with different faces or expressive images, and say how do you feel? It doesn’t matter how they present it, I fail this part every time.
I have noticed, just recently, how automatic it is for me to disconnect and stuff any emotion. It does not even have time to come to the surface. I sense a shift in my body, and immediately, I respond by suppressing it. I am understanding now that responding this way is not healthy.
As I lay on ice after work, to control the symptoms from the brain trauma, I try to figure out what emotions I have had that day and did I stuff them. I use the process from an amazing book that I was given the impression to buy. It’s the book titled, “Emotional Intelligence” by Gill Hasson. (Purchase on Amazon.com) In this book the author walks you through the beginning of identifying your emotions. She says, “A good way to start identifying your emotions is to be more aware of the thoughts around them. Try keeping a ‘diary of emotions’ for a few days. Write down all events, big and small, that happened in the course of the week. Once you’ve listed some of the events, identify the thoughts you had.”
She then has you deconstruct the events you listed and carve out the emotion. “Deconstructing an emotion – disentangling what triggered the emotion from the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that occurs – can help you to see it as ‘just emotion’ rather than get caught up and overwhelmed by it. The idea is not to obsess and overanalyze your thoughts and behavior – just to notice the connections between events and emotions; thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Taking time to deconstruct an emotion can also create the space and time you need to respond appropriately.”
One of the examples given in Ms. Hasson’s book is, “realization that you forgot your friend’s birthday”, which is considered the event. Keep in mind that each event will have emotions, thought, physical feeling, and behavior. Here is how it would breakdown. The possible emotions that may come with this event is, “mild panic, irritation, and guilt.” The thought is, “shall I just send a text, phone her, or send a belated card”. The physical feeling is, “stomach flipped over”. Your behavior to the event is, “went to the shops to buy a card”.
Each event you can break down same way. I have found that you have to begin with an event that is not packed with emotion. For me, I won’t touch the event of my brain trauma. It is raw and highly sensitive for me right now. I have used events from my work day, such as, interaction with my boss, standing in line at the store, or seeing my children’s chores undone.
As I have broken down certain events I am surprised by the emotions that I sift out of it. When I think I am angry, the true emotion is usually irritated or disgusted. If I feel sad, it is usually disappointed or hopeless. One thing to keep in mind, “emotions are meant to move us, either towards something or away from something”, according to Ms. Hasson. So, once you figure out the emotion behind your events, you will be able to use it to make intelligent decisions; using your newly found skill in Emotional Intelligence.