How Are You? The Importance of Your Emotions
By: Bonnie Brown, PsyD
How are you? How’s it going? How have you been? These are frequently asked questions in social settings that have almost become a requirement to initiate a conversation. Social norms have stamped these phrases into our brains in such a way that the person answering often doesn’t actually answer honestly. Common responses might be: “Good, how are you?” or “I’ve been okay, how have you been?” Only later, in deeper conversation, do we find out that our speaking partner may not actually be “good” or “okay”. That being said, perhaps a response of “you know I’ve actually been pretty depressed lately and let me tell you why…” may not be the best way to begin a conversation depending on your audience. Regardless of the social rules in play, I urge everyone to actually take a moment to check in with your emotions. How are you feeling right now? If this is a relatively foreign concept to you, you have come to the right place.
Why does it matter if we know what we are feeling or not? Well, emotions are actually quite important to us and the world around us. First, emotions motivate and organize our behavior. They typically have “action urges” that have been a part of our biology since the beginning. These action urges can save us time by getting us to act quickly in important situations. An example might be when we see and hear a rattlesnake. If we experience fear, our action urge would likely be to move away from the threat of the snake. This does not mean that we react appropriately to every situation, or that acting on emotion can be used as an excuse. Our system can go haywire and produce inappropriate or inefficient action urges. Second, emotions communicate to others. Facial expressions, voice tone, and body language are ways in which we communicate how we’re feeling to the person with whom we’re communicating. Those ways of showing another person our emotions can even influence them, whether we intend to or not. Finally, emotions communicate important information to ourselves. They can be like signals, red flags, or alarms that plead with us to further examine what might be going on for us. An example might be a feeling of sadness. If there is no obvious stimulus that would produce sadness, such as loss, then we may look deeper within ourselves to try to identify why that sadness might exist. Perhaps that sadness is actually loneliness. That understanding can then help us set a goal to reach out to a friend.
Sometimes it’s hard to regulate our emotions for a variety of reasons. Biological factors, lack of skills, environmental reinforcement, and high emotional arousal can all increase vulnerability to struggling with emotion regulation. There are ways to reduce your vulnerability to “emotion mind”: 1) make appropriate changes in your life that will help you accumulate more positive emotions; 2) do things that make you feel competent and effective in order to reduce helplessness and/or hopelessness; 3) identify coping skills plans to help you feel prepared during future emotional situations; and 4) take care of both your mind and body by getting enough sleep, incorporating exercise, eating a balanced diet, and avoiding mood-altering substances.
Below are some common myths about emotions.
There is a right way to feel in every situation. This is, in fact, a complete myth. Feelings are a personal experience, and there is no governing body that identifies how someone should feel in any situation. There is also no wrong way to feel. It may be the case that the feeling or emotion you’re experiencing doesn’t actually fit the facts of the situation, in which case a re-examination of feelings would be appropriate. However, feelings are not “right” or “wrong” at all. Negative feelings are bad. This is an incredibly common myth that tends to increase fear. Anger and sadness are typically the “bad” feelings that people have either been taught they shouldn’t experience, or should be afraid that those feelings mean they’re weak. The truth is, no feelings are bad. They all help us understand ourselves, our needs, and the world around us. That information helps us move throughout our lives, and if we listen close enough, we can use that to our own advantage. Emotions can just happen for no reason. False. I commonly see my patients struggle with identifying their thoughts and related emotions. I often hear, “Well I know I felt sad, but it came out of nowhere.” Nope…it came out of somewhere. I encourage you to attempt to identify the thought or situation that goes along with that emotion. It may be something you can attend to, change, or set a goal about in order to increase or decrease the desired emotion. Extreme emotions get you a lot further than trying to regulate your emotions. This is also a myth. Some people may have grown up in an environment where extreme emotionality was the only way to be heard, or to get their needs met. That probably worked pretty effectively as a child, and maybe even now as an adult. Regulating emotions is not learning how to “numb” down your emotions, but rather learn effective coping skills to respond appropriately given the situation. A basic example of this is a baby crying for food. The baby only knows that crying gets her food so she continues to do that until she learns how to use her hands and words for food. As an adult, crying for food is likely less effective than going to your pantry or refrigerator, even though you may still want to cry because you want food.
It is likely that when someone asks you how you are doing, you don’t take adequate time to actually check in with yourself about how you’re doing in that moment. I encourage you to do more of that. When you first wake up, check in with your emotions. When you’re taking a break from work, ask yourself how you’re feeling and what you’re needing. Before going to bed, take some time to reflect on the different emotions you experienced throughout the day. This increase in awareness can help you to better identify what is and what is not working in your life, and possibly increase the control you have of your own happiness.