Is it possible to be too emotional? Many of you might say, “Yes, of course, my 5 yr old just had a meltdown” or “my teenager just punched a wall” or “I just melted down because the foam on the top of my latte wasn’t foamy enough”. We’ve all had those moments in life when we think, “why did I get so upset?”. Having moments is human, learning from those moments makes us mature humans.
While in session I work with my clients to sit in the emotion, feel the emotion and put emotion into words. With knowledge of emotion comes empowerment. Learning to define how you feel when you feel it gives you the ability to decide how to respond to your emotion. Sitting in a very uncomfortable emotion and learning how your body and mind respond with thoughts, feelings and behaviors is the first step to choosing to respond and avoid unwanted reactions or behaviors.
Often our emotional reactions are rooted from our experience in our family system. Have you ever had the moment when you said, “Oh my gosh, I just sounded like my mom” or “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I just said the same thing my father used to say”? If you have, you’re certainly not the first! Through natural social interaction we pick up behaviors, thinking and language from our parental figures. Often what is more subtle is our ability to emotionally process. As parents, we think that as we teach our children to share or assist them through a tantrum that we are teaching them how to process. More profoundly, children learn to process through observing a parent’s ability to process emotion or manage various life events.
Cognitive behavior therapy can assist in identifying core beliefs developed through our life relationship and experiences. The beliefs often formed through our nuclear families influence the way we interpret and process information observed during life events. Depending on the health of those beliefs we either find healthy ways to process or develop potential cognitive distortions which can result in unhealthy, unwanted processing behaviors. Behaviors can be things like: melting down when stressed, isolating, withdrawing, lashing out verbally or even physically. Regardless of the behavior there is hope!
The first step is to take time to identify the unwanted behavior and how it negatively impacts your life. Next, write down the negative thoughts that come with the unwanted behavior. Lastly, define the emotion connected to the thoughts and the behavior. The result is a triangle of behavior, thoughts and feelings that will empower you to re-frame and create a positive outcome. Emotions are never the “cause” but only a symptom or indicator to a much bigger picture. I charge that we can never be too emotional when we are empowered to respond as emotionally healthy humans.
