Have you ever wondered what it was and how it was possible to promote emotional awareness? Why is it important to develop it? The fact is that emotions exist because they provide us with valuable information, they help us to adapt to change and improve our social life, however, do we still know how to interpret what they are trying to tell us?
To make the most of them, it is essential to know how to identify and make sense of them, so we will know why they appear and what is the feeling of feeling one way or another in different situations.
“Knowing yourself is the principle of all wisdom. -Aristotle-
Encouraging emotional knowledge is critical to having good emotional intelligence, this means having criteria that allow us to identify and differentiate emotions, but not only in ourselves or others, but we will also understand why they appear and how they can help us. in this way, knowledge and emotional experience are the basis for being able to control them effectively and so that they do not cause excessive discomfort.
So, if we have developed little of our emotional knowledge, the reasons we have outlined are valuable enough to try to improve them. So how can we get to know each other emotionally?
To do this, it is possible to start making a weekly recording for a week or two, you will write down the emotions you experience throughout the day, as well as the situations in which they appeared, in this way you can highlight them and realize the predominant emotions. This recording will also allow us to realize that we often experience conflicting emotions.
To refine the identification ability, it’s good to ask a series of questions that need to be answered, such as “What emotion was this?”How do you know this emotion was about?Therefore, you will notice the data or evidence you observed that indicated that it was an emotion.
Once you have increased your emotional awareness and identified your emotions, it is time to enjoy them, the goal will now be to understand the function of these emotions and how they inspire us to act, in addition to understanding that each one has different thoughts, emotions. and intentions. In other words, we will foster this emotional knowledge in social interactions.
To do this, it is possible to work on understanding different situations, from those in which we are not involved, such as videos or stories outside of us, to the conflicts in which we have been involved and in which we have felt certain emotions.
Once we have identified the emotion and situation with which we want to work, it is advisable to divide it into sequences adapted to its evolution. For each of them, as well as for the different characters that appear, it will be necessary to analyze what they say or do, what they think and what emotion they felt.
In this way, we will become aware that emotions, thoughts and behavior are linked, but not only that, we will also understand that what we think and feel at different times does not necessarily have to match what others think and feel. we will understand this motivational function mentioned above that implies that emotions inform us and activate us to find what we need.
Like everything else in this life, emotional knowledge should be used in balance, it does not help us when we need it, but it does not help us when we are constantly paying attention to our own emotions and bodily sensations. we must also learn to soften the practice if we convey all the emotion we feel through this analysis, otherwise we run the risk of losing the dynamic power of emotions.
Change your attention and you will change your emotions. Change your emotion and your attention will change. -Frederick Dodson-
To do this, for a week, leave half an hour for yourself, during which you will allow yourself to think what worries you cannot get out of your mind, as well as feel unpleasant emotions without avoiding them. This exercise is not about having fun, in your own difficulty, but in leaving that constant concern that floods your daily life with this exclusive space of time.
So if this unpleasant emotion appears throughout the day, instead of spinning around your head without going anywhere, you’ll let go until half an hour is scheduled, in the meantime you should sit in a place in the house where you’re not interrupted. and set an alarm to sound after thirty minutes. Once you play, you should return to your daily activities.
It is surprising that once the mind is free of emotional contamination, logic and clarity emerge. -Clyde DeSouza-
With these three exercises you can promote emotional awareness, in order to use your emotions to develop your own physical and mental well-being. It’s normal to feel negative emotions, but it’s important to learn how to identify them so that they don’t appear as often, intensely or sustainly over time.
Images provided by Aral Tasher, Alejandro Alvarez and Averie Woodard.