How to Increase Emotional Awareness by Lim Swee Chen
Counsellor
If you've ever attended counselling or therapy, you're likely familiar with the question, "How do you feel about that?" Sometimes, it can feel repetitive or even annoying. But have you ever stopped to ponder why psychologists, counsellors, or psychotherapists place such emphasis on your emotions? This simple yet profound question serves as a gateway to self-reflection, providing clarity and insight into your inner world. It offers your psychologists, counsellors, or psychotherapists valuable insights into your emotional landscape, paving the way for personal growth and understanding of behavioural patterns. Whether or not we’re aware of them, our emotions are the driving force behind much of our thinking, feeling, and behaviour.
The Impact of Emotions on Our Lives
Emotions, rooted in our bodies, significantly impact our work and personal relationships, influencing our motivation, time management, and career choices. They guide how we live our lives and create meaning, affecting every decision we make. When we lack awareness of our emotions, we become vulnerable to being controlled by them, living out scripts without ever questioning their validity.
Consider this: Imagine you have a deadline approaching at work, and you're feeling overwhelmed. Without emotional awareness, you might react impulsively, snapping at colleagues or procrastinating further. However, by recognising your feelings of stress and acknowledging their source, you can respond more effectively, perhaps by breaking down tasks into manageable chunks or seeking support from a supervisor.
The Importance of Emotional Awareness
Emotional awareness serves as the cornerstone for making informed decisions that align with our best interests. It fosters openness to life's experiences, encourages vulnerability, facilitates goal pursuit, and equips us with the tools to navigate interpersonal conflicts with grace and resilience. By recognising, identifying, accepting, and understanding our emotions, we lay the groundwork for enhanced emotional and physical well-being, enabling us to lead purposeful and gratifying lives.
Imagine a scenario where you're in a disagreement with a loved one. Without emotional awareness, you might escalate the conflict, unable to articulate your feelings or understand theirs. However, by tuning into your emotions and recognising their significance, you can approach the situation with empathy and compassion, fostering deeper connection and resolution.
Emotion Regulation: The Key to Balance
Emotion regulation lies at the heart of managing our inner world. It empowers us to navigate the ebb and flow of our feelings with grace and resilience. To cultivate this skill, we must first learn to:
1. Identify Your Emotions:
Simply naming our emotions can be a powerful tool for regulation. This might sound too simple to be true. However, research by Matthew D. Lieberman and colleagues suggests that affect labelling—putting feelings into words—can diminish emotional reactivity by modulating activity in the brain's amygdala. This process fosters increased activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), facilitating emotional management.
2. Understand What Emotions Do for You:
It can be hard to change emotions when you do not understand where they come from or why they exist. Emotions serve as motivational cues, facilitate communication, signal environmental significance, and provide invaluable information about our circumstances.
Common Myths About Emotions
To further debunk misconceptions surrounding emotions, you can explore our detailed guide here.
Link: https://www.thecounsellingplace.com/blog/nbwgbr81mrhk4136bx6nki35a1z8av?rq=emotion
The Feelings Wheel
The feelings wheel is a powerful tool for enhancing emotional literacy, revealing the complexity of emotions and aiding individuals in understanding and processing their own and others' feelings more effectively.
Exercise: Building Emotional Awareness
Let's embark on a brief exercise to sharpen your emotional awareness:
1. Notice/Observe:
Recall a time when you were last experiencing a strong uncomfortable emotion. What physical sensation did you experience? Do you have tension anywhere?
2. Label the Emotion:
What feeling (on the wheel) does this sensation fit with? (e.g., butterflies could represent anxiety, heaviness can represent sadness, and heat can represent anger)
3. Adopt / Allow:
Can you acknowledge and accept this emotion?
4. Need:
What need is the emotion alerting you to? (e.g., anxiety = reassurance or safety, sadness = solace/comfort, anger = boundary needed/violation).
5. Action:
What do you need to do to fulfil this need? (e.g., anxiety = I need reassurance/safety, sadness = I need solace/comfort, anger = I need to assert myself and set a boundary).
I know this can be difficult if this is the first time you are practicing this exercise. Here’s another way to think of it: imagine you are feeling hungry. You notice your stomach rumbling, you label it as hunger, you accept this hunger, and then you identify the need for food or water. The last step is to eat food or drink water.
Using Apps to Increase Emotional Awareness
In recent years, several apps have emerged to facilitate emotional awareness and mood tracking. These tools offer tailored guidance for identifying emotions and monitoring mood fluctuations. Consider exploring options like Daylio, which enables users to record their moods and activities effortlessly, providing valuable insights through statistics and charts.
Conclusion
By nurturing our emotional awareness and honing our ability to regulate our feelings, we embark on a journey towards greater self-understanding and fulfilment. It's not just about understanding our emotions intellectually but also about engaging with them actively in our daily lives. So, the next time your therapist asks, "How do you feel about that?" remember, it's not just a question—it's an invitation to explore the depths of your inner world and to start actively participating in your emotional journey.
One powerful way to enhance emotional awareness is by practicing the exercise outlined earlier. Take the time to notice and observe your emotions, label them using the feeling wheel as a guide, and then explore what these emotions are telling you about your needs. By adopting and allowing these emotions, you can begin to develop a healthier relationship with them, ultimately leading to greater emotional resilience and well-being.
Getting Counselling Support
Embarking on the journey to emotional awareness is courageous, but you don't have to go it alone. As your counsellor and therapist, I'm here to offer support, guidance, and personalised strategies. Reach out for assistance; Psychologists, counsellors, and psychotherapists provide encouragement and resources. Remember, increasing emotional awareness takes time, but each step brings you closer to a fulfilling life. Schedule a session with me at The Counselling Place and take the next step towards self-discovery.