I
Figure out feelings. Understand conflict.
Feelings are an important component of understanding, analyzing and handling life's conflicts.
Your brain and your emotional life
There's a wide variety of feelings and words that describe feelings. They are derived from the five core emotions:
joy, anger/rage, fear, surprise, and sadness.
The absolute reality is, the emotions are always there and whether we accept their existence or try to
avoid
them (see Day 2) everyone has a rich, varied and complex emotional life.
The limbic system, which developed much more recently in evolution after the nervous system and brain stem, is where the emotional life resides. After that, and much more recently in evolutionary terms, came the logical brain. The reality is, although the logical brain can try to dominate the feeling brain, the emotions can and will always take over. We survived as a species because of the feeling brain--it is essential for our existence.
Make friends with feelings
Feelings are an important component of what makes everyone human. Some of us have been taught that we should push down or ignore feelings, that any emotional expression or acknowledgment of our feelings will indicate our own personal weakness. Nope. Your hard work is to understand where your individual feelings come from. This is your lifelong job. We are all responsible for what we do with our feelings, no one else. And we can't take responsibility without spending a bit of time examining our own personal emotional life. Its not a quick process and requires learning how to self reflect. Relax. Look inward. Give yourself a break.
Name that feeling
We describe our feelings with a myriad of vocabulary terms. Only the individual person can pick the accurate term. Below is a list of feeling words, take a look and broaden your vocabulary. Naming an emotion has a powerful effect. Saying to yourself, I am feeling frustrated and also a bit hesitant is a much more developed internal dialogue as compared to the basic sad•mad•glad construction. Our words clarify our narrative. Our narrative has a big effect on how we approach challenges.
Feelings and conflict
First the internal part. If you are having a conflict and you are participating in the conflict, your emotions are tied up with some component of the conflict. We don't have conflicts if we don't care. And caring comes from an emotional place. Ask yourself some self reflective questions.
What am I feeling? Do I know why I am feeling this way? Does it fit a pattern? Is there a long term memory involved?
And before you do or say anything you can't take back, consider the other person and their feelings.
What are they feeling? Why do you think that is so? Can you check to see if you are right?
Exploring feelings, with a light touch, both internally and with the other person can help to set the stage for productive communication and problem solving.
Emotional hijackers
One important part of the limbic system awesomeness is the fight•flight•freeze trio of hijackers. When we are highly emotionally charged, one of the those three take over. Big idea: It takes 20 minutes or more for you or anyone else to get back to normal after a fight•flight•freeze event. 20 minutes--not 30 seconds. That means in a conflict, you need to let yourself and the other person take a very long break before trying to engage your cerebral brain and work to resolve the conflict.
Conflict resolution and emotions
When you are engaging in a difficult conversation, find the right place to insert your own feelings. Here's a sometimes successful technique. Decide what you are feeling. Ask the other person,
Would you like to know how I am feeling?
If they say no, do not offer it. If they say yes, tell it in a neutral and not blaming way. If another person tells you how they are feeling, accept it as entirely and fully true. Never deny someone is feeling the way they say they are feeling. On flip side, don't take responsibility for other's feelings. We are all responsible for our own feelings. Other's actions affect us and may be the reason for the feeling. Blaming others for how you feel is counter productive. It does not help and sets up a lose • lose scenario.
Do this
:
- Take a look at the feeling list (below). Set your timer for an interval of time--maybe an hour or two. As you go about your day, check in regularly on your emotional inner life. Write down the feeling words that best describe you throughout a few days. Is your list widely varied? Are you finding terms that fit you on both lists--needs satisfied/needs not satisfied?
- If you are seeing the same feeling word listed often, take some time to think about that feeling. Is there a pattern in your life that is related? Do you need someone to talk to about this?
- Listen when someone says they are feeling a certain way and accept what they are saying. You can respond by saying,
- Is there a way I can help ? (action) or
- I'm sorry you feel that way. (empathy) or
- Let me know if you want to talk about feeling _____?(communicate).
- Tell the conflict story, either to yourself on paper or in recording or to another trusted person. Make sure to describe your feelings. Can you figure out what needs, values or aspect of identity the feelings relate to? This is your conflict narrative. By reviewing our own conflict narrative, we can sometimes figure out a new a creative approach to resolving the conflict.
Here's a long clip from the movie Inside Out--brilliant tutorial on emotions
Inside Out: The Movie
The clip is a bit disjointed, better to watch the whole movie if you can.
If you missed Day 1, 2 or 3, here they are:
Tomorrow there will be a quiz! It will be fun...I hope.
