Many of us were surprised by how our emotions took over in an important meeting in the middle of a speech—suddenly, our emotions manifested big and overwhelming.
With so many eyes watching, people were waiting. But we couldn’t talk. Our emotions have intensified to their total capacity.
We choked up. We couldn’t stop sobbing. We needed a break. We stormed out. We froze. We threw our hands up because it was too hard. It was impossible.
If you have experienced these, you must know this is how everyone else feels. The only difference is that they found ways of managing emotions, and we need to learn a skill to help us when our emotions take over.
One way to help us is to learn self-empathy by connecting to our feelings and needs. This practice helps us become more skilled at learning about ourselves.
When we have learned about our emotional patterns and the most profound needs, creating constant shifting becomes possible.
In real-time, we notice changes in our emotions as we speak while interacting with others or in front of an audience. Instead of letting our triggered emotions roll into a snowball, we simultaneously connect to our feelings and needs as we speak. If you have watched any conference with simultaneous translations to allow people to understand different languages, you get what I am saying here. The only difference is that we are doing all the translation inside us.
It’s beautiful that our bodies experience big emotions and feelings because they tell us something important about ourselves. Regulating them is critical for many of us to continue doing what we do in even the most emotionally charged situations and times.
Our emotions are our friends, not barriers. Instead of avoiding or suppressing them, we connect them to understand ourselves.
