by David Damon, a Doxa counselor
Why do we feel? Are emotions things to be conquered and controlled, or are they tools that guide us in sometimes strange and confusing ways?
Many of us grow up learning only the bare bones of how to make sense of our emotions. We learn the names of the major emotions, what it ‘feels’ like to have them, and eventually ascribe value to them. It often goes a little bit like this:
I like how it feels to be happy, because when I am happy, I get things done, have fun, feel connected to others around me, and can enjoy the little things. Alternatively, I dislike feeling sad, because when I am sad, I struggle to get going, lose motivation, and feel distant from those around me.
Children with this value framework of emotions learn the lesson, “Being ‘happy, playful, confident, and accepted’ is better than being ‘sad, anxious, angry, or embarrassed’ therefore I should always choose happy over sad.” The child learns that they should avoid the “negative” emotions and harness the “positive” emotions to bolster their quality of life.
However, this framework is quickly challenged by life. Emotions can start to feel fickle and wild. Days when everything seems good can still fill one with dread and panic. As control slips from one’s grasp, the mind panics to find a solution. Thoughts swirl into:
“Why do I feel anxious?” – “There is nothing wrong. I shouldn’t feel anxious.” – “It’s all in my head. I just need to think positively.” – “I don’t feel better.” – “What am I doing wrong?” – “Being anxious isn’t going to do anything. You have things to do.” – “I’m still anxious. There must be something wrong with me.” – “I need to work harder.”
When emotions are whims to be controlled, having negative emotions is a sign of weakness, and places the fault on the individual if they can’t “pull themselves out of it”.
But were emotions designed to be controlled, and if not, how do we understand their purpose?
Emotional Senses
A sensory framework provides a new perspective on this question. As opposed to a values-based framework, a sensory framework explores emotions as a sensory experience that guides us in our decision-making, either toward what is rewarding, or away from what is painful.
Our emotional senses guide us much in the way our physical senses do; towards a sweet smell, away from spoiled food, to quickly remove our hand from a hot stove, or to wrap ourselves in a warm blanket. Both emotional and physical senses pick up on subtle to obvious cues from the world around us, evaluate their meaning, and use that meaning to guide us towards wellbeing.
The senses learn to decipher meaning through experience and sensation and are always trying to be helpful in their guidance. Here is a story to demonstrate emotions as sensations:
A young child finds herself unexpectedly separated from her mother. The emotion of panic/sadness picks up on the environmental cues of the sudden loss of an important safety figure and disorientation. Panic/sadness understands these cues to mean that there is a lack of safety, a loss of relationship, and that they are unseen by their caregiver. This is seen as a potentially dangerous experience that should be fixed as soon as possible. Panic/sadness then sends an emotional signal to guide the child towards wellbeing. The signal innate to all mammals is to express their distress so that their caregivers can notice them and tend to their needs. Here the young child cries out, drawing the attention of her mother, who then draws near and comforts her. The cues for panic/sadness are no longer present, and the emotional signal fades.
Helpfulness of Emotions
So, if emotions are neutral sensations that try to guide us towards wellbeing, why is it that they often seem to get in the way of our wellbeing?
Emotions react instinctually to certain cues with an emotional/physical response. Anger responds to the cue of a blocked goal with the response of energy and passion. Fear responds to the cue of an uncertain threat with the emotional response of vigilance and increased mental/physical responsiveness. Excitement also responds with vigilance and responsiveness, but to the cue of uncertain reward guiding the individual towards the unknown, instead of away.
These are instinctual responses designed to be helpful. Our emotional sensations are designed to be highly adaptable, learning to interpret cues and patterns more effectively, adding nuance and complexity to meaning, and developing alternative strategies born from what has and hasn’t worked in the past. Each time an emotion is activated, it incorporates new information from the experience. This adaptability can greatly increase the emotional sense’s ability to recognize the world around the individual and guide them toward greater wellbeing.
Unfortunately, this adaptability can also twist the helpfulness of our emotional sense. The more distressing and confusing a situation, the more your brain must adapt. In situations where our emotional responses fail to promote wellbeing, the brain and body are left highly distressed and confused.
This state of intense distress triggers adaptation that conflicts with what has already been learned by the emotional sense, and this fractures its development. Fracturing in this way can lead the emotional sense to misinterpret cues, confuse meanings, and guide the individual towards more short-term solutions.
Here we will return to our story above, altering the ending to better understand how these fractures play out:
- The young child guided by panic/sadness cries out for their mother longing to reunite. Their cries draw the attention of their mother, but instead of bringing about connection and comfort, the child is met with anger, harshness, emotional separation, and a continuation of panic. In seeking reconnection through crying out to be seen, they have somehow made the situation worse for themselves. Confused and distressed, panic/sadness desperately attempts to adapt to the experience, internalizing a conflictual meaning, “If I express my distress, it makes things worse. I need to figure it out by myself.”
- Now, as a young adult, she finds herself in a place where she is struggling with a project at her workplace. There are coworkers who could lend a helping hand, but her internal cue to “figure this out for myself so that I don’t make things worse” overrides her internal cue to “reach out for help.” The first message is trying to help her to stay safe in her relationships, but it is actually leading her away from connection and towards isolation (and maybe even failure at her project).
There are countless ways an emotional sense can become confused and become more harmful than helpful. Despite the result of harm, it is important to remember that the emotional senses have reasons for being the way that they are, and they are always trying to promote wellbeing regardless of their effectiveness.
How to Train Your Emotions
With the framework that emotions are a sensory tool that attempts to promote wellbeing and adapt to experience, we can develop a plan to help our emotions help us.
To retrain our emotions is to intentionally guide our emotional responses towards a strategy that:
- Accurately meets the core longings of the emotion
- Provides a meaningful and clear resolution
The first step of retraining is to develop emotional intentionality. Becoming intentional in this way means not only being aware of what is happening, but also making active and centered decisions of how to respond. To be reactive (the opposite of intentionality) is to be swept into the moment and respond out of instinct.
The intentional mind considers the first two parts of our framework (emotions as a sensory tool, and that attempts to promote wellbeing), and asks themselves the questions:
- What are the cues my emotion is wanting me to pick up on?
- How is this emotion trying to help me?
- What is my plan to promote my wellbeing?
The next step in retraining is to create a planned strategy that considers the core longings and provides a clear resolution.
Considering the core longings means respecting the purpose of the emotions. For example, with anger, its purpose is to build up energy to respond to a blocked goal, so your plan would, in part, be directed to responding to that blocked goal.
A strategy that provides a clear resolution is intentional steps toward a goal with the acceptance of potential risks and consequences. Regardless of how favorable the outcome, the clarity of taking steps and accepting risks works to piece together the fractured messages of past experiences.
However, there are times when there is a need to act in a way that contrasts the longings of our emotions, such as: confronting a fear, engaging in a vulnerable conversation, or even letting go of a desired goal.
At these times, it is important to remember that emotions, at the end of the day, are sensory tools that help us make decisions. As we make informed, intentional decisions that accept risk and promote long-term wellbeing, our emotions learn to trust us, and we learn to trust them.