Have you ever watched the people all around you for a time? If so, then you may contemplate that each person has an emotional inner world, rich with feelings and emotions.
Everyone is the center of their personal story, with their own successes, failures, struggles and victories. Everyone wants to live a happy life, but why is that sometimes so difficult?
One theory within psychology reveals that perhaps humans did not evolve to have happy lives, but rather are simply designed to survive. If this is true, it may change the game rules a little.
Your job will become one of understanding how you inhabit a mind and body designed to survive, not feel happiness.
You still want to live the best life you can.
This article teaches why emotions are so important, and lets you think about some ways in which emotions interfere with your life.
Why do humans have emotions?
Emotions motivate humans and lead us to wish to do certain things. They help to guide your decisions every day, every hour, every minute.
Your thoughts, in addition to the world around you, trigger emotional responses quite often.
Much of your life is motivated by wanting to hold onto positive feelings and steer clear of negative feelings.
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence, also known as EI, is a person’s ability to:
- Perceive
- Interpret
- Demonstrate
- Control
- Evaluate
- And Use...
... emotions to effectively communicate with others constructively and effectively. These abilities are essential, as is your ability to interpret, understand and then respond to emotions displayed by other people.
It is sometimes said that EI is more important for a successful life than a high IQ (intelligence quotient).
How can you better understand your emotions?
There are many ways you can gain insight into your own emotions. You have to identify and recognize them before you move on to explore the ways they make you think, behave and feel.
Here are some of the most important:
Recognize emotional thinking
Black & white thinking – Sometimes you may ignore shades of gray and be unforgiving and inflexible.
Jumping to opinions – You may reach a conclusion before you have all the necessary information.
Paranoid thinking – If you are feeling vulnerable, you may become paranoid.
Emotive judgement – You may jump too quickly to make judgements, based not on facts, but on feelings.
Irrational thinking – You may ignore reason and make decisions without the consideration they deserve.
Practice self-compassion
At times, you may judge yourself harshly, even more harshly than you might do with others.
Practicing self-compassion mindfully may help you to explore, then engage with memories, experiences and feelings that are held deeply. This will help you to treat yourself more kindly.
Talk about your feelings
Talking about your problems with someone who cares and supports you will help you to see things more clearly.
It will also give you time to focus and use perspective and logic, which leads to:
Reduced feelings of anxiety and threat
Normalized emotions, where you recognize that your feelings are much like those that others experience.
Practice reflection and reappraisal
While you experience many emotions during any given day, it may be helpful to revisit them, to increase your emotional intelligence.
If you want to make changes in your life, you need to understand your emotions and whether your responses were emotional or logical.
Conclusion
There is no definitive balance of human emotions. Each person’s combination might not work for someone else. Each emotion is valuable in its own way. However, you need to maintain some control over behaviors and emotions, to keep your life balanced.
There are times when it’s logical to be angry, and times when it’s logical to be happy.
Making the journey to understand your emotions will lead to emotional intelligence, which will help you to form bonds with others and keep your life more controlled and balanced.
References
https://positivepsychology.com/understanding-emotions/#ways
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-emotional-intelligence-2795423
