Why it is important to understand your feelings
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Many of us find ourselves weighed down, or even overwhelmed by the roller coaster of emotions that we experience daily.
It's only natural to want to shy away from the discomfort they bring, especially when we're pressed for time or unsure how to navigate them. Yet, by avoiding our emotions, we inadvertently cut ourselves off from their vital functions.
Emotions aren't just fleeting sensations; they're messengers, catalysts for necessary change, and guides to understanding ourselves better. They can foster self-trust, ignite connections, fuel motivation, and unveil deeper meanings in our lives. Its high time we partner with our emotions, embracing them for the profound role they play in our well-being and personal growth.
They can foster self-trust, ignite connections, fuel motivation, and unveil deeper meanings in our lives. Its high time we partner with our emotions, embracing them for the profound role they play in our well-being and personal growth.
There are 3 components to feelings:
1. Subjective experience: How your mind understands it.
All emotions begin as a subjective experience also called stimulus. While basic emotions are expressed by all individuals, the experience that produces them and how they react to it is highly subjective.
For example, a particular song might invoke a feeling of love and nostalgia in one person while someone else may experience the opposite or nothing at all.
2. Physiological response: How your body responds to it.
Based on the subjective experience, then the autonomic nervous system reacts which leads to the physiological experience or our body's reaction to it.
Taking the song example again, the person experiencing happiness might feel an increase in heart rate or goosebumps whereas the one feeling opposite might feel sad or a pit in their stomach.
3. Behavioural response: How you respond to it.
This is the final state- the actual expression of the emotion. These emotions could be laughing, screaming, having, tears, or any range of reactions. In essence, our emotions not only connect us to others but help us connect to our core beings and take us one step closer to better, healthier relationships with others and ourselves.
