Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking
about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about
their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball.
—DEBORAH TANNEN
Marianne thinks she's in control of her rage—she doesn't break dishes or slam doors anymore. However when she screams about the stupid kids leaving the dirty dishes on the $#@&* table, her family quakes.
Her anger is justified, she thinks, because there's too damn much for her to do. Yelling breaks loose the tension (for an hour or so) and coerces the family to step up to the plate. But there's a price for her anger: everyone else is testy long after her meltdown ends.
While Marianne relishes her emotions—even negative ones—others may keep feelings in the safe-deposit box at the bank, where they don't have to look at them. No matter how you handle emotions, they reflect our relationship to life— to children, body, thoughts, food, work, even the commute home. They help to connect with people, make decisions, and understand oneself.
Emotions come in all shapes: negative, positive, and neutral. And they come in all sizes:
Emotions help the brain quickly assess the world, communicate, and make decisions. However, emotions can run behavior and create an emotional stress cycle. They condition the mind to see from a narrow perspective. When you rage at someone you love or are too ashamed to take a risk in your career, emotions impinge on life.
Instead of being at the mercy of feelings (“I can't help that I yelled—I'm mad!”), transform emotional habits. The boosters at the end of the chapter can help change your relationship with emotions and create new pathways in the brain. Meanwhile, what are emotions, exactly?
Instead of being at the mercy of feelings, transform emotional habits.
Remember the game you played at birthday parties, where the mom would stick a name on your back and you had to guess what it was? That game replicates the internal drama of emotional life. As an adult, you know you're feeling something— you stomach is quivery—but it could be excitement, fear, or even arousal. Defining emotions is like guessing what's on the back of your shirt.
Emotions are everywhere, visible and invisible, and can underlie physical, spiritual, philosophical, and cognitive perspectives. But basically, emotions are combinations of physical sensation, thoughts, and the urge for action.
Did the cat get your tongue? Is your stomach jittery from that scary movie? Your body changes with emotions, from the knot in the chest to changes in blood pressure, sweat levels, and muscle tension. Focusing on the felt sense of your emotion —heat in your rib cage, for example—helps interrupt an emotional stress cycle.
Emotions hang out with conscious and unconscious thoughts. In fact, some say there's no difference between emotions and thoughts, while others say thoughts come first. No matter what, you can enter emotions anywhere—thought, sensation, action—to make a change, says meditation teacher Sally Kempton.
The word emotion—E-Motion—comes from the Latin word that means “to move.” Actions may be involuntary: a smile, cry, or lowered eyebrows. Or they involve choice: a yell, pout, or cuddling the baby. “The function of emotions is to get us moving very quickly without having to think,” says Charles Darwin.
Another function of emotions is to communicate with yourself and others.
If your stomach turns when you meet your sister's new fiancé, you know something's up. Exactly what is up may not be clear to you, even though others can tell that something's going on. Emotions are a universal language, according to pioneering researcher Paul Ekman. He brought pictures of people smiling, frowning, and grimacing to an isolated tribe in New Guinea. The tribe—living without the influence of televisions and movies—saw the same happiness, grief, and disgust as did other groups in the world.
Emotions are also key in making decisions. When a successful businessman had injuries affecting the part of his brain that governs emotion, it took him hours to decide where to eat. He analyzed the seating plan, menu, even management of restaurants. Emotions take precedence in the brain's wiring in decision making—intellect takes second place.
Your emotional limbic system is about the size of a fist in the middle of your head. (See Figure 4.1.) It consists of many organs (such as the amygdala and hippocampus) and is in continuous communication with the logical and rational cortices. It is wrapped around the brain's movement system and sits just above the brainstem and spinal cord.
Figure 4.1. The limbic system is the emotional center of the brain.
The amygdala, the central component of the limbic system, has roles in speech, face recognition, and translating facial expressions. It also is a short-circuit alarm system. The amygdala tells you. “Hey! Jump back!” before your intellect— the prefrontal cortex—reminds you it's a stick on the path, not a snake.
The cingulate gyrus coordinates sensory input with emotions and regulates aggressive behavior. And the hippocampus stores memories.
The brain and body are cohorts in emotional reactions. When you change body patterns, says Feldenkrais practitioner Carrie Lafferty, you change emotional patterns as well. This is especially true in the face. Dr. Ekman made faces while studying how individual muscles formed expressions. He found that angry grimaces brought the same bodily response as normal anger did: increased pulse rate, blood pressure, and body tension. A little smile may not make you happy that it's raining, though it could change your relationship to the weather.
Even botox may change emotions. An anxious woman didn't respond well to medication. But she became more relaxed and happier when botox eliminated the perpetual crease between her eyes.
The body doesn't just reflect emotions, it also triggers them, according to the ancient arts of yoga and other practices. Science is catching on.
My friend Rosa was a successful Web designer. She always had a positive comment to share about work, entertaining, or adventures with her husband. Over a period of months, though, she became cranky, tense, and touchy. Her husband irritated her, her job was boring, and dinner parties were too much work.
Therapy, job hunt, exercise—nothing helped. Then her doctor uncovered low levels of thyroid in her blood test. Rosa found that as her thyroid came back to normal, her husband became sweeter, her job more satisfying, and cooking a delight.
Rosa's husband and boss didn't change at all—her emotions transformed as her hormones were balanced.
Emotions can occur because of what happens to you, but changes in the body, conscious thoughts, unconscious beliefs, attitudes, even your environment affect feelings.
Physical
Mental
Environmental
Eliminating triggers can help smooth some emotions. However, no matter how many triggers you remove, life has its bumps. If your emotions are taking you for a ride—you're overwhelmed, repressed, or harm yourself or others, it's time to create some new emotional roads.
The following boosters are all different paths to the same location: having emotions without letting emotions have you. They cover thoughts, body sensations, and actions. They come from months of research as well as decades of experience in meditation, yoga, energy psychology, Feldenkrais, Restful Insomnia (a program designed to renew during sleepless nights), and Paradox Management (a system of practical spirituality).
Emotions can be volatile for some, so as you choose a new path, go slowly and monitor your comfort and reactions. While these suggestions work for many people, be sure you have support as needed. (It doesn't hurt!) A therapist can help you determine how these boosters may work for you or suggest other paths.
Emotional Boosters: Thoughts Thoughts can ignite feelings—and may change them as well. Some individuals combine focus on body, actions, and thoughts to transform their relationship to emotions.
Marianne, who ranted at her family, first rants at herself. “I'm a horrible parent, the kids are lazy, and it will never get better.” Changing her inner talk can change her emotions:
If your negative self-talk is on automated replay, it generates shame, questioning, and fear—even rage, control, and addictions. There's not much room for the real you to shine. As Monk Matthieu Ricard said, you can cover gold with mud, but that “does not change the nature of gold itself.” (You're the gold, by the way.)
We all have a critic, but when it strangles the lovely inner self, it's time for action. You can change your relationship to the self-critic even if you can't eliminate it.
Some people don't hear the critical voice, they just feel bad inside. That may be the sense of shame, “a painful belief in one's basic defectiveness as a human being,” according to the authors of Letting Go of Shame. The physical experience of shame tells you when your self-critic is going haywire. It's a good reminder to check your self-talk for unseen critical grenades.
Blame is a mind-trap for emotions, especially anger. Marianne applied plenty of blame, ranting about her lazy kids. It's easy to think others will make you happy, but it's more useful to look at changing yourself.
Marianne turned her blame around. Then she focused on how to be a better parent, instead of wanting her kids to fix her feelings.
Befriend your emotions to find new ways to relate them. Start by relaxing the body, noticing sensations, and letting answers to these questions arise.
Emotional Boosters: Body and Sensations With intense emotions, it's not just thoughts that drive you crazy, it's the body. Who wants a nauseous stomach, furrowed brow, and rapid heartbeats? The impulse is to get rid of what bothers you, not feel it more.
However, feelings don't last forever, especially when you experience them, learn what lessons they offer, and create a new relationship with them. A soothing anchor helps you make friends with your emotions. Your breath, body awareness, and/or energy psychology (touching places on the skin to shift emotions) are quite helpful, as are therapists and support groups.
Here are the steps meditation teacher Sally Kempton offers as a means for expanding and understanding emotions anchored by body awareness.
Stay with this sense of cradling your feelings. Emotions may shift from anger to sadness to understanding as you shift to a new perspective.
If your emotions are telling your body to move, let it … with awareness and without making someone else the target.
Studies show that individuals who try to keep emotions in check stress their health. A good cry is better than feeling stalked by sadness. Discussions abound whether expressing anger increases or releases it? From my perspective, expressing anger releases emotional tension from your body. However, expressing blame fans the flames of faulting someone else.
Even Darwin knew that expressing emotions is good for the brain. “Passivity in grief,” he said “loses the best chance of recovering the elasticity of the mind.”
However, expressing the cycle of panic may make it worse, since fearful behavior tends to keep people on guard. Keep reading for techniques to work with fear.
Fear has a life of its own. The reaction to a fearful experience or thought (eyes wide, breath held, hypersensitivity) leads to the belief that there's something to worry about. While there could be something to worry about—an erratic car or an abusive partner—if might just be your own fearful images. (The book The Gift of Fear is useful for sorting out fear in relationships.)
Emotional Boosters: Actions You're wired to react to emotions. Sometimes that is useful. Other times—when you want to give a rude hand gesture on the freeway—it gets you in trouble. In the heat of the moment, it may be hard to change your ingrained response. That's what renowned couples' therapists Dr. John and Julie Gottman call emotional “flooding.” It puts a standstill to effective arguments, because couples can't think until they've calmed down.
Try these methods to help change your short- and long-term response to emotions.
Emotional intensity fades if you're not pumping the same intense thoughts in your brain.
The intensity of emotions may fade as your basic body needs are met. Drink some water, have something nutritious when you're hungry, take a 20-minute snooze or 20-minute walk outside, take some fish oil. Exercise. Move into a heart-expanding posture. Sleep or relax at night.
Energy Psychology, detailed in chapter 2, is a category of various techniques that use touch, Eastern healing, and body-focused movements to transform the hold of emotions. Examples are EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), TFT (Thought Field Therapy), and TAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique). Try them out. They may seem odd at first but they can really help.
You've probably heard that exercise helps emotion. Do you know why? Exercise:
Row, square dance, jump rope, swim, tango, fence roller blade. Stretching and yoga release emotions from a tense body.
You can ease the heartbreak of a bad relationship through art. A friend made a bright red collage with torn pictures, deceitful letters, and graffiti across it. Not beautiful, but it released the rage. Art helps cancer patients and grief groups heal. Creativity engages the brain and changes the relationship to intense emotion. Brain activity measured after painting and drawing, according to a study at Hines Veterans Hospital in Illinois, was statistically different than activity measured at a resting state. Play with creative emotional expression.
Stretch your feelings; try on the opposite emotion. If you're jealous of your friend's art show, remember how much you like her sense of humor. You'll balance the spiral of resentment in others and yourself.
People huff and puff when they're angry, or hold their breath when scared. In fact, most people regularly hold residual air in their lungs.
Before you “take a deep breath,” release. Start with a l-o-n-g outbreath, say 5 seconds. Exhale the air from your tiny bronchioles on the edges of your lungs … could be the air you inhaled when your computer froze this morning. The next inhale just arises, deep and natural.
Change your mood with songs and music. Dancing releases tension, singing helps you breathe, and the rhythm of music changes your heart beat. Familiar tunes remind you of good times. Sad songs are great for a cry—try Emmy Lou Harris or John Mayer.
Laughter helps you breathe. It dissolves tension, stress, anxiety, anger, grief, and depression. Laughter boosts your immune system, reduces pain by releasing endorphins, and integrates both hemispheres of your brain. It's the shock absorber for life. (See chapter 2 for more on laughter.)
Read some Dave Barry, surf joke Web sites, or pretend to laugh. Could be contagious.
Emotions become great teachers, once you accept and watch them. You learn who you are, how you make choices, what triggers loneliness, which friends feel right to spend time with. According to Dr. Ekman, emotional awareness teaches you to be
Emotional learning stretches the brain, even if there's no SAT test for your emotional intelligence. By befriending your emotions, you'll affect your ability to think, plan, and be present to the moment.