How do you respond to BIG emotions? Here's the problem with "dealing" with your emotions should we do about them?

What do you do with your emotions?  Deny them?  Sweep them under the carpet?  A little side step?  Or do you face them head on, feel them, process them and then move on?

I’ve read three books recently all dealing with the topics of emotions and so it’s something I’m exploring in my own life right now.  The funny thing is, each of these books were very different – one was a parenting book, another was a personal development book, and the other is a book by Brene Brown.  How funny that they all had a similar message.

The problem that many or us have in “dealing” with our emotions is that we simply don’t allow ourselves to feel – the anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment… and as Brene Brown points out, if we are numb to the “bad” emotions, then we’ll be numb to the “good” ones, so avoiding emotions is never the answer.

When we deny our stories, or disengage from hard emotions, they don’t go away, instead they own us and then define us.

So why are we so inept with our emotions? It’s most likely to do with upbringing, or significant others around us, or perhaps the media and what society tells us is right. Perhaps some of these resonate with you?

• Being emotional may be seen as a sign of vulnerability, which may have been thought of as a weakness

• You may have been brought up in a household where emotions weren’t talked about – perhaps they were seen as self-indulgent?

• Or perhaps you were around people who were too numb to the feeling so there was simply nothing to discuss?

• Perhaps the uncertainty was seen as too uncomfortable, or that engaging in emotions would “invite trouble”?

Whatever the circumstance, it’s clear that people struggle with their emotions, or what to do with them.

Instead what we must do with them is own them. I’ve noticed this tendency in myself – that ability to export the blame. Ever found yourself saying: “You’re making me so angry… (or sad, frustrated, insert emotion)? But NO, no-one is making you angry... Your anger is yours and it’s your choice whether you feel angry or not.

I often think about mine and my husband’s approach to parenting. Our kids can be doing something that I find amusing and Alex finds frustrating, or vice versa something that drives me nuts and Alex finds hilarious. So their behaviour isn’t making Alex frustrated, or driving me nuts, we are doing that all on our own. That emotion, that feeling, is my choice. I chose to feel annoyed, frustrated by something.

Asking our partners, parents, kids, friends to take responsibility for our anger, sadness, shame, irritation is crazy when you think about it like this.

Instead we must OWN it – “I am feeling angry because…” is a much better way of showing someone else how you feel.

Try it for the next week and see how it goes!