3 Things our emotions are trying to tell us

Emotions communicate important information to others and ourselves.

What on earth are emotions good for? Most of my clients want them to go away - stop the anxious feelings, the angry outbursts, the burning shame. But bring on the good emotions! Yeah, hate to tell you, but they are a package deal. And, believe it or not, they are super useful!

Emotions are trying to tell us…

Emotions are responses to what is going on in our internal or external worlds. Just like a rumbling tummy tells you to go eat, emotions tell you to go do something.

Something threatening? Fear appears and you run away or avoid the threat.

Rejection arises? Shame suggests you hide or avoid.

Loss or disappointment? There’s sadness to tell you to withdraw or isolate.

Sometimes, it’s uncomfortable to listen to these signals or to know what the heck to do with them, so we ignore them, shove them away. Bottle ‘em up - you’ll deal with them later, right?

Yeah, unfortunately, that’s not always the best approach. Just like caring for your physical needs, it’s healthy to listen to your emotions and figure out what they want. They will keep signalling until you listen to them! Often your emotional needs fall into two categories: your need to belong and your need to feel valued.

Our Need to Belong

Take loneliness, embarrassment, jealousy, love…these emotions all relate to your need to belong to a social group. The need to be accepted by others probably the one need that most often comes up in clients.

And for good reason! Consider the evolutionary advantage of the traits and behaviours that kept our ancestors in the tribe/clan/group/village/wherever versus thrown out to wander alone into the savannah.

The one who waves their arms and calls the lion over?

Not an advantageous trait or behaviour – get away from that person, they are a danger to the tribe!

The one who brings food to the tribe and shares?

Let’s keep this person around and this tribe will do well.

We Needed (capital N!) to be accepted by others. Think of how powerful some of the emotions are that signal this need: love, intimacy, insecurity, humiliation, rejection. These feelings motivate us to be part of a group.

When you feel these painful "I NEED to belong" feelings, your emotions are telling you to reach out. We became so familiar with this feeling in 2020.

Remember, you need to feel as though you belong and are connected – to your friends, families, and larger social groups (teams, clubs, religious groups, online communities, etc.). Self-care in this realm would look like participation, spending time with loved ones, setting boundaries, nurturing relationships, having work/life balance.

Again – like the self-care for physiological needs I wrote about in another blog post - notice the activities above are effortful activities. Liking a friend’s pic on Instagram or doing the doom scroll on Tic Tok probably doesn’t fill this need.

We need to feel valued by others, and ourselves.

Our need to feel valued

Emotions that remind us of the need to feel admired and valued by others are feelings of respect/disrespect, pride/shame, power, or ridicule.

What does it look like to be valued by others? You get appreciation, respect, status, or payment for your skills, talents, or knowledge. To take care of your self in this realm, look toward your hobbies, sports, or your profession, as they often fulfill this need to feel valued.

You likely have spent a lot of time and energy cultivating this aspect of your life. Self-care might be setting and meeting goals, bringing attention to your work in your hobby/profession, asking for constructive feedback from a superior, requesting fair renumeration for your knowledge or skill, recognizing and accepting the extent of our control in this arena (we can only control our actions, not what others think of us).

We need to value ourselves, too.

Our need to value ourselves

Our need to feel valued comes from others and from ourselves. How do we show ourselves we have worth?

You have a need for achievement, competence, or mastery. Some emotions arising from this need are feeling efficacious, confident, discouraged or inferior.

To fulfill this need, we can seek challenging activities that give us an opportunity to practice or develop our skills and give us feedback on how we are performing. Self-care in this context could be honing a skill, finding something new to learn, striving for excellence in a particular aspect of your profession, etc. 

Is it time to start listening to your emotions? Try once a day to check in and see what your being is trying to tell you.

Kira

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