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Dive into the intricate world of feelings and their profound impact on our lives. Empower yourself with the art of understanding and managing your sensations.
Key points
1
Emotions are information to be processed
The emotions we feel are reactions to the things happening in our internal and/or external environments. For instance, you'll naturally get angry if your child mistakenly broke your laptop screen the morning you're supposed to use it for a presentation. That anger is a natural response from your brain upon realizing the implication of what your child just did.
Emotions are your body's way of interpreting events.
Psychologists have classified emotion into integral and incidental. Integral emotions are the ones you have because of the situation at hand. For instance, that feeling of anger from our example above is a type of integral emotion.
Incidental emotions on the other hand have nothing to do with the current happenings around you. Let's say after the screen broke, you stormed out of the house in a hurry so you could arrive at the office early and find a way to still do your presentation. But what happens in the morning affects the way you drive to work and even how you interact with colleagues. That's incidental emotion — you're being influenced by emotions from an event that wasn't happening in that exact moment.
We experience both forms of emotion in our day-to-day life. Integral emotions are easy to understand but displays of incidental emotions in others can be confusing at first. The Barista you're getting coffee from may act rudely for no apparent reason. It may leave you confused and wondering what you did or say wrong, whereas the real reason for his action is the fight he had with his wife before coming to work. Understanding incidental emotions will help you cut people some slack when they act unfriendly for no obvious reasons.
Emotions are part of our lives forever. They're not bad in themselves but the way we process and handle them is critical to our overall well being. Some people try to avoid the problems that come with mishandling emotions by refusing to express feelings. But that's not a healthy strategy because you can't suppress emotions for long; they will eventually burst and it's usually not funny when they do.
Incidental emotions on the other hand have nothing to do with the current happenings around you. Let's say after the screen broke, you stormed out of the house in a hurry so you could arrive at the office early and find a way to still do your presentation. But what happens in the morning affects the way you drive to work and even how you interact with colleagues. That's incidental emotion — you're being influenced by emotions from an event that wasn't happening in that exact moment.
We experience both forms of emotion in our day-to-day life. Integral emotions are easy to understand but displays of incidental emotions in others can be confusing at first. The Barista you're getting coffee from may act rudely for no apparent reason. It may leave you confused and wondering what you did or say wrong, whereas the real reason for his action is the fight he had with his wife before coming to work. Understanding incidental emotions will help you cut people some slack when they act unfriendly for no obvious reasons.
Emotions are part of our lives forever. They're not bad in themselves but the way we process and handle them is critical to our overall well being. Some people try to avoid the problems that come with mishandling emotions by refusing to express feelings. But that's not a healthy strategy because you can't suppress emotions for long; they will eventually burst and it's usually not funny when they do.
If we don’t express our emotions, they pile up like a debt that will eventually come due. ~ Marc Brackett
This summary will not teach you to suppress your feelings but to understand, express them and help others do the same. For the rest of this summary, we shall be considering 5 skills for mastering emotions. They are:
• Recognize
• Understand
• Label
• Express
• Regulate
Just remember RULER.
• Recognize
• Understand
• Label
• Express
• Regulate
Just remember RULER.
2
Be meticulous about recognizing emotions
The first step to regulating emotions is first recognizing them. You can't deal with or try to understand what you haven't identified.
Other chapters are waiting for you in the app
3
Make efforts to understand the underlying reason for the emotions you experience
4
Label your emotions appropriately
5
Learn to express your emotions
6
The crux of emotional intelligence is the ability to regulate emotions
7
Conclusion
You’ll learn
The significance and influence of feelings
The path to cultivating emotional intelligence
How to identify and comprehend inner sentiments
Methods for effectively conveying your feelings
Techniques to deal with intense emotions
