The Emotion Revolution: How to Turn Feelings into Bridges for Meaningful Relationships!
Amidst a barrage of social media, office politics, and small talk our daily lives are subject to, genuine human connection might feel like a rare commodity. However, beyond superficial social exchanges, lie a profound truth: Real emotions are the currency of meaningful relationships. By embracing our feelings and learning how to navigate them effectively, we can forge deeper connections and cultivate richer, more meaningful relationships. But it’s not always smooth sailing. Are you desperate enough to feel uncomfortable with me? Welcome to the Emotion Revolution – where emotions become bridges for genuine human connection!
Understanding the Power of Emotions
Though our workplaces, family lives and television programming may have their fair share of drama; we have experienced a famine of authentic, real emotion. To change course, we have to first cultivate an accepting relationship with our own inner emotional world and a willingness to expose that very world of our hearts and vulnerabilities to others, at least a tiny little bit. This can be a proposition laden with real and perceived dangers as we’ve all been taken advantage of and had our feelings dismissed or stomped on. To be sure, I don’t blame anyone for keeping their cards close to the chest, maybe barely peaking at them.
The path to better recognizing the feelings of others, building empathy, and fostering connection is by exhibiting calm, curiosity, acceptance, and grace towards our own emotions. Emotions provide the key information about what and who we like, when we are appreciated and respected, when our boundaries have been crossed, and what activities evoke their innumerable varieties of sadness, disappointment, satisfaction, and joy. They provide signposts of where our values are, what matters to us, and when we’ve done something wrong. They light us up and give us dimension. They have the potential for providing common ground with others who may not have lived our experiences but have lived those same emotions.
Cultivating Emotional Awareness
Emotional awareness involves recognizing, understanding, and accepting our own emotions, as well as the emotions of those around us. By being compassionately curious towards our own emotional experiences, we learn how to show that same welcoming curiosity to other people. By becoming more attuned to our feelings, we can develop greater understanding of what others are going through, informing us on how to make them feel valued and seen. People LOVE this. By heeding the signposts provided by our emotions of things that give us a sense of being valued and respected and those that don’t, we know what to ask from other people about how to treat us in our relationships with them. When our interactions with others consistently respect our personal boundaries, we are free to be our light, bright, beautiful selves.
I remember for much of my life feeling “wrong” or selfish when I felt depressed or angry and I couldn’t will or distract away. I know I got this notion from others who were doing their best to deal with the pain of being human. Now, when an uncomfortable feeling nags at me, I try to find time for a little yoga to clear my mind and sit quietly with it, see if there was something I missed earlier it needs me to pay attention to. Sometimes I realize I need to talk to someone to clear up something. Though there aren’t always answers, I’ve learned a lot about myself this way. I’ve found depression, anger and anxiety don’t stay around as long when I’m OK with feeling them in the first place.
Communicating Emotions Effectively
Effective communication is key in any good relationship, and this holds especially true when it comes to expressing emotions. Learning how to communicate our feelings openly and honestly can strengthen bonds and build trust between individuals. For better and worse, doing this is incredibly nuanced. I think I’m working on the formula every single day for various dynamics, just taking pause. The truth is that there are varying levels of what we should share about our emotional selves depending on the nature of the relationship, the setting, and the “vibe”.
Emotional sharing takes many forms but I think it always involves some sort of gesture of trust towards both whoever your sharing with not to dismiss or shame your vulnerability as well as trust towards yourself that you can handle the fallout on the off chance they did just that. This vulnerability could be as seemingly benign as openly “nerding out” about pop culture you enjoy. Or it could be very deep and personal sharing about a time you were hurt. When we share our emotions, we must take good risks with ourselves and others that our share will be well received. But don’t let this dissuade you. As a therapist, I have learned that the vulnerable feelings people often regard as unique, odd, and shameful are actually commonplace. So many suffer alone, not knowing how many people have relatable issues all around them. This isn’t a green light to put all your baggage out there indiscriminately. Share too little and we miss out altogether, share too much too fast to build relationships and we step on the comfort and readiness of others and set ourselves up for invalidation. Particularly when it comes to our traumatic experiences, your story is too important to be shared without the proper care and reverence!
Learning how and when to share ourselves is worth the work and effort. When we effectively open ourselves to others we build trust, relatability, and meaningful connection. Building awareness of our own feelings helps us be more attuned to what others might be feeling and is foundation to building these skills.
Embracing Vulnerability as Strength
Unfortunately there are some circles where our vulnerability has been used against us. If you must be in environments where this is the case, by all means keep your guard up. However, many times we can’t help carry over our over adaptive anti-vulnerability tendencies even in safe environments, hiding our true feelings behind a facade of strength, indifference, or being unwaveringly upbeat and “positive”.
In his work explaining a twist on how humans respond to threatening situations, Stephen Porges identified a sixth sense, if you will, called “Neuroception.” It’s this sense where you just instinctively know if something’s “off” or “fishy” or unsafe or, in contrast, if things are OK, i.e. safe. The thing is, we all have our neuroception calibrated differently largely based on what we’ve been through in life. With support of people and places we know are safe, including therapy, we can learn to compassionately explore and sometimes challenge our neuroception to become more comfortable sharing different feelings. For more about neuroception, therapist and educator Deb Dana, LCSW breaks it down for all of us here.
Being that you’re on this journey of increased emotional self-awareness and interpersonal connection, you know it’s not for wimps. Vulnerability is not a sign of weakness – it's a testament to our courage and authenticity.
I’ve struggled for years building my presence online. I think of all the holes that could be poked through my writing while it’s flailing out there on the internet. It freaks me out! “What if it’s dumb?” I think. “Then again,” I counter, “What if it IS dumb?” I’ll live. It is a worthwhile risk. It seems the anxiety has held me back long enough. I want to connect with you more than I want to avoid ever looking “dumb”.
Won’t you be a part of the Emotion Revolution? Claim the power of your feelings to build bridges to meaningful relationships. By understanding, embracing, and communicating our emotions effectively, we can forge deeper connections with others and cultivate a sense of belonging and authenticity in our lives. Doesn’t that sound absolutely amazing? So, let's do this! Sure, it might get weird. That’s OK. Wielding warmth, sincerity, and authenticity, we can revolutionize the way we relate to ourselves and one another.
