Boys don’t cry and girls are hysterical: two notions we all grow up with that inevitably mess up our relationships with emotions. We subconsciously learn it’s immature, silly, childish or irrational to show emotions, but mature, strong and rational to suppress them. Emotions are commonly believed to stand in the way of reason: they blur the vision.
Don’t be so dramatic. Man up. Calm down. You’re overreacting. Be an adult about this.
Deep down I have always felt that it’s loads of crap. There is no such thing as “bad” emotion — all emotions are equally important, valid and needed. And contrary to popular belief, heart does not defy the reason — giving up on either leads to nothing but misery. We’ve all seen it, possibly even lived through some version of it. Those are the fattest lies in the adulthood book.
Emotions are integral part of healthily functioning brain: humans are supposed to feel and express a whole wide range of them. It’s the imbalance or lack of control over them — and not the emotions themselves — that get us into trouble. We barely ever have a say over when (or in reaction to what) and what kind of emotion will arise in us, but we can learn to control how long it would last and how far it could go. How to not let it run amok and swamp us. You’re supposed to feel it, understand it, but not necessarily act on it. And that’s something that I’ve learnt not only from the recently read book*, but also from my own experience. One can get better at this game by strengthening their self-awareness (yes, it really is the key!).
The psychological resilience — so crucial to maintaining good mental health — has nothing to do with being cold (i.e. emotionally unavailable). But for some reason, this is how most people see it: if you’re not getting bothered by things, that must mean you’re resilient. Well, no. Trying not to feel is the exact opposite of what mental health is all about. Emotions and feelings are ought to be felt and expressed, not suppressed and ignored. Mentally resilient person is skilled at handling their own emotions well, i.e. at understanding and processing them appropriately. Which ultimately makes them better at handling other people’s feelings too. So yes, you can feel everything intensely (and deeply) and still be extremely resilient. One does not exclude the other, quite the opposite: the more apt attention you pay to your own emotions, the better your psychological resilience gets. It’s a skill you can learn.
As a species we’ve been given (or should I say we’ve evolved?) reason alongside emotions on purpose, and yet, we keep heavily misusing it. We invented this eternal war between heart (feelings and emotions) and reason (pragmatic thinking), deeming them to be in opposition, while, in fact, they’re both equally needed. They complement each other. There’s enough of historical, scientific and cultural proofs that the world that leaves emotions out is inherently doomed. Because our humanity is most evident in our feelings*, not analytical thinking.
This skill of aptly expressing, understanding and processing one’s emotions is the simplified definition of emotional intelligence, which has the potential of making our lives infinitely better. And what’s even better, unlike scientific intelligence that you are born with, it can be relatively easily learnt or improved at any point in one’s life, since emotionally we learn throughout our whole lives.
Unfortunately, we inhabit a world where academic and professional success still weighs way more than emotional one. Which is a crying shame, because as much as academic and professional achievements can play an important role in one’s life, they do not guarantee what’s the most important: good mental health and stable, healthy relationships. Both of which are built (or at least maintained) solely on emotions and our relationship with them.
To put it in Daniel Goleman’s words:
“Much evidence testifies that people who are emotionally adept — who know and manage their own feelings well, and who read and deal effectively with other people’s feelings — are at an advantage in any domain of life, whether romance and intimate relationships or picking up the unspoken rules that govern success in organizational politics. People with well-developed emotional skills are also more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own productivity; people who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought.”
It really pays off to work on your inner, emotional world and I’m not going to ever shut up about it. Because the world would be a much better place if everyone was able to aptly express and process their emotions. It also would be a much friendlier place if everyone respected emotions of each autonomic entity, regardless of their gender, age, skin colour, race or origin.
So don’t go on dismissing your own emotions — it all starts there.
*this whole text heavily references a great book which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about nature of emotions: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. It’s a great introduction to the topic!
