Building Emotional Self-Awareness Definition Notes Emotional Self-Awareness is the ability to recognize and accurately label your own feelings. Emotions express themselves through three channels physically, in our thoughts, and in our impulses. You can learn how to pick up on the cues about what you re feeling by paying attention to these channels. Physical sensations: All emotions have some kind of physical expression. Each emotion will have its own way of showing up in your body. Different people react to the same emotion with different physical sensations. Some people may feel tension in their forehead while others may feel it in their lower back or with an upset stomach. Many of your body s reactions are actually signals to you that you are experiencing some kind of an emotion. In fact, some physical illnesses result from chronic feelings, such as anger or anxiety, that go unrecognized. Thoughts: Emotions prioritize thought. You can t focus on everything at every moment so what do you select? You focus on whatever is most emotionally relevant to you at the time. Thus, your thoughts can help you know what you are feeling. Here are some examples: If you find that your focus is on all the negative characteristics of the person across your desk, it might indicate that you re angry with that person. If you find that your focus is on what you find threatening, you might be feeling anxious. Impulses: Emotions create an impulse to act. Even though you might not follow through with your impulses, you can still notice that you feel like doing this or that Here are some examples: If you feel like hitting something or someone, you are probably angry. If you feel like crying, it s likely that you re feeling sad or frustrated. A good thing about being aware of your feelings is that you can identify your impulses earlier. That way you can have more control over which impulses your good judgment allows you to indulge and which ones are best put away.
Exercise 1 Think through how enhanced Emotional Self-Awareness will benefit you and your organization. How might your performance improve if you become more skilled at identifying your feelings? How are problems in this area costing you now? For example, unrecognized feelings of irritation may lead you to snap at a colleague, decreasing his or her interest in working or communicating with you. Exercise 2 Seek to identify the types of feelings that are most challenging for you to notice and acknowledge in yourself. Examples are: Some people have a rule that they re not supposed to get angry, except under very specific circumstances. This rule makes it difficult for them to notice their anger, which of course happens despite their rule. Some feel weak when they re anxious. Their solution is to convert all anxiety into anger or irritation. Unfortunately this may lead them to the wrong solution because anxiety may well lead us to a more appropriate solution than anger. Some don t give themselves permission to notice positive feelings, often for fear that noticing or mentioning positive feelings will elicit some bad event. Their thinking could be: As soon as I feel good, something comes along to ruin it! This thinking is superstitious. Of course good feelings come and go in the natural course of events. No one feels good all of the time. Ask someone you are close to and trust some version of: Do you think that I hide from my feelings or some of my feelings? What makes you think so? When have you seen me do so? The more specific their examples are, the more helpful their input will be. Page 2 of 7
Exercise 3 Pay attention to when and how you might be attempting to cover over your emotions. Street drugs, prescription medications, alcohol, food, sex and constant activity are all methods people use to distance themselves from their feelings. If, for example, you have an impulse to eat at a time when you really don t need food, explore whether you might be having an emotional reaction to something. The push to eat might be a way that you have learned to distract yourself from feelings that are difficult to accept or acknowledge. Some people who misuse alcohol or drugs are not addicts. They are people who have not yet learned effective methods of Emotional Self-Awareness and emotional selfmanagement. Building such skills sometimes helps people solve problems around drug and alcohol misuse. To explore this hypothesis in yourself, keep a log of when you feel compelled to indulge in your favorite distraction. See if you can discover a pattern of events that might be likely to create an emotional reaction. One potential benefit of this exercise is that you can continue to enjoy your favorite distraction when it is useful and appropriate but let it go when it s complicating your life. Exercise 4 Read books or watch movies that are designed to provoke strong emotions. During or afterwards, write down: The feeling you experienced ( Sadness for example) Thoughts that went with the feeling ( Remembering a loss of your own for example) Impulses that went with the feeling ( Wanting to go off by yourself, or the opposite, Wanting to have someone comfort you for example) Your body's way of expressing the feeling ( Crying or feeling like crying for example). Page 3 of 7
Exercise 5 Each day, identify and write down two strong emotions that you experienced: Record your thoughts Record your body s reaction Record your impulse(s) Discuss what you wrote down with your coach or someone with whom you are close. Your goal is to see if you label your emotions the same way that they would have. The key benefit of this exercise is to get you used to the process of reflecting on your emotions. Talking with someone about it will lead you to think more carefully about your experience than you would if you were just thinking about it alone. Exercise 6 Notice and record comments that people make about your appearance that may relate to your emotions. If people say that you look angry or sad, don t instantly dismiss the comment. Their external perspective may give them a clearer picture than you have (and maybe not you have to evaluate it for yourself). Exercise 7 When you walk by a mirror, glance at the expression on your face. What might an observer conclude that you are feeling? Is your facial expression consistent with what you are experiencing inside? Exercise 8 Consider whether you, like many people, avoid knowing your feelings because of an underlying concern that your feelings will become too intense. Some people have had early, overwhelming experiences in life that led them to be fearful of intense emotions. If this is true of you, recognize that you are now older and have more effective coping techniques. One way to build confidence in managing the intensity of emotional experiences is to learn how to use relaxation and meditation exercises. Increased control may make it easier for you to let yourself feel the emotion, because you will know that you are not on the verge of losing control. A related reason some people avoid their emotions is a fear that if they start feeling sad or frightened that the feeling will last forever. This is a perfectly normal, yet irrational fear. You will not get trapped in your feelings. They will pass because that is what feelings do. Page 4 of 7
Exercise 9 Whether you know it or not, you experience important emotions multiple times every day. The signs that this is true are that your body reacts, you have an intense impulse, or your thoughts send you signals, as discussed above. Watch for these signs. When they occur, consciously choose not to avoid the emotion but also not to get swept away. Let a part of your mind act like an observer or a camera, noticing what you are feeling at that moment. In your mind s eye, place the camera up overhead where it can take in the entire scene. Having the mental image of your mind as a camera can help reduce the intensity of the emotion to a more comfortable level. Exercise 10 Understand that there are no right or wrong emotions. People, including you, have a right to their feelings. Some people avoid noticing their feelings because they have the belief that some feelings are acceptable while others are only experienced by not OK people. To avoid judging themselves harshly, they avoid noticing when they experience one of the forbidden emotions. The truth is that all of us, at one time or another, experience all of the feelings available to human beings. While no emotion is bad, there are useful and not so useful emotions, depending upon intensity and context. Anger can be helpful at times because it energizes us to protect ourselves. At other times, it may become too intense, which creates the danger that it will misguide our judgment. You will experience unhelpful emotions. Learning to manage them, such as by using the ABCDE method, can help you move yourself to a more helpful emotion. Page 5 of 7
Exercise 11 Some people think of emotions as all or nothing, like an on/off light switch. For example, they are either fully enraged or totally calm. They have forgotten to give themselves permission for milder forms of displeasure, like using a dimmer switch, which would enable them to be simply feel somewhat annoyed or a little frustrated. When you find yourself moving towards an intense emotional reaction, ask yourself if a more muted version of the emotion might fit the circumstances better. Examples of moving from excessively intense to usefully intense include: Rage, fury, and anger can become annoyance and irritation Despondency, despair, depression, and pessimism can become sadness Severe guilt and intense remorse can become regret Severe hurt can become mild bruising Anxiety, fear, and panic can become concern While the milder emotions in the examples are not exactly fun to experience, they are all more manageable than their more intense cousins. You can certainly handle being irritated whereas rage may take you out of control! Exercise 12 Anger is often a surface emotion that we use to hide other feelings from ourselves. Anger has a way of making us feel empowered. When anger is an inappropriate response, this sense of being empowered will not help you achieve a superior response to the situation. For example: I m furious that he was chosen for that role, when I clearly have more experience! If this person were more honest with themselves, they might add: But, deep down, I guess I m feeling hurt, disappointed, and unsure of my worth. But, I ll look weak, like a whiner, if I say that out loud (perhaps even to myself). When you re angry, ask yourself if the anger you re feeling might come from a deeper feeling such as anxiety, fear or disappointment, for example. If so, knowing the truth will give you a better chance to handle the situation effectively. Page 6 of 7
Exercise 13 Learn to talk with people whom you trust about your feelings. Talking through emotions will help you learn how to accurately label them, think and feel at the same time (a handy skill set), and figure out what you want to do, if anything, in response to the feeling. As you talk with others about your emotions, don t create, or let them create, the agenda that they will solve your problem(s). The agenda is for them to listen to you as a way of helping you listen more clearly to yourself. With a clear head, you can solve your problems just fine! Exercise 14 Ask other people what they are feeling. Getting others to talk about their emotions not only builds good relationships but may be instructive to you about how other people recognize and manage their feelings. Page 7 of 7