Emotions

A letter to my children with some advice about emotions. Mostly, I don’t believe in direct advice since it’s like nostalgia and our lessons are our own to learn but today I feel like spewing a few words.

First, I’ll say emotions are neither good nor bad, they just are. Don’t beat yourself up for how you feel.

From my layman’s experience, three coarse sources of emotions.

• Emotional Triggers
• Trauma
• Waves

Of course these are all somehow all connected in ways that are beyond my knowledge but I’ll share some of what I know.

Emotional Triggers: These are things that set off one or more emotions. Triggers are common at some abstract level but we don’t all share the same triggers. For me, if someone patronizes me or talks down to me, I get angry. Maybe for you, it’s if you are treated unfairly. Maybe, it’s if you are not shown respect. The key think to learn is what triggers your emotions and when those situations come up have the self-awareness that you are having an emotional reaction. Then step back, use your brain, and decide how to proceed. It also helps to recognize these triggers in people close to you, so you can emphasize which what would otherwise seem like and over-reaction.

Trauma: A life event, and you will have (more of) them that has a long lasting emotional impact. Betrayal, and a loss of a loved one are examples of Trauma. Your reaction to trauma may be obvious — it’s interesting to note that people’s reaction to a loss of a loved one would be considered loss of sanity in other situations. But your reaction to trauma may be more inward. Stone faced. Or only shown in private. But it will be there. And its effects will last. Give yourself acceptance during these times. And get help.

Waves: The last one, I’ll describe as Waves although I’m sure there’s a better term. This is when there is no obvious trigger or trauma. You just start feeling a certain way and that feelings ebbs and flows. For a day, a week, a month. You can’t imagine ever not feeling that way. And then without you even noticing, it’s gone and you can’t even really remember what that feeling was like. Until the wave comes in again. The trick here is to be self-aware, to understand what’s going on. “I’m having a dark day”, etc. If you can do that, you can pull yourself through knowing that on the other side there will be a brighter day. Sometimes though the waves are really strong and may last a long time. Get help to ride them. Do things that help, maybe it’s exercise. Maybe it’s reading your diary from a different mood times, maybe it’s music. Just make it a healthy thing to pull you out of it. Unhealthy things will take your further down.

-also published on https://letterstoalliokids.wordpress.com/2019/11/23/emotions/