On an emotional coaster? Ride out your feelings with curiosity and kindness
I am so glad that we live in an age where we can talk about feelings more openly but I've also noticed a curious paradox. We seem drawn to the idea that we can and should always be happy. Yet at the same time we are becoming increasingly anxious. So let's dig into what is at the heart of this conundrum and how we can find more emotional balance.
Stop chasing happiness: We can begin by asking if our quest for happiness is rooted in control - in our belief that we can make the future turn out a certain way? Our ancestors, who had a good deal of knowledge about nature, were still humbled by its power. They knew they had limited control and that happiness was not guaranteed. Perhaps accepting this fact is what made them resilient with fewer expectations about being happy.
With modern science and advanced technologies, it is easy to think that we're different. That we know more, can make better predictions and can somehow engineer our lives to ensure lasting happiness. But life is inherently complex with too many variables that are out of our hands. We can't remove all uncertainty. And ironically we create a lot of anxiety for ourselves by trying desperately to do so. Over time, our worry about some perfect future or our regret about past mistakes takes over, until we are exactly the opposite of happy.
Re-frame anxiety: So what do we do when we're not happy? When we hit the bottom of the emotional roller coaster? I am the first to acknowledge the seriousness of mental health conditions. For those of us dealing with prolonged low moods, with sustained anxiety and depression, getting medical help and therapy is crucial and thankfully more acceptable now.
However, a small but growing number of mental health experts are also cautioning against labelling our day to day negative emotions, feelings that come and go, as catastrophic. Two research psychologists at the University of Oxford, Lucy Foulkes and Jack Andrews, have recently published their work on the topic. They point out that while awareness and education about mental health is important, we need to be careful not to use therapy as a blanket solution. Perhaps as a society we need to bolster other supports that enhance our sense of community and improve our collective mental health. By addressing issues like stress, overwork, loneliness and technology use, we can begin to reduce our anxiety and learn to regulate our emotions. We can start small perhaps by changing our home environment. Or if possible introducing supports in our school and work environments so that we can start looking after one another more.
Psychiatrist David Rosemarin also suggests that we reframe day to day anxiety as an inevitable part of life. He even goes as far as to say that we can see anxiety as a gift that teaches us something and helps us empathize with others who might also be feeling the same way. Sometimes anxiety can even be a helpful signal that perhaps that we need to be on alert, get out of an unhealthy situation. Or that we need to slow down or lean on others for help. In other words, we can listen to difficult emotions rather than wishing them away or sweeping them under the rug.
Embrace emotional range: I believe that finding emotional balance starts by understanding our feelings in a more nuanced way. It's easy to lump them all into two ends of the spectrum - happiness on one end and despair on the other. But if we pay close attention, positive feelings can include awe, joy, silliness, satisfaction, quiet confidence and contentment to name a few. And negative feelings can have many flavours too like jealousy, anger, frustration, resentment, bitterness and so on. And what about more neutral feelings like detachment, boredom, restlessness, anticipation? What are they trying to tell us? Perhaps it isn't even helpful to label emotions as positive and negative at all because it sets us up for chasing after good feelings and fleeing from uncomfortable ones.
A more helpful analogy might be an emotional tapestry, woven with the rich colours of all sorts of feelings that make us human. And when we begin to notice these subtleties in ourselves, we can also start noticing the variety and complexity of feelings in others. It's also important to remember that different people have different emotional range. And we all deal with feelings differently depending on our upbringing, culture, personality and in particular situations. Some people handle emotions quietly, privately. Others are more demonstrative or need to talk about their feelings. There is no one right way to process emotions. So we can give each other the space to find the approach that suits each of us best, without judgement. I can only imagine what a different world we might live in if we all took the time to understand ourselves and each other in this way.
More blogs like this: Goodbye feelings, Emotional Regulation