Have you ever found yourself constantly feeling angry, sad, upset, scared, worried or resentful?  

Have these emotions become so powerful that you find yourself over-reacting or pulling away from others or situations?  

Have you found them to be so frequent that they negatively influence your health, relationships or wellbeing?  

Whether we recognise them or not, we all have emotions. We cope with them in different ways. They may come out physically, in your expressions, tone of voice, stories you tell yourself or your behaviours. Emotions will influence every area of your life.  

If they are not understood and managed, they can distort your reality, cloud your judgements and can contribute to lost time, mental distress and poor outcomes with your health, relationships, career and overall wellbeing.  

So, you could say that emotional health is kind of a big deal. But because sometimes we don’t see emotional health as a priority, we rarely do the work to understand it.  

Understanding your emotions allows you to better understand yourself. It empowers you towards more control, calmness and contentment in your life.   

In today’s world, there is a risk that we devote more time to and understand more about technology than ourselves. It could be argued that we are as clever with our machines as we are simple-minded with our emotions. Our technology has advanced but our emotions are still as primal and when we lived in caves. Sometimes we focus our attention on the outside world and neglect looking at our inside world.  

 

Understanding emotional wounds  

Do you remember growing up and hurting yourself? Maybe you fell over and bruised yourself or maybe you broke a bone? 

Some of these incidents were so small that you have forgotten them and some you still remember. 

A childhood without any physical cuts, scraps or bruises would be unrealistic. They teach us things; we learn and adapt.  

The same is true for our psychological wounds. There were moments of emotional pain, and they also taught us things. Unfortunally not all these lessons were helpful. The adaptations you made in the moment to help you cope, can become maladaptive and hurtful long-term. 

These unhelpful adaptations happen when emotional pain leaves its scars. Much like the scar I still have in my thigh from the razor blade that accidently cut me when I was 5. Sadly, our psychological scars can cut much deeper.  

These mental scars have been caused from childhood experiences. They may be from things that happened to you, or things that didn’t happen that should have. Your early life was tricky, and you navigated it the best you could with what you knew at the time.  

When glancing over our past we subconsciously edit. We view the positive highlights and brush over it with phrases like, “it was fine”. It might seem fine from a mature adult perspective but how would these past events made the 6-year-old version of you feel?  

These experiences can manipulate how you see yourself, others or the world. These then influence your actions and behaviours. This is a normal part of being human. Our previous experiences have affected us all in positive and negatives ways. It’s when these previous events lead to unhelpful behaviours in the present that we need to investigate further.  

 

For example:

A lack of money growing up means we may drive for material wealth and material assets at the cost of our wellbeing and relationships.  

A dismissive parent means we may fall into emotional avoidance and struggle to build connection with others.   

An overly protective parent could cause us to be timid and anxious.  

An inattentive parent causes us to seek attention and to strive to be liked by everyone.  

If you were told you were stupid or incapable, this might have become a limiting belief. The belief became ingrained and a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

If you had to cope with a depressed parent, you may have become jokey and slightly manic to keep them engaged. 

We carry these past wounds into our current reality. On the surface an incident may seem small, but it can trigger a deep internal wound from the past that has now been transferred into the present. This then leads to judgement of ourselves, but rarely any introspection as to why this event was so upsetting, infuriating, scary or problematic.  

You live the present through the drama of the past. We are judged on the behaviours that our wounds have created.  

Parents do their best, but they are human and even with the best will in the world they will still pass on unhelpful views, beliefs and characteristics. They also play a massive role in how we handle and cope with our emotions.  

If your emotions were validated as a child and you felt safe to express them, then you might have a better relationship with your emotions.  

If you were told to calm down or that you shouldn’t be feeling the way you do, then you may have shut down your emotions.  

While this is an over simplified view, hopefully you can see the impact of your past experiences on your emotional health. 

Taking the time to reflect and understand your past experiences can start to loosen the grip of your past by giving and understanding of its influence on you.  

A mother and father who were always late to see you play on the sports field may seem a little sad when viewed through your adult lens, but to the 11-year-old you this could be extremely upsetting. If these incidents became more frequent as a child you would lose trust, security and connection with your parent. So, 20 years later when your partner is late for your work event, it can bring up these childhood wounds. You many overreact or shut down.  

To look at your past pain with open eyes can be uncomfortable, but it allows you to uncover some valuable lessons about who you are and why you’re the way you are.  

Many of us avoid looking too deeply at our personal stories and strive for achievements, expertise and validation from the world. We do this in the belief that happiness will be reached at the next goal. We think that doing more and having more will get rid of the pain we feel inside.  

But happiness starts with the inside version of you. It starts with how you feel about yourself. The more you try to prove yourself to the world, the further away you may move from the truth of potentially feeling a lack of self-esteem.   

As you develop this self-knowledge and awareness, you can start do develop tools and strategies to help you manage these uncomfortable emotions.   

 

Here’s a simple guide to help you start: 

Step one

Awareness. This sounds simple but can be challenging. It means being consciously aware of how you’re feeling and understanding what is triggering that feeling.  

Step two

Focus on your breath until the emotion starts to dissipate. Acknowledge that while the emotion was uncomfortable, it’s not you. Essentially affirming that you are not the emotion. This also gives you some time and space to let the emotion soften or calm down.  

Step three 

Sit with and observe the feeling. This means making room for it when you can, rather than pushing it away. It’s paradoxical but by letting yourself experience the emotion you allow it to have less control over you. This is because this is an active process rather than a passive one. You may not be able to do this in the moment, but making time later you can start to process the emotion. What you avoid feeling at 2pm, you will feel at 2am (we’ve all been there).  

Step four 

Take a positive action. This might not be instantly, but the point is that you can still take some positive action in your day, despite these uncomfortable emotions. Do some exercise, walk, journal, read a book, eat some nutritious food or connect with someone. Over time you’ll feel better able to be open and vulnerable. Rather than over-reacting or falling silent when you’re upset, you’ll be able to communicate how you’re feeling in a healthy way.  

These can also serve as fantastic stress management strategies and improve your overall wellbeing. This is vital because it’s difficult to build your emotional intelligence if you’re constantly feeling stressed and unhealthy.  

Maintaining your health and implementing positive habits will help build your self-esteem.  

As you learn about your past, you’ll have more compassion and less judgement towards yourself. This inner work will help you build the emotional resources for more awareness, better coping strategies and greater inner peace.    

The hardest and most important thing here is building the ability to sit still. In a busy and distracted world, this is a superpower.  

It takes work to spend moments to be internally focused. Taking a step back to reflect is not easy but it paves the way for greater wellbeing and a fulfilling life. 

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