The Emotional Gym
“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”
In discussions on happiness, much is made of caring for and balancing the triumvirate of body, mind, and spirit, and rightly so. But I find it astonishing that comparatively little is said of dealing with the emotions, which are such a huge part of the experience of being human. They are the landscape of our inner world. What happens in our lives is colored by and interpreted through the lens of our emotional states; these states are dominant in determining how we feel about the overall quality of our lives, far more so than the list of happenings in our personal history.
There’s a massive amount of information available on caring for the health of the body; it will come as a surprise to no one reading this, I suspect, that generally accepted wisdom on this topic suggests that a healthy diet and exercise are important (though what these look like specifically is a matter of great contention). A tremendous amount of energy is spent the world over on educating the mind, challenging it to remember acquired knowledge and synthesize new thought, as well as on teaching it to calm and quiet through a wide variety of meditation techniques in order to unleash some of its more mysterious abilities. Every world religion has a mountain of lore behind it on fulfilling the spiritual side of human nature, and non-religious spiritual guidance also fills libraries. But where do emotions even fit into this picture?
Are they merely chemical reactions produced by the physical body? Some would say so. This school of thought tends to brush them off as meaningless byproducts of the mash-up of air breathed, food eaten, and the normal functioning of the body’s systems. In the opposite camp, Esther Hicks pioneered a concept of emotions as spiritual guidance system; according to her writings, they indicate whether you’re on track to simultaneously enjoy your life and move toward all of your deeply held desires. Others would say that emotion is a byproduct of thought, so if we want to achieve our goals, we need to learn how to manufacture supportive thoughts through discipline so that we can be efficient in life. I think that there is utility to be found in all of these viewpoints, but I suspect that this is a conversation that is far less familiar to you than the conversations around the big three of mind, body, spirit. Having done a lot of work, in recent years, that includes a strong focus on dealing with emotions constructively, I hold a conviction that this conversation needs to come out into the open. I think the rising tide of news stories depicting violent acts perpetrated by seemingly functional, but obviously massively unhappy people demonstrates the degree to which we have been ignoring this essential element in our overall health and balance.
Let’s take a look at the three viewpoints mentioned above and what they have to offer us.
- Emotions as meaningless chemical byproducts. What if they are, to quote Shakespeare out of context, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? Well, if this is true, and they have nothing of value to offer us, what should we do? This viewpoint doesn’t attempt to argue that they have no effect on us. However, it also doesn’t offer guidance in dealing with this very loud aspect of daily life. I think it’s the root of the habit of denial of our emotions that has become so trendy since the dawn of organized scientific inquiry. And the denial of something so basic to our experience of and interpretation of life seems to me to present a glaring lack of utility, and even a long-term danger to our mental health. To put the merit of this viewpoint to work, I think we need to pay attention to the chemical reactions that have been studied, such as the production of endorphins through physical activity. This is powerful, and something that almost every person can use to manufacture euphoria, not to mention physical fitness, which is a joy of its own, and a feeling of increased enthusiasm for life. For example, according to www.health.harvard.edu, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 1999 showed that when three groups of people with depression either took Zoloft or took part in an aerobic exercise program, or did both, the results of all groups were roughly the same—60–70% percent of all three groups could no longer be classified as having major depression. Regarding diet, we also have choices to make that impact our body’s ability to function mentally and emotionally as well as physically. According to an article by Drew Ramsey, MD, “One study found that adolescents with low-quality junk food diets are 79 percent more likely to suffer from depression. Another found that diets high in trans fats found in processed foods raised the risk of depression by 42 percent among adults over the course of approximately six years. And a huge study of women’s diets by the Harvard School of Public health concluded that those whose diets contained the greatest number of healthy omega-3 fats (and the lowest levels of unhealthy omega-6s) were significantly less likely to suffer from depression.” The information available about diet can be confusing, but I think it’s obvious that it has an impact on the body’s chemical state.
- Emotions as byproducts of our thoughts. If emotions are a direct result of the thoughts we think, how can we go about improving this feedback loop? Some say that when we have an uncomfortable emotion, we should learn to become aware of the thought train we’ve been on and give ourselves a chance to arrest a thought pattern that is causing us to spiral downward. There are many flavors of meditation through which we can gain insight into calming an overactive, hyper mind and practice a state that brings relaxation to the body and emotions. We can learn, through practice, to substitute a neutral mental state at this point, and even to then direct our thoughts toward more positive patterns.
- Emotions as spiritual guidance system. Esther Hicks, as previously mentioned, sees the above and raises it by suggesting that 1. it is helpful to reach for a slightly better thought over and over throughout one’s day in order to keep moving back into alignment and happiness; 2. noticing when we’re feeling bad and learning to coach ourselves into better states allows us to accept the spiritual and physical gifts that are always available to us; 3. when we’re spending time in negative emotion, we’re resisting the best that life has to offer, and the emotions we feel are there to point us in the right direction. This viewpoint suggests that emotions are best interpreted as a signpost that can lead to progress if we take the time to stop and read it.
Again, I think all of these viewpoints have something excellent to offer us in our understanding of emotions and their place in balanced functioning. And yet, they generally address ways to improve emotional states without much thought as to how understanding the very personal meaning emotions have added to our lives can be instructive. This is yet another element that I now consider to be absolutely crucial in my understanding on this topic, and that is only beginning to be granted the attention I think it deserves. Psychological professionals have been working on this for over a hundred years, but in many ways this pursuit has been branded as the realm of people with serious mental and emotional health issues, people who aren’t able to function normally. Others who exhibit interest in emotional introspection are sometimes made fun of as far-out hippies who want to spend a ridiculous amount of time navel gazing. Yet in my experience, it’s helpful and healthy to take time every day to contemplate and address one’s emotional states—what’s been your dominant state, when have you felt out of control or stressed emotionally, and what can be done about that? Your mind can help you trace what’s bothering you and give you ideas about how to create solutions. It can also help you to imagine better ways of functioning, and rehearse those mentally so it’s easier to remember a new option next time the same kind of situation arises.
Even more important than the mental consideration of one’s emotions, however, is the act of honestly expressing what feels true and valid. Most of us are so conditioned not to do this with any regularity that it feels frightening and often seems overly negative and whiney. Even so, I have found that in expression are the seeds of all manner of healing, inspiration, and peace. I generally find that each form of expression will be more effective or less so for each person, but the act of expression itself is key to creating harmony and happiness. It’s just as essential to overall balance as physical activity, which is why I titled this blog post the way I did. The challenge is in finding a mode of expression that is both honest and fun for you without being destructive to others so that you can use it on a daily basis. Unexpressed emotion builds up over time and becomes long-term stress, and can even contribute directly to physical pain and discomfort.
Music, writing, visual art, storytelling, and other art forms can be enjoyable and constructive avenues for this emotional expression. While I absolutely love the arts, currently my favorite way to get this need for expression satisfied is through EFT/Tapping, because it’s so flexible and highly personalized and offers many efficient techniques for working through uncomfortable emotions. It can seem like a pretty odd thing to do at first, but for many people it quickly becomes a very welcome way to express constructively and lighten an emotional load that was standing in the way of forward motion and a positive outlook. As EFT proliferates, I think we’re going to see an increased awareness about the usefulness of venting emotion and stimulating positive emotional change for everyone, not just the people with serious concerns and traumas who end up working with psychological professionals.
Finally, I find that there’s a layer of meaning that can be extracted from getting clear on what we really feel. Emotions can be a powerful indicator of where you are out of alignment with your own values, whatever those may be. As just one example, if you act in a way that is out of keeping with what you consider to be right and appropriate behavior, you will likely end up feeling embarrassment or shame. Allowing yourself to admit how you feel and trace it back to your behavior allows you to become aware of how you wish you had acted, and work toward doing so next time. Going through this process is empowering if you are willing to take the time and deal with a bit of discomfort as you find your way to clarity. I think everyone deserves to feel empowered in this way, so I encourage you to try out some modes of emotional expression and see what helps you to feel greater clarity and freedom, and what you can enjoy so that you’ll be able to create this experience often. I have come to feel that the importance of having tools that work in this area cannot be overstated. There is so much joy to be had when you’re not using so much of your energy to deny how you really feel, or that you have emotions at all for that matter! And there is such a better life to be lived when we feel that something so influential as our emotions can empower as a rule rather than overwhelm and hinder. So find some emotional gym equipment and start trying it out. I think you’ll find that it really does improve your everyday experience in being you.