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Chapter 1. LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTIONS
Most people come here because they need help reducing their stress levels or alleviating their stress symptoms.
This online book will provide you with what you need to know to learn honesty in communication at the feeling level. You will learn how to RECOGNIZE YOUR FEELINGS, ACCEPT YOUR FEELINGS, then EXPRESS YOUR FEELINGS THE RIGHT WAY while ACCEPTING FEELINGS OF OTHERS around you.
As you learn to do this, you'll begin to see some positive changes in your stress levels and your stress symptoms.
Earth can a stressful place to live --- always has been --- always will be. What people do and say can be stressful --- always has been --- always will be. However, I think most people will agree that it's not the many stresses of life that constitute our greatest challenge, but rather what goes on inside our head about those stresses!
So, what goes on inside our head? Here's a brief summary:
The lower brain, called the brain-stem, controls many of your instincts, like breathing and heartbeat.
The central part of your brain, called the limbic system, controls your emotions; one component of the limbic system, called the amygdala (uh-mig-duh-luh), is important for perceiving in others and having in oneself, emotional or affective behaviors and feelings. It also prompts releases of adrenaline and other hormones into the blood stream, thus disrupting the control of rational thought.
The upper brain, called the cortex, enables you to think, talk, reason and create. It determines your intelligence and your personality; integrates your sensory input; and controls motor function.
The back part of the brain, called the cerebellum, plays a vital role in storing "muscle memory": the things you remember by actually performing tasks, such as riding a bike, playing sports or an instrument, or typing on a keyboard.
In reality, however, it's not just the upper brain that determines intelligence and personality! When the central brain perceives that you're under stress and releases mind numbing hormones, isn't it contributing to what others perceive as your personality. How many times have you heard the expression, "You're upset. You're not thinking right!" or "Quit being so emotional. You're not making any sense!"? Of course, questions or comments like that really aren't very helpful are they ... but soon you will learn how to be more helpful!
Most of our educational endeavors focus on the cortex ("academic intelligence") and to some extent the cerebellum ("physical education", "music education", etc.). But how much effort is put into developing "emotional intelligence". Furthermore, how much effort is put into developing "emotional wisdom" (that is, how to handle feelings, especially anger, in responsible and mature ways that don't hurt or destroy ourselves or others)?
Let's face it! Many, if not most, human beings, whether they know it or not, are "emotionally challenged" (when it comes to "emotional intelligence"), "emotionally unaware" (when it comes to "emotional wisdom") and lack fundamental communication skills when it comes to speaking the "language of emotions". Have you ever wondered why the suicide rate is so high among physicians, dentists, pharmacists and lawyers? They're some of the most educated people around, but it seems high I.Q. ("Intelligence Quotient") doesn't necessarily mean a high E.Q. (Emotional Quotient) and high E.Q. doesn't necessarily mean a person has "emotional wisdom" and excellent intellectual verbal skills doesn't necessarily equate to "honest emotional verbal skills"!
The educational system has educated, more or less, our "minds" but seems to have overlooked our "hearts", or more accurately, our limbic system and amygdala. We've focused our attention on what we think about the stressful things of life rather than what to do with our feelings about them.
Ever wondered what the most stressful thing in all the world is? Well, it's not our parents or our spouse or our kids or our job or what to do with our money ... or the lack of any of these things! The most stressful thing in the world is still that age-old question,
"What in the world do I do with my anger?"
How well did your parents handle their feelings? And their parents before them? The oldest historical record we have of anyone handling feelings is found in the Holy Scriptures. In the book of Genesis we read that Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be deceived and to rebel. Their act of disobedience was followed by a futile effort to cover themselves. Later they attempted to hide from the LORD God and when they were discovered, Adam blamed the LORD God and Eve blamed the Devil. Thus we have the very first example of emotional dishonesty ever recorded. [ref]
History or "learning from our mistakes" is often held up as an excellent teacher but it's obvious we haven't learned our lessons very well. Human beings are just as emotionally dishonest today as our original parents were. I believe we've all done the very best we could with the awareness we've had but it's time to increase our awareness!
Wouldn't you like to have greater emotional honesty, awareness and wisdom so you can reduce your stress levels? Wouldn't you like to learn "the language of emotions" so you can control or alleviate your stress symptoms?
It might be helpful to study these articles with a dialogue partner: your spouse, a family member or a close friend. It's a wonderful thing when two people can help and encourage each other as together they learn these new and better ways for handling and communicating feelings for the purpose of reducing stress levels and alleviating inappropriate stress symptoms.
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Your happiness will grow in direct proportion to your ability to love others as you love yourself, to accept others as you accept yourself, and to help others as you help yourself. Disapprove of words and actions that miss the mark but always be understanding and accepting of feelings!
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