5 Signs You Have a Healthy Relationship With Your Emotions

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Imagine the most important relationship you have in your life.

Now, think about how you treat this person who is so very important to you.

Do you ignore how they feel?

Do you invalidate their feelings?

Do you get angry at them when they express their feelings?

Do you think emotional exchanges in your relationship are a sign of weakness?

I’m sure many of you are answering these questions with a resounding, “Of course not!” And that’s wonderful. Or, perhaps you don’t believe emotions are all that necessary in your relationships. Whichever the case, I want you to think about the relationship you have with your own emotions.

Yes, it’s certainly possible, and quite frankly imperative, that you have a relationship with your own emotions. The relationship you have with your emotions is the framework for all other relationships in your life. How you treat your own emotions is directly connected to how you treat others.

Your emotions are your body’s way of communicating with you. They provide you with vital messages that inform and direct you through life. Just as you listen to your parents, your partner, your best friend, or a trusted colleague, you also have to listen to your emotions. Your emotions tell you when something is wrong, they inform you about who you are and what you like or don’t like, they connect you to others, and they are the very things that give life meaning.

Even so, scores of people treat their emotions as unimportant. Without the right knowledge or guidance, emotions can be complex and mysterious. You might find yourself losing your temper or making decisions that seem to puzzle you. When you move through life with a tumultuous relationship with your emotions, your life can feel unsteady.

7 Signs You Have an Unhealthy Relationship With Your Emotions

1. You are typically quite unaware of what you are feeling.
2. You often doubt that your feelings are real or justified.
3. You ignore your feelings.
4. You can easily overindulge your feelings.
5. You view your feelings as a sign of weakness.
6. You get angry at yourself for having feelings.
7. You are generally unable to express your feelings to others.

Tara, Don, and Pauline

Tara, Don, and Pauline are dealing with unhealthy relationships with their emotions.

Tara feels like an idiot for feeling sad after she finally made the excruciatingly difficult decision to end her marriage due to the abuse she endured from her husband.

Don keeps blowing up on his partner over seemingly nothing. Once he calms down, he cannot verbalize what set him off and insists that there’s nothing wrong. Yet, his blow-ups continue to happen.

Pauline has noticed that her best friend has been spending less and less time with her. Pauline has been feeling hurt but would feel so embarrassed to tell her friend. She believes it's a sign of weakness to be vulnerable and to have these hurt feelings in the first place.

Tara, Don, and Pauline are missing crucial messages from their emotions which could help them understand themselves better, get unstuck, and move forward.

Tara judges herself harshly for being sad. Doesn’t it make perfect sense that the end of a marriage, regardless of how harmful it was, would make someone sad? If Tara cannot acknowledge and validate her feelings, she will miss out on understanding the complexities of her relationship. She is setting herself up to repeat a pattern of dating abusive men, as she is not giving herself space to process her feelings and needs.

Don is letting his feelings take control. If only he could know that he is the one who is in the driver’s seat. For Don to manage his feelings, he would need to listen closely and identify the emotions beneath his blow-ups. If he did this, he would find that he’s been feeling distant from his wife. Once he understands these emotions, he can take action to get his true needs met and connect (rather than disconnect) with his wife.

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Pauline views her feelings as a nuisance. If she were able to accept her feelings and realize her hurt feelings are telling her something important, she could talk to her friend openly. When she can emotionally express herself, she’ll see that her friendships will actually strengthen.

Childhood Emotional Neglect: The Reason Behind Your Unhealthy Relationship With Your Emotions

Your relationship with your emotions starts in childhood. You learn this, directly and indirectly, from your parents. As a child, you see how your parents treated their own emotions and how they responded…or didn’t respond…to yours.

Perhaps you grew up in an environment with highly expressed emotions, with anger and emotional explosions as the norm (an environment Don was quite familiar with). Or, perhaps you grew up with your emotions brushed aside or not taken seriously (environments familiar to Tara and Pauline). Whether your feelings were overwhelming or ignored, you didn’t learn the tools that would help you develop a good relationship with them.

This is childhood emotional neglect. Your parents failed to respond enough to your emotional needs as they raised you. It sets you up to lack a compassionate, understanding, and trusting relationship with your emotions.

Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist and author of My Stroke of Insight, said it best, “Although many of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.”

As a human being whose emotions are at the core of your being, here is what to strive for.

5 Signs That You Have a Healthy Relationship With Your Emotions

1. You pay attention to what you are feeling and why.
2. You accept your feelings without judgment.
3. You are able to manage your feelings rather than exploding on others.
4. You can identify what an emotion is telling you to do and take action if needed.
5. You are able to express your emotions to others.

If you’d like to improve your relationship with your emotions, follow the simple steps below.

The IAAA Steps

• Identify your feelings.
• Accept your feelings without judgment. Channel any judgment you hold toward the actions you take, not the feelings you have.
• Attribute your emotions to a cause. Ask yourself, "Why might I be feeling this?"
• Act with care if the emotion is telling you to do something. Listen to its message and take thoughtful action.

Your emotions are the essence of who you are. Without them, you would be lost and disconnected. When you minimize your feelings, you minimize yourself. When you shame yourself for getting emotional, you’re shaming yourself for being human. When you deny your feelings, you deny people the opportunity to know the authentic you.

A staple of childhood emotional neglect is erroneously believing that your emotions are unimportant. You might also believe others’ emotions are unimportant, or you might believe others’ emotions are more important than your own.

Imagine a world in which all feelings are treated as important. A world where you know and trust yourself. A world where you know and trust others. A world where you can manage and express your emotions with ease. A world where you feel connected, safe, and fulfilled.

That world is waiting for you. All you have to do is turn inside and listen. Your emotions will guide the way.

© Jonice Webb, Ph.D.