Emotions are “the glue” that connect people to one another. They are the foundation of your ability to understand yourself and relate to others.

When you are aware and in control of your emotions, you can think clearly and creatively; manage stress and challenges; communicate well with others; and display trust, empathy, and confidence. But lose control of your emotions, and you’ll spin into confusion, isolation, and doubt. By learning to recognize, manage, and deal with your emotions, you’ll enjoy greater happiness and health and better relationships.

The power of your emotions

Babies are bundles of emotion, experiencing intense emotions of fear, anger, sadness, and joy within their first eight weeks of life. As an infant, your emotions connected you to your primary caregiver in what was the first relationship of your life. Throughout life, emotions continue to serve this same purpose: connecting us to others.

Without emotions and an awareness and understanding of them, it’s impossible to build or maintain strong, healthy relationships. The feelings of others will escape you unless you’re familiar with your own emotions. The more aware you are of your own emotions, the easier it will be for you to pick up on what others are feeling and accurately read their wants and needs.
Your emotions help you:

* understand yourself, including your deeply-felt needs
* understand and empathize with others
* communicate clearly and effectively
* make decisions based on the things that are most important to you
* get motivated and take action to meet goals
* build strong, healthy relationships

Emotional awareness and communication

Whether you’re having an argument with your spouse or dealing with colleagues at work, your emotions influence the communication process. Over 95% of communication is nonverbal and emotionally driven, so the stakes in learning to harness your emotions are high. Say the wrong thing, or miss an emotional cue, and it can do a lot of damage.
How emotions and feelings affect communication and relationships

Consider the emotional responses of Bernie, Rhonda, and Jim and how they affect their home and work relationships:

Bernie is a kind, steady, and dependable man whose emotional flatness inspired the nickname “Mr. Robot.” In his love relationship with his wife, Bernie remains emotionally uninvolved. His mood is always low key—nothing is too exciting, nothing is worth arguing about. It blindsides him when his wife files for divorce; he never saw it coming. Bernie likes his job, but his flatness has hurt his ability to advance. His bosses can’t imagine him motivating others.

Rhonda works hard at her marriage. Attractive, caring, and hard-working, she takes everything seriously and seldom complains or criticizes. But her lack of spontaneity, humor, and playfulness is taking its toll, as her husband contemplates romantic involvements with other women. Rhonda’s seriousness also limits her popularity at work. Her coworkers tend to forget that she is there.

Jim is admired for his kindness and generosity. Only his family knows of his extremely short fuse. After an unprovoked verbal outburst, Jim is predictably apologetic. When people tell Jim’s wife how lucky she is to have such a wonderful husband, she bites her lip, aware of how she and their children suffer in their relationship with him. His temper also keeps him from working well with others and has limited his choice of jobs.

Like misfiring pistons, Bernie, Rhonda and Jim are incapable of connecting with their strong emotions—the tools they need to communicate with themselves and others. They do not experience the full range of core emotions, or gut feelings.
Evaluating your emotional awareness

Although emotional awareness is the basis of emotional health, good communication, and solid relationships, many people remain relatively unacquainted with their core emotional experience. It is surprising how few people can easily answer the question: “What are you experiencing emotionally?”
Emotional awareness involves two basic abilities:

* The ability to recognize your moment-to-moment emotional experience
* The ability to manage all of your feelings appropriately

What is my level of emotional awareness?

Ask yourself the following questions. If you can answer “yes” to most of the questions, congratulations! If not, you may want to work on raising your emotional awareness:

* Can you tolerate strong feelings, including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and joy?
* Do you feel your emotions in your body? If you are sad or mad, do you experience physical sensations in places like your stomach and chest?
* Are you comfortable with all of your emotions? No one chooses to be angry, sad or frightened, but if you are, is it OK?
* Do you pay attention to your emotions and use them to guide your decisions?
* Are you comfortable talking about your emotions? Do you communicate your feelings honestly?
* Do your emotions capture the attention of others? Do others know what you feel? Are you comfortable with their knowing?
* Are you sensitive to the emotions of others?

Unhealthy ways of dealing with emotions and feelings

We are all born with a capacity to freely experience the full range of human emotions—including joy, anger, sadness, and fear. Yet many people are disconnected from some or all of their feelings. By trying to avoid pain and discomfort, their emotions have become distorted, displaced, and stifled. You lose touch with your emotions when you attempt to control them, rather than experience them.
Ways of avoiding strong emotions and feelings

* Distracting yourself with obsessive thoughts, escapist fantasies, mindless entertainment, and addictive behaviors in order to avoid emotions you fear or dislike. Watching television for hours, playing computer games, and surfing the Internet are common ways of avoiding dealing with feelings.
* Sticking with one emotional response that you feel comfortable with, no matter what the situation calls for. For example: constantly joking around to cover up insecurities or getting angry all the time to avoid feeling frightened and sad.
* Shutting down or shutting out intense emotions. If you feel overwhelmed by your emotions, you may cope by numbing yourself. You may feel completely disconnected from your emotions, like you no longer have feelings at all.

The consequences of avoiding emotions and feelings

* You lose the good, along with the bad. You either feel your emotions or you don’t. When you shut down negative feeling like anger, fear, or sadness, you also shut down your ability to experience positive feelings such as joy, love, and happiness.
* It’s exhausting. You can distort and numb emotions, but you can’t eliminate them entirely. It takes a lot of energy to avoid having an authentic emotional experience and keep your feelings suppressed. The effort leaves you stressed and drained.
* It damages your relationships. The more you distance yourself from your feelings, the more distant you become from others, as well as yourself. You lose the ability to build strong relationships and communicate effectively, both of which depend on being in touch with your emotions.

You can’t manage emotions until you know how to manage stress

The ability to manage stress is a prerequisite for emotional awareness. Raising your emotional awareness and emotional intelligence begins with the question: "What kinds of sensory input instantly make me feel relaxed, safe, calm, and focused?" Knowing the answer is especially important for people who have had overwhelming emotional experiences as a child. Once you have a safety net in place and know how to make yourself feel good quickly and dependably, you can begin to explore the emotions that seem disagreeable or frightening. The key to coping with strong emotions is knowing that you control of them–not the other way around.

The ability to quickly reduce stress allows you to safely face strong emotions, secure in your ability to regulate your feelings and behave appropriately. When you know how to maintain a relaxed, energized state of awareness—even when something upsetting happens—you can remain emotionally available and engaged.