I am one of those people who feel their emotions intensely.
Most of the time, I don’t like it. It overwhelms me. That’s why one of the first things my therapist asked me was:
Emotions are our most valuable compass. They are meant to guide and protect us.
That protection worked extremely well – a long time ago.
Our emotions are still from the Stone Age
In the Stone Age we were scared when we saw dangerous animals. So ran away. When we saw an attractive partner, we wanted to make love. When we depended on social cohesion, we felt the urge to fit in socially with a tribe.
Time now is different from stone age.
However, we still have our Stone Age primal urges. In today’s world, these emotions don’t serve us as well as they used to
If we were to translate them into 1:1 actions, life would be quite difficult.
How survival mode kills long-term happiness
We can’t run for our lives because we’re afraid to deliver that 10-minute presentation to our boss. We can’t just jump on someone we want to fall in love with. And over-accommodating others makes us feel worse in the long run. It makes us feel alienated from ourselves.
Since we are no longer in survival mode alone, we are privileged to consider long-term happiness much more.
But we need to be aware of our emotions – we need to use them wisely and correctly as a compass. Not as an immediate call to action.
I too am a slave to my primal urges.
For example, I run a small Instagram account about running.
I know the whole theory of how to succeed on that platform. Still, I dread talking to the camera — which is one of the best ways to garner an audience out there today.
But if knowledge was sufficient, no doctor would smoke.
So most of the time, I respond to my concerns immediately. I post a video of me speaking — and immediately delete it. I worry about being perceived as awkward or inappropriate.
At the same time, I know this is what hinders my success.
Work your way out of mental retardation
In that case, my passion is a very poor mentor for my work. And I am sure you will identify such cases in your life too.
If yes, good. The first step is awareness, always. You can’t modify a program you don’t know.
But change requires more than thought. No one can think of a way out of what blocks them. And now comes the hard part: the action. You have to use your awareness and take opposite steps.
It’s easier to pretend to be who you want to be than to think about who you want to be
It will renew your emotions and make the scary thing less scary. Or it will make an emotion that leads us astray less intense — step by step.
Rewiring my emotional system
For me, that means I have to post a damn Instagram video of me talking. The first time will be the hardest. I have to prove to myself through action that seeing is not a threat to my life in any way.
Also, I try to detach myself from my emotions. To appreciate them, look above them and ask: Oh, what does this want to tell me? And should I act on it – or let the emotion be and wait a bit?
We are no longer in the Stone Age.
And yet, even our emotions have to work hard to see that.
What are the strong emotions that sometimes block you or lead you astray?
