
Processing Emotions - blaze33
http://www.willmeekphd.com/processing-emotions/
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unabst
I'm not a fan of this discipline of managing and processing emotions as if
they were opinions or the consequence of our thoughts.

Emotions are facts. This must be the premise. If you've felt them, they've
happened already. The question is not "what are you feeling?" but rather,
"what are you going to do about what you've felt?"

So as long as you're not confusing what you can change, you're good. You can
prepare yourself and educate yourself for when you could feel something next
time. But this is also already highly automated. Emotions tend to educate
themselves. So I find a lot of this is just trusting yourself, and not
overreaching into thinking you can change your past or twist the facts.

If you're sad you're sad. If you're happy you're happy.

It's not so much managing your emotions. It's more about managing the moment,
and what you wish to do with yourself. It's about managing the things that
make you feel things.

If you hate your job, quit your job. Don't manage the hate.

If you love someone, go for it. Don't manage your love.

And so on.

~~~
ada1981
You'd be surprised how many people don't know what they are feeling. They are
numbed, distracted and possibly have never given names to the experiences
inside of them.

I agree that "managing" is a poor term here. In my practice I use the term
"engage" with the emotion. Feel it. Surrender to it.

Action is very often a way to escape the intensity of an experience.

~~~
unabst
Yes absolutely. We have control of our actions. Emotions we have no control
over. Or rather, that should not be the focus of our intentions. But we can
control what we do about them, and we can connect the dots between our actions
and our emotions when deciding what to do next.

And also there is hardly ever anything wrong with our emotions... I don't buy
into negative emotions either. They're what you make of them -- after the
fact.

I randomly came across this a while ago, and it remains the best example I
have:

[https://medium.com/@sugarpirate/i-am-still-
learning-f61c765d...](https://medium.com/@sugarpirate/i-am-still-
learning-f61c765d657c)

> And I’m going to keep being afraid.

She talks about being afraid, except, she's no longer afraid of fear.

At which point, what is fear to you? What is fear?

The emotions, and the facts, remain. What has changed is you. This would not
be possible if you = emotion. And it demonstrates how even fear is not
negative. It's only negative if it leads to negative outcomes, which require
your action.

When we are young, emotions become us. Someone takes your toy, and you cry.
Maybe in your teens you punched someone in the face. But as we age, hopefully,
these things happen less often. But you probably still get upset. The
difference is in the control you have over your actions. And with this, our
emotions seem to mature and sort themselves out also.

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woodandsteel
This is a good article. I would just add that attending to an emotion and
explaining to someone what you are feeling and why often results in a
spontaneous process that produces positive changes such as lessening of
intensity and change in perspective. This is much of how psychotherapy works,
or for that matter just talking things over with a friend.

A good book on attending to feelings is Focusing, by Eugene Gendlin.

~~~
fhrow4484
Agreed, in that regard I didn't find that example in the article very good:

> For example, if you were trying to impress a new date who wanted to go to
> the zoo, you might have to find a way to play it cool in front of the
> gorilla enclosure by using a discrete breathing technique.

Instead you could simply say that you actually have an irrational fear of
gorillas. Worst case the date is actual a huge gorillas nerd and that would be
a deal breaker, best case the date helps you change perspective and at the end
of the date, you're not afraid of gorillas.

~~~
jschwartzi
Yes. Honesty is more endearing than trying to pretend, and it's easier too.

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woliveirajr
Hug of Death, there's a cache of it:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RSEiWt4...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RSEiWt4desgJ:www.willmeekphd.com/processing-
emotions/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=br)

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johnksawers
That's a good article - a nice overview. I have a conference talk I give on
the same topic called Your Emotional API:
[https://johnksawers.wistia.com/medias/wnlr918xe7](https://johnksawers.wistia.com/medias/wnlr918xe7)

