The Power of Emotions: Your Secret to Getting Your Needs Met

Emotions as Motivators

Emotions are often seen as fleeting, unimportant or uncontrollable aspects of our lives, but what if we could begin to look at them as potent motivators? What if we made friends with our emotions and could learn to listen to what they are trying to tell us?

Uncomfortable emotions are motivating us to take action. Similar to how when we have sensations of physical pain, our body is telling us something is wrong, the mental pain of uncomfortable emotions is telling us something needs to change. Originating in the hind brain, where the fight-flight response is generated, the vagus nerve connects to major organs in the body. This connection allows us to feel emotions in the body before we are even consciously aware of having the emotions. The reason why we feel emotions, therefore, is not to be doomed to misery or inconvenience, we have these emotions because our brain is noticing a danger. The way the danger is signaled for us, is in emotions like anger, fear or sadness. A lot of of these emotions are socially motivated, because as humans, we are social creatures and we depend on social relationships for safety.

Here is a handout I give to my clients to begin understanding this concept, but of course there are other potential motivations for each of these emotions.

Embracing Emotional Awareness

Emotional intelligence is the key to mastering the art of using emotions as motivators. It involves being aware of your own emotions, understanding what triggers them, and managing them effectively. Instead of ignoring emotions, we have to explore what they may be trying to tell us so we can take action to resolve the emotion. Ignoring emotions translates to ignoring personal needs. Overtime, the ignored needs will try to be met in ways which may not make sense, or emotions may come out sideways. We're talking about passive aggression, substance use, break downs, explosiveness and all sorts of other not-so-healthy behaviors.

The most important thing to remember about emotions is that uncomfortable emotions are resolved when we are able to take action and meet our needs. In this way, emotions work for us.

Listening to Your Body

Identifying emotions can be difficult for individuals who have not developed an emotional vocabulary or who were taught to ignore emotions. Paying attention to bodily sensations can give us the cues we need to figure out what emotions we may be feeling. Whether it's the flutter of butterflies in your stomach or the tension in your shoulders, bodily sensations serve as essential feedback directly from our brains. Paying attention to these physical signals can provide invaluable insights into our mental and emotional well-being.

Next time you feel overwhelmed with stress or anxiety, take a moment to pause and tune into your emotions. Notice the physical sensations that accompany these feelings - the tightness in your chest, the knot in your stomach, the heaviness of your legs, the shooting energy in your arms, or clenching of your fists. By acknowledging these bodily cues, you can gain a better understanding of your real-time emotions.

I encourage all of my clients to check out these body maps produced in a large scale study.

Participants in the study colored in where in their bodies they felt specific emotions and if these emotions had an activating (warm colored) or deactivating (cool colored) sensation. For individuals who struggle to identify emotions, bodily sensations can be one of the most important metrics to increasing emotional awareness.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1321664111

The next time you experience a wave emotion, take a moment to scan your body for any signs of tension, relaxation, activation, deactivation, changes in temperature like feeling warm, cold or hot... Not only does this practice enhance your emotional awareness, but it also enables you to become embodied and grounded in activating moments.

Take Aways

By making friends with our feelings, cultivating emotional intelligence, and listening to our bodies, we can better understand our authentic needs. Remember, emotions are not obstacles to be overcome but allies to be embraced on our journey towards personal growth and fulfillment. Emotions are utilitarian and work to keep our inner selves safe, just like having the ability to feel pain in our bodies helps to keep our bodies safe.

So, the next time you find yourself caught in a whirlwind of emotions, pause, breathe, and listen. You can resolve these uncomfortable emotions through leaning deeper in to them and asking yourself what the emotion is telling you that you need. You can then ask for that need to be met by another or work to meet that need yourself, either way your emotions are working to help you understand your own needs and get those needs met.