This is a reprint of an article taken from an interview with one of my close colleagues. It is reprinted with permission. I hope you enjoy it.
Express Your Emotions
Learning the language of self
by Melissa Galea, MSc, MA
Effective communication involves more than merely
expressing emotions. But decoding emotion is no easy task.
Feelings form a basic element of human interaction. Even
brief day-to-day encounters involve an exchange of emotion, whether it’s a kiss
goodbye as your kids catch the school bus, a quick catch-up with a client over
lunch, or a friendly nod to a passerby on the street.
How we express feelings is determined by a complex matrix
of innate personality traits and tendencies, cultural and familial influences,
as well as the context or social setting.
It’s hard work, but learning to better communicate emotion
could impact your physical and psychological health and improve the quality of
relationships in your home and work life.
Communication is key
Our culture values self-expression. We are encouraged to be
assertive, and this includes the ability to convey our thoughts and feelings.
It all boils down to communication skills.
“Effective communication solidifies a relationship,”
advises Dr. Faizal H. Sahukhan, a registered professional counsellor, author,
and the national communications director for the Canadian Professional
Counsellors Association. He believes it is important to be heard, but also to
be understood by others.
“Expressing our feelings in an open and nonjudgmental
environment leads to bonding and a heightened sense of intimacy, a connection
with other people.” Shared feelings form the basis of friendships, spawn
romantic partnerships, and enable fruitful working relations.
Put a positive spin on things
An early step to managing our emotions involves evaluating
a situation. You might feel anxious before a job interview if, for example, you
believe you will be judged on your skills.
But if you consider the interview an opportunity to learn
more about the company, you might instead feel eager and confident. Your
efforts shift from masking anxiety in the meeting to expressing confidence.
Shedding positive light on a situation is one way of coping with an emotional
threat.
In many instances a negative emotion is planted and we must
instead try to manage our response. In an environment that nurtures openness we
might disclose our feelings and seek resolution. Often, however, we resort to
harbouring negative sentiments.
Suppression: weighing the risks
Can you put on a poker face? Sometimes, hiding emotion can
work to your advantage. But in the game of life, keeping things inside is not
worth the gamble. Suppression is an unhealthy practice of bottling up our
feelings by restraining verbal or physical expression. This quick fix offers
immediate relief of anxieties, but in the long term results in negative
feelings that accumulate, unresolved.
Pent-up feelings—both positive and negative—can affect our
own health, as well as the vitality of our relationships. Holding emotions in
requires an ongoing effort that drains us mentally and socially. Suppression
has been linked, for example, to poor memory, particularly of conversations
with others and recent emotional events.
The divide between inner feelings and the outer self also
leads to a negative self-evaluation—that feeling of being untrue to oneself.
Sahukhan believes that “our feelings represent our identity, our personality;
our feelings indicate our true self.” Suppression also causes us to alienate
ourselves from others, making it even harder to open up eventually.
The strain of suppression on relationships can be
devastating. “A key part of developing and maintaining intimacy,” says
Sahukhan, “is having open, honest, nonjudgmental sharing of feelings between
individuals, and when one or both does not express their feelings this leads to
distancing.”
From heartache to heart disease
As if the heartache of a failing friendship or broken
romance isn’t enough, unexpressed feelings can have a measurable impact on the
beating of the heart. “When we don’t express certain toxic feelings, like anger
and resentment,” says Sahukhan, “this can lead to emotional trauma, but also
physiological effects.”
In particular, stress caused by pent-up emotion leads to
increased blood pressure, accelerated heart rate, and arousal of the
sympathetic nervous system, which controls heart function. Initial efforts to
suppress emotion also increase the response of the cardiovascular system to
later stressful events.
Simple steps to better communication
Effective communication is a learned skill. A professional
psychological counsellor can help refine your technique. Sahukhan looks for
physical signs of emotion, helping people translate these into words. In
addition, he encourages nonverbal communication at home, for example, holding
hands while going for a walk.
When we are ready to talk, reframing sentences involves
removing blame from a statement and shifting the focus to the self. For
example, we might be inclined to say, “You don’t love me,” but a less
threatening statement is “I feel unloved.” These are
simple tasks that can be attempted at home.
E-motion
Social networking has become a frequent platform for
expressing our thoughts and feelings. Is this a help or a hindrance to our
emotional well-being? Sahukhan believes social media “may lead to more
efficient and speedy communication between people,” but warns that “there is a
lot of liability as well, and there are challenges in the sense that we don’t
get a chance to fully and deeply express ourselves through these means.”
Misunderstanding is even more likely without body language
and facial expressions. We should recognize the limitations of social media,
particularly when sharing complex emotions. A face-to-face conversation might
require more effort, but it is the only way that intimacy will flourish.
A lifelong process
We begin to recognize emotions in infancy, through body
language and mimicry, for instance, when a baby learns to smile back at you.
Eventually, children link facial expressions and gestures to emotions. We smile
when we are happy.
While these formative years lay the groundwork for our
emotional traits and tendencies, self-expression is an ongoing developmental
process that spans the lifetime. Although this means we may never fully master
the art of expressing and decoding emotions, at least we can be sure there is
always opportunity for improvement.
Tips for better communication
·
Hold hands or hug to transfer
emotions through body language.
·
Reframe statements by removing
blame or threat.
·
Determine if your feelings are
in line with what is actually happening.
·
If you’re not ready to talk, put
your feelings down in writing.
·
Enrol in assertiveness training
to enhance functional communication.
·
Seek advice from a registered
professional counsellor.
