What are your emotions trying to tell you?

As a coach I see what happens when people acknowledge their anger, frustration and sadness, and allow themselves to explore what’s beneath those emotions.

When my clients can go into the emotions, when they’re curious, they have insights that open possibilities. 

When I first read the literature on emotional intelligence, however, I felt a bit uneasy. I like the idea of self-awareness, but the idea of self-management raised questions for me. Who was determining what the emotional “standards” were, and from what perspective?

Some of the language made me feel I was being told to contain myself in a way that didn’t honor my culture, background, and ways of experiencing and expressing emotions.  

So I was thrilled when I heard an interview with Karla McLaren, a social science researcher and author who has dedicated much of her life to understanding emotions – not to control them, but to use them as part of our intelligence. You can check out the interview: Making Friends with Anxiety and Other Emotions here.

She encourages us to befriend our emotions, listen to what they’re trying to tell us, and learn how to channel them. I love that she uses the term channel, rather than control. 

Karla has divided 17 emotions into four families, and for each of these families and the emotions within it, she provides questions that you can ask of the emotions, so you can begin to dig in and understand them.

• Anger, which has to do with boundaries, rules and behaviors. The questions that you can ask when you feel anger include: What do I value? What must be protected and restored?

• Sadness, which has to do with stopping, letting go, and recovering. The questions that you can ask when you feel emotions in the sadness family, include: What must be released? What must be rejuvenated?

• Fear, which has to do with instincts, intuition, orienting and action. The questions that you can ask when you feel emotions in the fear family include: What actions should be taken? What truly needs to get done?

• and happiness, which helps you look to the future with contentment and joy. Rather than questions, she offers statements of gratitude, which include: Thank you for this wonderful moment!

Karla uses the term emotional genius,  and offers four key concepts:

1. Refrain from looking at emotions as good or bad. If we judge an emotion, such as anger as bad, then we can’t figure out what the emotion is telling us. 

2. Learn to identify emotions at different intensity levels. Is your anger soft, medium, intense?

Karla provides an incredible range of words to describe the various intensities. For example in anger there are words for soft anger such as annoyed, sarcastic, displeased, for medium anger such as angry, incensed, affronted, and strong anger such as aggressive, seething, outraged.

3. Learn to identify mixed emotions, for example anxiety and rage can often be mixed. 

4. Learn to channel the emotions so you that you can use their insights. 

I love this model of emotional genius because it doesn’t judge the emotions or simply try to repress the ones that are inconvenient. Nor does it say that you should go around expressing each and every emotion without regard for the needs and values of others.

Rather, it supports us gaining awareness and insight so that we can channel our emotions in a way that honors who we are and what we’re seeking to be and do. 

Our emotions are constantly being manipulated when we read the news, watch films, spend time on social media. We’re just not aware or taking the time to notice what emotions are being activated and why. 

To be empowered and engaged in realizing our vision and our values, while making a positive difference for those we love, we must understand how to engage with our emotions, rather than run from them.