Emotional Awareness: Listening to our Inner Music
Hello, wonderful Grief and Loss Community!
In this first post of our “Emotional Awareness” Event, I propose you to reflect on what Emotional Awareness is about.
“Emotional Awareness” might be understood as knowing consciously and with certain precision what we are feeling from moment to moment, without judging those feelings, just being aware of them.
This requires focus and discrimination. To give an analogy, we might listen to music as background music, and it will feel like a homogeneous backdrop with an emotional tone that creates a certain “atmosphere” around us while we are focusing on something else, like working, studying, or doing chores for example.
We might then shift our full attention to that music that was in the background. To better appreciate it, we might focus on it and discriminate its components: What instruments are playing? What is each one doing? What melodic lines appear and fade? What is the rhythm and density of the sound? How emotionally intense it is? Etc.
By directing our full focus to the music and identifying each of its components, we gain a much better appreciation of its richness, we can fully immerse in it and get a better understanding of what it is about, what is going on in that piece of music that we perceived before as a vague homogeneous whole.
Accordingly, by directing our full focus to our emotions and discriminating each one that we are feeling, we might appreciate them much better, which will allow each emotion to be “seen”, expressed, validated, and channeled in its proper way. This is what Emotional Awareness is all about.
Emotional Awareness can also be extended beyond our own emotions, to include the emotions of those around us. Being aware of other’s emotions requires paying close attention to clues about their internal emotional situation, clues that might show up in external signs, for example, in what they say and the emotional charge their words have, in their facial expressions, their body language, and their tone of voice.
This would help us understand how they might be feeling. We can then put ourselves “in their shoes”, just like if we were having those emotions ourselves. This mindset and process of “feeling what they feel” is called “Empathy” and allows us to build better relationships with those close to us, as well as manage effectively our social interactions in wider circles.
It is also crucial to help better those we care most about, in particular those who might be struggling in a distressful situation, for example dealing with grief. This empathic awareness and desire to alleviate their distress constitute Compassion.
Compassion is the noble virtue present and expressed all the time, all around 7 Cups, and particularly in this Grief and Loss Community, each time someone is moved by the predicament of another, and offers them their consoling and caring words.
Question:
How improving emotional awareness might help you in your life?
@HealingTalk I think I'm better at understanding others emotional awaeness than I do my own. But knowing/understanding your own emotions would be very helpful, to avoid some nasty triggers, and how to cope with and change your moods. There's just so much I don't understand, but I'm learning, slowly ❤
Thank you, Lola, for participating in this activity by posting in this thread!
Your voice and insights are very much appreciated.
And yes, many times it might be easier to understand other people's emotions than your own. Particularly for very emphatic and compassionate persons like you.
Our own emotions affect us very much, they might give us satisfaction or discomfort. Sometimes a lot of discomfort. So to protect us from experiencing our emotions, the painful ones in particular, our mind might extend a veil of confusion, numbness, or even denial.
There can be also cultural influences that we might internalize, that demand we are always happy, and tell us that it's not ok not to be ok.
Fortunately, in this Community there is a culture of acceptance and validation of all emotions. By expressing our emotions here to others, we might connect and know them better ourselves.
Also by devoting some time to introspection and cultivating self-acceptance and self-compassion, we create a safe space where our emotions can fully reveal themselves as they are. We embrace them with compassion like we do with the emotions of others.
This is a most healthy approach, as we will discuss in upcoming posts.
I think you are very advanced in this path, as you express to our Community how you are feeling at different times in a very clear and open way. From excitement and joy from Christmas and the New Year, to sadness due to sad things that might happen to you.
Very few people are so expressive, open and clear about what they feel.
Recognizing and getting in touch with our deep emotions is challenging for all of us. I think you are among the most successful when taking on this challenge.
Of course, we all can improve and get better at this, and we will gain great benefits from it.
Thank you again, Lola, for your active participation, which we appreciate so much!
Marcelo.
@Tinywhisper11
@HealingTalk ❤❤❤ thankyou ❤❤ you always make me smile ❤ gives you a giant tiny hug ❤
@HealingTalk a great introduction to Emotional Awareness and how it helps us be more mindful of ourself, our environment, as well as others around us. I look forward to this series of posts
Hello Healing,
Emotional awareness is so hard to grasp when we aren't in our best state and when all we could think about is our problems and how it affects us in a negative way. For myself, it isn't until I've started my journey of recovering from depression, did I become more aware of my own emotions. I had always been a people-watcher/observer, so a lot of the times, I can sense how one is feeling by looking at them. Of course, it helps if I'm also constantly interacting with them, knowing their habits and what they look like when they are normal.
Emotional awareness to self helps us understand why we act or feel the way we do when we encounter things that make us emotional. To be able to identify which emotion it is also helps us learn about ourselves. I believe it's a lifelong lesson.
@HealingTalk
Dear Jaeteuk:
That's a thoughtful and insightful response to the question about emotional awareness and you make some very strong points.
Sharing your personal journey with depression adds authenticity and shows that emotional awareness can develop even in challenging times.
Highlighting your ability to sense others' emotions shows how a broad perspective of emotional intelligence beyond self-awareness is possible and might help us.
You avoid oversimplification by recognizing that understanding others requires more than just observation.
And connecting with your emotions while depressed could also offer further connection with others struggling.
You are an example of how emotional awareness can positively impact your life.
Thank you for being so genuine in sharing your experiences and your perspective!
@Jaeteuk
@HealingTalk Hi there, I am Ethan - Thank you for this post!
I think that improving my emotional awareness would allow me to discern my moods and what I can do to improve them personally, whether that be through meditation, positive affirmations, or destressing and self-care, and medicinally with my doctor. It would benefit me from multiple angles and I think that it will allow me to come closer to my goals, both professionally, academically, and from within.
Thanks again,
E
Improving emotional awareness might help me in my life (as of right now -- with the current situation at hand), by giving me the ability to "put myself in others shoes." I am currently struggling with the loss of my son's father, and I have no idea how to handle what I'm feeling and stuff nevertheless be able to be there for his other grieving family members n friends..
