predicting emotions

The experience of being surprised by our feelings, as Courtney describes, can be alarming. And it can easily lead to a couple of responses: shutting down at the moment we are surprised by a feeling, or shutting down in anticipation of an emotion arising (either imminently or at some random point in the future).

We develop this shutting down stuff as coping strategies- ways we feel we need to protect ourselves from "threatening" emotions.

No matter which type of shutting down you employ (and many people use a variety of both of the above, depending on the situation), and no matter how much it feels like it helps protect you and manage your feelings, this coping strategy costs you. It costs you big-time over the long haul.

Shutting down is a stressful process. It requires us to go against our natural ways of being. Don't get me wrong, we have the ability to shut down, to block out things, to disconnect from ourselves- and we can use any or all of these in response to acute, overwhelming, life-threatening or life-damaging events. In fact, the ability to use these coping mechanisms can come in very handy in some situations... like if we are being chased by a grizzly bear for instance. If you've got an enormous ball of fur with major claws and teeth like no other running after you, it may in fact be your best chance of survival to not have full access to your range of emotions. With that big guy closing in on you, you don't need to be processing your feelings about it, right? You need to be doing whatever the heck you can to get away from him.

But we're not designed to use these emotional shut down mechanisms chronically, or even for very long. After a little while, once you climb a tree and are safe because the bear can't get to you (he's not a tree-climbing type bear...) you are supposed to come back to yourself- to become UN-shut down. And it's at this point you can, and need to process your emotions regarding what just happened.

Sometimes people get used to using these shut down skills much or all of the time, and this is exhausting, isolating, and actually less and less effective over time.

There are a bunch of ways to work on changing this. The first is to notice, as Courtney has, that this is what happens. It's enough for awhile just to notice, to observe that this is how you respond to certain emotions. You can also work to develop familiarity with your range of feelings (a list is a a great tool here- a list of ALL the feelings you've ever experienced) because the more familiar you are with your emotions the less likely you are to be caught off guard by any of them. Your list can include not only names of emotions, but things, situations, etc that tend to evoke each of these feelings. Doing it this way gets you used to the context in which particular emotions arise. 

Comments

[PTC]

"In case of emergency, shut down." Ha!

I think I spend much of my life shut down. Not something to be proud of either, I guess.

[Courtney]

I like that PTC. Good bumper sticker for me!

[wendy]

Johanna, could you expand more on this topic. I still shut down when surprised by my emotions being so strong, when what I am saying is bein unheard, invalidated, discounted, or unheard, or when I feel like a person is attacking me. I get so frustrated, because if I do it, it is hard to start feeling again.

[PTC]

HAHA! Glad you like it, Court!