Take Stock of Your Emotions
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Tips and Tricks
Take Stock of Your Emotions
We so often focus on ways to be happy. But the reality is that we all have an array of emotions, and we cannot be—nor should anyone expect us to be—happy all the time.
Susan David, a psychologist, has made it her professional mission to study emotional agility. When emotions get pushed aside or ignored, they actually get stronger; we feel like we should be happy and, thus, focus on what we think we and the world should be; and we become less able to deal with the world as it actually is, according to David. To the contrary, when people in life and in business are allowed to feel and speak their true emotions, we get more creativity and more productivity.
So, challenge yourself to “sit in your emotions” when need be, and take the time to accurately label them. Rather than say, “I am stressed” (we are not our emotions), say “I’m noticing I’m flustered because I committed to too many things this week.” Labeling emotions more specifically allows us to better address them and formulate concrete steps to address them.
And as David says, radical acceptance of all of our emotions actually makes us happier people.
