We saw in the last post that emotions give us important information about ourselves, and that we should not ignore them. We started talking about what you can do with them:
- acknowledge that you have emotions
- allow yourself to have them
- share your emotions with people you trust.
This time we will talk more about what you can do with your emotions besides sharing them with someone else.
It’s very easy for us to just live our lives and ignore what’s going on inside of us. Sometimes because we feel like the things inside of us are too painful, sometimes because we don’t see the importance of taking time to listen to ourselves and how we’re doing.
It is helpful to take 15 minutes every day to sit down, be alone and think about how you are doing. Ask yourself these questions:
- How have I been doing today?
- What kind of emotions have I been feeling?
- What kind of emotions do I feel right now?
- What are the things that caused these emotions?
If Zhuoma (see Part 1) would have done this everyday she would soon have realized that every time her boss was scolding her she had a headache and diarrhea. Then she could have done something about it, like try to find another job, and she would have felt so much better.
And if Duojie would have taken time every day to ask himself how he was doing he would sooner have realized new things about himself: that whenever he feels like people don’t listen to him he gets angry. The reason that he is very sensitive in this area is because he never felt like anyone cared about him and his needs when he was a kid. Taking time to understand this about himself would have helped him to not have so many explosions of anger.
So take around 15 minutes every day to think about how you are doing. After that, do something that helps you to relax: sing, write a poem, make a drawing, dance or go for a walk. This will help you to feel emotionally healthy and balanced.