Coach as Instrument: Emotions, what’s the point?!

This Week's Attunement

“Your emotions make you human. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. Don't lock them away. If you ignore them, they just get louder and angrier.”

― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

 

For some people and for many organizational cultures, emotions equal drama, and drama is bad. Drama is inefficient and "bad for business." And in this way, our emotions become pathologized - meaning the natural and essential human experience of emotions is made abnormal.

So, let's look at what the heck emotions are, why we need them, and how we make sense of them.

What are emotions?

What we call "emotions" has no commonly agreed-upon definition. And there's still a lot we don't know about them. However, some consensus exists that emotions are "biologically-based psychological states." Meaning emotions occur in the body as well as the mind.

While debate exists the about the sequence, there is general agreement that emotions have three elements:
 

1. a subjective experience (a story we've made up about what triggered our emotion)
2. a physiological response (our body's sensational experience of the emotion)
3. a behavioral impulse (our prompt to do or not do something).

Why do we need emotions?

Simply put, we need emotions to make sense of and make meaning of our lives. Emotions give us energy and information that no other dimension of our experience provides.

Emotions perform 5 distinct roles for us as humans:

1. Emotions provide information we need to survive (i.e., If we are out walking and come upon a snake, our feet might be running before we consciously realize what we've seen, all the result of our emotional reaction)
2. Emotions motivate us to act (i.e., When we are angry, perhaps because of a perceived injustice, we're more likely to do something to create change)
3. Emotions allow us to understand, connect and communicate with others (i.e., To a degree, we can read each other's expressions and communicate and share how we are experiencing any given moment)
4. Emotions inform our decision-making and point us in the direction of what we want and don't want (i.e., People who've had the emotional centers of their brains damaged can go on to lead physically normal lives. And their lives can often descend into utter chaos because they don't have their emotions to guide them.)
5. Emotions give our lives texture, color, and meaning.

How do we make sense of our emotions?

People and organizations tend to conflate emotions with drama because most of us aren't taught to make sense of our emotions and self-regulate in the process. How we make sense of our emotions is directly related to the integrated components of an emotion mentioned above.

Our emotions include an interpretation, a story that's unique to us, about what triggered the emotion. Where our emotions can lead us astray, if we let them, is in believing our emotions are facts instead of stories we've made up.

When we recognize our emotions as triggered by our inference (which resides within us) and not by something external to us, we can then own our stories, interrogate their veracity and perhaps come up with alternative interpretations. (e.g., I feel irritated and make up a story that because my husband walks 10 feet ahead of me on date night  — and he does — that he's being rude. Or, I can check that interpretation to see how true it feels - and it doesn't - and devise an alternative explanation, like he's anxious about getting to the restaurant on time).

Our emotions include physical sensations. It tells us that something wants our attention, and there's information within the emotion that's important for our survival and/or well-being. (e.g., I often feel anxious before a presentation, and I experience it as nausea in my belly. When I notice nausea, it tells me I'm anxious. And I can ask myself what I'm anxious about, which engages my mind and gives me clarity about what I can be doing more or different to improve the presentation).

Our emotions include an impulse. When we notice the emotion and name it, then we can determine if we want to act on the impulse or not. (e.g., I frequently feel a degree of embarrassment because of something I did or didn't do that wasn't up to my own expectations of myself. My impulse when embarrassed is to withdraw from others. When I act on that impulse, the feeling often intensifies and doesn't resolve. But if I go against the impulse and confide in someone else about my experience, I experience a sense of connectedness and relief).

Summary

When we vilify emotions as drama, they don't go away; they go underground. The emotions continue to operate but do so outside of our awareness. And our stories go unexamined, our sensations go ignored, and our impulses are unchecked.

The point of emotions is that they exist for a reason. They provide us with rich information about ourexperience that can, when examined, make our lives richer and more satisfying.

Emotions transform life from a detached series of events to an existence with value and purpose.