By Tawny George MA, LPCC
Many of us were taught that emotions are negative. But did you know that emotions are actually guides?
Emotions are evolutionary tools that help us detect and alert us to things we need to pay attention to.
In Trauma and the Body, it states, “Emotions add motivational coloring to cognitive processing and act as signals that direct us to notice and attend to particular cues. Emotions help us take adaptive action by calling attention to significant environmental events and stimuli (Krystal, 1978; van der Kolk, McFarlane et al., 1996). The "emotional brain directs us toward experiences we seek and the cognitive brain tries to help us get there as intelligently as possible" (Servan-Schreiber, 2003, p. 26). According to Linas, "As with muscle tone that serves as the basic platform for the execution of our movements, emotions represent the premotor platform as either drives or deterrents for most of our actions" (2001, p. 155).
Being emotional should be a complement.
Many of us were taught not to listen to our emotions or our bodies, and that we were supposed to rule them with our minds. This cut many of us off from these sources of wisdom, guidance, and protection. Women are often told we’re too emotional and that’s why we can’t be in leadership. Men are often taught that being too emotional is a weakness. But from this perspective, couldn’t we take being emotional as a compliment?
We can’t let our emotions rule without checking them.
Just as we can’t let our body drives, messages, and sensations be our only source of guidance. We need all three on board: the cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor to make our decisions, to help us determine our decisions and direction. This is called the “triune brain,” and is seen as necessary for optimal functioning. Panksepp calls the information we gain from the part of the brain that developed for emotional processing, “affective knowledge,” (Panksepp, 1998.) None of these parts of us are bad, they just need to be informed by the others to find balance and guidance.
Why would we deny any of these parts as sources of information, guidance, wisdom, and direction? Why were they each, especially the body and emotions, looked down on as misleading or things we couldn’t trust? Why was there so much fear associated with them? Is it because they couldn’t be controlled? Because they seem to have a mind of their own? Because they operate of their own volition, despite the rules set out for them? Maybe.
You can reclaim your right to have emotions
We can do the good work of reclaiming these important aspects of ourselves. It will be hard at first; we were taught they were bad and could not be trusted, that they could mislead us. But this is fear-based thinking. These parts are gifts waiting to bestow beautiful information on those willing to listen. If you want support with this process, please contact us for a free consultation today.
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