Emotions As Data Points

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl

We know emotional congruence builds trust, and that feelings come before thoughts. Yet, sometimes we can feel so much and not know what to do with it all. Every wave of emotional energy, from sadness to joy, to anger to fear, brings with it information if we pay attention to it.

How can we sort through the emotional weather patterns that we experience throughout our days and mine the data in our experience? 

For example, fear is a potent emotion in our lives in the sense that its various flight-flight-or-freeze tendencies can wash over us in ways that are uncomfortable, as if our very lives are at stake, and we can react accordingly. Sometimes, these fears arrive quietly, without any real threat, perhaps with just a thought. Whichever way they assume their takeover, I’ve learned that if I don’t voice my fears they will control me in ways that are not aligned with how I’d want to show up. In other words, if I don’t explore and understand the information coming up for me around the fear, I will act out of fear instead of acting consciously.

Pema Chodron wrote that “a further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s troubling us.” 

This is part and parcel of leading and living an examined life. It’s also akin to being and acting authentically. To do so, and do it well enough, we must create the space to sort through our experience. 

Another way to think about this is that I might notice that I’m having judgemental thoughts. Those thoughts aren’t bad and having those thoughts isn’t wrong, but if I berate myself for being judgemental or believe those thoughts, then I may head down a path I may not ultimately want to traverse. What I can do is notice those thoughts, and notice that I’m having the experience of judgemental thoughts. “Hmmm,” I wonder: “What, then, does that information tell me? What brought those thoughts to the surface? What might I be feeling underneath that? How might those thoughts point to an implicit agenda I have or a belief I have? How might that information help me understand myself better, or help me identify a fear, need, or wish?”

One of the tools that has helped me get more intimate with all the feelings I might be feeling is a practice of listening to my body and consciously asking myself: What are these feelings trying to tell me? The practice rolls like this: As you sense deeper into what you’re feeling, ask yourself the following questions…

1. What body sensations do you notice? Where do you feel them? What do you feel in that location?
2. What core emotions do you notice? (e.g. anger, sadness, fear, joy, passion)
3. Fill in any details that come with the sensation: 
   1. I see the image of _____
   2. Words that came to me were _____
   3. I hear a voice saying _____
4. From the past, what does this remind you of?
5. Breathe. Take a moment to appreciate what you’re experiencing.

By the end of this inquiry, there may be good data to harvest, helping you determine what’s ‘up’ for you. Along with that might be a greater awareness, feeling less charged, more clarity. “You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather,” says Pema Chodron. Exercises like this help us to find our sky and identify the clouds and other weather patterns present. Such exercises also help us stay grounded in the emotional storms.

As Rumi tells us in The Guest House…

This being human is a guest house. | Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, | some momentary awareness comes | as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all! | Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, | who violently sweep your house | empty of its furniture, | still, treat each guest honorably. | He may be clearing you out | for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, | meet them at the door laughing, | and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, | because each has been sent | as a guide from beyond.

In this episode, Miriam Meima offers us the “7 Steps to Sanity” as a framework to suss out where we are in the midst of feeling overwhelmed, ungrounded, or lost in a situation or feeling state. When something triggering sends your feeling state into a non-calm place, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is the simplest, most unarguable synopsis of what happened?
2. What is the story I made up about it?
3. Which emotions are underneath: anger, sadness, fear, joy, passion?
4. How is this familiar? In what other contexts have I experienced this?
5. How do I feel in these situations? [What is the experience I unconsciously recreate?]
6. What do I want to trade this in for? [What experience do I want to have?]
7. What is an action step in alignment with this?

Tuning into your emotional data is part of tuning into your inner compass. These frameworks help create the space needed to check in with ourselves and parse our emotional data points. In light of those insights, we can choose a response that’s more aligned, less reactive, and directionally correct progress toward a piece of sanity.