There is a dangerous misconception floating around our culture. May we speak plainly? Emotion is not identity. Feeling an emotion doesn’t make you “that emotion”. A few things to remember:

A few things to remember.

• Emotion is energy. It’s an electrical signal flowing through your nervous system. This means that. Energy cannot be destroyed, only converted. This means that:
• The nature of energy is to move. Energy that is not properly processed gets stored and collected. There is nothing in our bodies that absorbs the energy and dissipates it for us.
• When not adequately processed, an acute emotion, that would otherwise flow through and out, becomes a chronic condition. The emotion becomes a mood, and we carry that mood with us into every interaction.
• Emotion is adaptive. Robert Plutchik gave us the Adaptive Theory of Emotion, which tells us that every emotion has a health-supporting purpose. Labeling an emotion as “bad” leads to avoidance, faulty communication, and unhealthy relationships.
• Emotion is our native language. Humans feel first and rationalize second. Our gut will tell us what we think about something long before our prefrontal cortex can put words to it. Choosing to ignore a central feature of the human sense-making and communication system leads to decisions based on less than all the available information.There are a lot of free EQ courses out there that teach simple ways of processing emotion. Learn to make sense of the information that your emotions are trying to give you. Do it with the support of people who celebrate whole-hearted living as a sign of strength and intelligence.

There are a lot of free EQ courses out there that teach simple ways of processing emotion. Learn to make sense of the information that your emotions are trying to give you. Do it with the support of people who celebrate whole-hearted living as a sign of strength and intelligence.