Emotions Make You Cry Sometimes
It's really important to process your emotions. Some people don't know how to identify the emotion they're truly feeling. This is because there are primary and secondary emotions. Primary emotions are your immediate response to a trigger. The emotions are happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and some platforms list surprise as a primary emotion. Secondary emotions are the learned responses, responses you've seen from your family or culture, it's what you feel after you've had time to process the experience that triggered the primary emotion. I like to call it the "protector emotion" because it masks / defends the primary emotion.
Example:
When you have anxiety that is a secondary emotion that is trying to tell you there is some fear in your body.
When you have shame, which is a secondary emotion telling you there is some sadness that needs to be processed.
Secondary emotions tend to show up when we feel there will be judgment or beliefs about certain emotions. You may have grown up in a household where you were told not to cry, to be tough, called sensitive, or yelled at for showing raw emotions (stop being a @#^$).
It's possible to develop depression, anxiety, or mental breakdown due to unaddressed emotions. True story - I was dealing with this triggering situation I had been holding it for about 6 days. I went through the emotions of feeling annoyed, disrespected, anxious, disappointed, hurt, furious, even jealously and betrayal. My ego was screaming “how dare they”?!?! It was a complete roller coaster in my head. Although I am cognizant of how to process my emotions sometimes I go back to the basics of what I was taught as a child, and I wanted some get back! I wanted to make this person pay (the mask was talking). When I finally spoke to… no confronted this person I exploded, I was yelling, my face was hot and sweaty, I felt like I was turning into She-Hulk. When I came to myself my whole body was shaking, my heart was beating so fast I could literally feel it from my neck to my feet. I immediately started doing breathing exercises because I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Sheesh, I have to laugh typing this because I shouldn’t allow anyone to have this much control over my emotions…
At that moment, I knew I had to see what my true emotions were. Because the trigger was something I had dealt with in my past, so my primary emotions were:
Anger, because of the audacity of the person. (I was mad-mad), Disgust, because I had strong disapproval of what happened, and Sad, because I was going to lose this person who I hold dear to my heart.
There were so many emotions I felt within a week but these three are the primary feelings.
Please know there’s no right or wrong when it comes to your feelings. Your feelings are your feelings!
Please note: Unaddressed feelings become trapped in your body, called Emotional Baggage (I’ll save that for another blog).
How could I have stopped She-Hulk from showing up? By processing my emotions (feelings)!
How do you process emotions? I’m glad you asked ;-)
- Identify the emotion – What are you feeling? Where in your body are you feeling it?
- Accept the emotion - don’t judge it.
*Take a breath / Say a Prayer
Say, I am feeling proud, I feel it in my chest. Always add I am feeling, it doesn’t define you, it’s a current emotion. I am feeling angry, I feel it in my stomach.
-Process the emotion – Why do I feel this way?
-Address the emotion. Do I need to?
*Re-establish boundaries
*Express my feelings to a friend, therapist, or write in my journal
*Apologize to someone
*Allow the feeling to pass
If you need to process more, use this worksheet to identify your level of control then go back to the last step.
-What’s in your control?
I truly pray this helps you understand a little more about emotions I’ve added some additional items below to help you identify your emotions and where they can show up in your body.
If you’d like these via email – send a request to:
Codependentme@outlook.com
God Bless you!
Tamala / Your Recovery Coach!
https://www.selfloverainbow.com/the-circle-of-control-with-family/ https://www.simplypsychology.org/primary-and-secondary-emotions.html