It’s very easy to think that since your emotions are your own, that everybody else should butt out. I can’t say I blame you. After all, everybody’s entitled to their emotional states. Everybody has this capacity. Everybody has a right to perceive stimuli from the greater world and develop their judgment and analysis of those stimuli.
Often, these judgments trigger strong emotions, and I’m talking about a range of emotions. Everybody’s entitled to this because this is how people process their daily waking reality. But there is a problem when people think that this is all unique.
If we just look at our own perception and judgment of what’s going on around us and allow ourselves to emotionally respond to these, we’re putting ourselves in a bad position. Why? We end up expecting other people to just accept our emotional state and leave it at that. This is a serious problem. Emotions are both subjective and objective.
When you feel a strong emotion, you don’t just hold it in; let it burn and settle deep down inside, because it may cause long-lasting harm. Your number one instinct is to communicate it to somebody else.
That’s where the problem comes in. Again, there is no issue with you feeling how you feel. Everybody’s entitled to their own interpretation and analysis. The issue is, are you able to communicate your emotions accurately? You feel certain things, but when you express it to other people, are they on the same page as you?
You may be thinking that this is just a simple matter of self-awareness and honesty. Fundamentally, you’re absolutely correct. But you have to define self-awareness the right way. You have to be aware of the broader context of the people around you.
You have to take context into account, and unfortunately, if you do not place much importance on their reading of your emotions, you’re going to remain an emotional child. You look at the world in terms of the “take it or leave it” process. You play an impossible game on yourself. You tell yourself that this is how you feel, and everybody should accept it; otherwise, they’re wrong and are bad people. You can live your life like some sort of giant tantrum. That is not a winning life strategy. Believe me, you’re going to come out on the losing end every time.
You have to place importance on how people read your emotions. You have to acknowledge that people may be reading your emotions in a completely different way from your own internal reading. Be aware of this disconnect. This should trigger red flags for you. If you see this, then it’s time to look at how you express your emotions and how honest you are in perceiving your own emotions.
A little bit of introspection can go a long way when it comes to better emotional communication. This can lead to better relationships. Make no mistake, you have to place a tremendous amount of importance on other people’s readings of your emotions.
Understand that there’s a limit to this. You can’t let other people dictate what you can and cannot feel. Instead, you should just look at their perception as some sort of gauge as to how well you communicate your own personal emotions.
