Connection Gems

The Connection Gem of the week applies Mindful Compassionate Dialogue to situations in daily life and offers clarity and practical skills. You can find an archive of Connection Gems using the list or search engine below.

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Wise Heart Wise Heart

Healthy Expression of Emotion

In the face of another person's expression of intense emotion, you might find it difficult to stay present and grounded. For most of us, a healthy and responsible expression of emotion wasn't modeled. Instead, intense emotion is often associated with overwhelm, danger, or chaos.

Part of a healthy social dynamic is creating a safe space for emotion to be expressed as it arises in connection to needs met or unmet. An important step to creating this safety is becoming aware of your own conditioning around emotion. 

I once worked with a couple, let's call them Jim and Sara, where this safe container for emotion wasn’t in place. In their dynamic, Jim interpreted Sara's expression of emotion to mean that there was a big problem and he was likely the cause of it. He subtly gave Sara the message that emotional expression wasn't okay with him. In response, Sara easily fell into her own conditioning—which was to put a lid on emotion. 

As a result, both stayed focused mentally and engaged in long analyses of themselves and each other. In blocking expression of emotion, they also blocked their access to identifying their needs. So instead of making decisions from what was alive for them, decisions were the result of a disconnected discussion of what was “wrong” with each of them.

A healthy expression of emotion is grounded in the needs it is pointing to and the capacity to regulate.

Connected expression of emotion has at least some of these elements:

  • Emotions are named as they come up

  • Emotions are felt in the body

  • Emotions are recognized as that which comes and goes (e.g., there's not a fear that you'll ‘always’ feel a certain way)

  • Emotions are known to arise from needs, precipitating perceptions, or interpretations

  • Emotions can be felt for what they are without attaching extra meaning (e.g., "I feel this, therefore it means something must be wrong.")

Practice

Take a moment to reflect on your relationship to emotional expression. What was modeled for you? How is this showing up now? What happens for you when someone close to you expresses intense emotion?

Next time you notice intense emotions coming up for yourself, engage in or reflect upon the practices of healthy emotional expression named above. 

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