In order to communicate something, an emotion has to be expressed. One of the most important functions of emotions is to communicate. But the fighting is not part of the feeling. For example, if you feel angry at someone, you may feel an urge to start yelling at them. The action itself, the fighting, or running, or hugging is not part of the emotion, but the urge to do the action, the feeling that prompts you to do the action, is considered part of the emotion. Or if you feel fear, you may be prompted to run.
For example if you feel angry, you may be prompted to fight. An important function of emotions is to prompt behaviors. Action UrgesĮmotions involve what are called action urges. Researchers now believe that changes in the facial muscles play an important part in causing emotions. Are you hunched over, trying to make yourself smaller? Are you smiling? What are your hands doing? Are they open, willing hands or are you wringing them? These seemingly small changes communicate a lot about how you’re feeling. Take note of your posture and facial expression. The most important of these changes for you to be aware of are the facial changes: clenched jaw, tightened cheek and forehead muscles, tightened muscles around the eyes so that they widen or narrow, grinding teeth, loosening and tightening around the mouth. However it is a learned response and you can unlearn.Įmotions involve body changes such as tensing and relaxing muscles, changes in heart rate, breathing rate, skin temperature and color, increases and decreases in blood pressure, etc. If you have practiced shutting off our body sensations, this can be difficult. To regulate your emotions you have to be pretty good at sensing what is going on in your body. Sometimes people have trouble sensing their body changes. When you experience emotions, there are changes in your body. Here’s a chart of some examples of how events lead to interpretations which lead to emotions: It is triggered by the explanation you create in your head. The emotion comes after the interpretation is made. It is the interpretation of the event that prompts the emotion. Most events outside ourselves don’t prompt emotions. In managing your emotions, it is important to be able to recognize prompting events. A prompting event might also be a memory, a thought, or even another feeling (you feel ashamed, and then feel angry about feeling ashamed, for example). What triggers it or gets it going? Prompting events can be events happening in the present (an interaction with someone, losing something, physical illness, financial worries). You might have an automatic feeling without thinking about it, like “I feel love when I see my cat.” A person’s thoughts, behaviors and physical reactions prompt emotions. These events and things are called Prompting Events. While it can be tempting to fire off angry emails/texts/calls during this time, you’re probably not communicating very effectively in that state.Emotions can be either reactions to events in the environment or to things inside a person. The dudgeon-o-meterįirst off, what the heck is dudgeon? The phrase “in high dudgeon” refers to a feeling of offense or resentment.
My fuck-it bucket, shown below, contains dead fish for figurative throwing. Or, if there’s a spiteful little bitch lurking inside that should probably stay inside your head rather than unleashing her into the world, give her a fuck-it bucket with a few rubber chickens, dead fish, or toilet paper rolls that she can figuratively fling at people who are sucking way too many fucks out of you. You can also have a 2-part bucket where you throw in things that aren’t worth any fucks and exchange them for things that are a much better use of your fucks, like peanut butter cups.
If you don’t have any fucks to waste on something, but it’s niggling away at the back of your mind, chuck it in the fuck-it bucket. The fuck-it bucket appears to have originated with humour writer David Sedaris, and there’s a fabulous post on the topic on the Rebelle Society.