Follow Your Emotions
Leaders in my coaching practice often want to manage their emotions better so they can work and live more authentically. Doing that requires knowing how emotions work.
In “The Developing Mind,” psychiatrist Dan Siegel writes that emotions are internal movements that propel our minds and bodies to act. (Notice that the root of the word "emotion" is "motion.") Feeling sad, for instance, encourages some thoughts and actions, while feeling joy prompts others.
Emotions are energy, and living purposefully means learning to follow and channel that energy.
Siegel argues that this energy follows a particular pattern with four steps.
First, something outside or inside of us occurs to arouse the emotion.
Second, we begin to become aware of the emotion as it rises within us.
Third, we then categorize or name what we’re experiencing.
Fourth, we step into the emotion, taking ownership of that experience—or allowing the experience to take ownership of us.
For instance, I might receive a birthday card from a friend whom I haven’t seen in years. Immediately, before I’ve even read the message, I might notice something changing inside of me: a warmth in my chest, for instance, or a twinge behind my eyes.
Thinking a bit, I might then attach a variety of names to those bodily changes: happiness at receiving the card, guilt at letting the friendship drop, and hope for a renewal of the relationship. Those emotions in turn guide how I open that card, how I read what it says, and what I do in response.
Being able to walk through that embodied process with intention is the essence of emotional intelligence. And at each stage, we have skills to develop:
How well do we know our triggers?
How easily can we notice what those triggers bring up in us?
How accurately can we name the feelings coming from those experiences?
How constructively can we respond to the feelings we’ve named?
Imagine being able to engage life and leadership in a way that owned your feelings.
What would you be able to do? What would you be able to stop doing?
My coaching can help you build these skills. Want to learn more? Book your free Discovery Session here.
