Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 96
This week I wanted to talk about that fun issue of dealing with other people's emotions.
When we're talking about it, we can talk about managing other people's emotions and having to manage other people's feelings. And actually, the truth is that it's not their feelings that we're trying to manage, it's our feelings about their feelings, which sounds very similar, but actually it's really different.
Most of us agree that fully grown, autonomous adults are probably allowed to have whatever emotions that they have. What we don't like is when it encroaches on our space and we think we have different feelings about it than they may do. Or we have awful lot of feelings about their feelings, and we don't like how uncomfortable other people's emotions make us.
So rather than looking at the idea that other people shouldn't be like that, or other people shouldn't do that thing they're doing because they're doing it, we're not going to change that bit. But what we can get curious about is what is it about their feelings that we don't like? What is it about someone else having an emotion, so a sensation in their body, that is causing us to have a thought, electricity going off in our head that causes an emotion, a physical sensation in our body? What is it about their particular actions, reactions, responses, tone of voice, behaviour that is making us feel something?
And it's not about judging this as right or wrong. "You shouldn't be feeling this". "You should allow other people to do their thing". It's about accepting the fact that they are doing it and then looking at what you want to respond to that for yourself, in yourself. How do you want to look at this situation rather than trying to change it? How do you want to respond for yourself and for them? Is it something that you want to discuss? Is it something that you want to step away from? Is it something that you want to let glide over you like water off a duck's back? Or is it something that you want to address and that you're not willing to tolerate in the future?
All of those things come from a more centred, grounded, rooted in-your-own values place when you're looking at it from a position of what you feel about their emotions, not what they should and shouldn't be doing. Because when we strip all of this back, quite often it comes down to the simple question of are you willing to be uncomfortable to allow other people to have their own emotional experience? It doesn't necessarily have to be one that you witness or partake in or live with particularly.
But assuming that they're probably allowed to have their feelings and their emotions, how do you treat yourself when they arise? Where do you create safety for yourself and where do you, as quite often a lot of us do, try and ignore your own responses and your own needs in the hope that you can distract yourself. Trying to control them and make them have a different response so you don't have to feel uncomfortable anymore.
When we acknowledge that other people do have emotions, and they're not always going to be ones that we like, then we can recenter back on ourselves and try and look at how we interact with other humans in the world and what we want our responses to be for ourselves, how we can keep ourselves more safe, and how we can feel like we have more agency in the responses and the interactions that we have with other people around us.
Always bringing the story back to ourselves, rather than trying to get other people to change their behaviour, is going to give you a sense of feeling powerful in your own life and being able to make sure that your journey, your story and your days are more rooted in the values that you hold and the things that are important to you.
The more time we try and waste trying to control other people, the more time that we are away from our own stories and our own value system. Each time we remember to keep coming home to ourselves is a time that we remind ourselves, our bodies, our nervous system, that we've got our own backs and that we're going to be there for us. And that can never be a bad thing.
If you'd like to learn how to do some of this stuff, that is definitely what we do in www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk If you find all of this a little bit overwhelming and an idea to try and work out how to do this on your own group work is exceptional for being able to do that and watch other people processing their stuff. And if you just want some little extra tidbits as to how to embed some of this stuff into your own life, I do occasionally pop onto Instagram and give little three minute rundowns of how to process some of this stuff.
So do check out HeardinLondon over there and otherwise, thank you for listening this week. Good luck with staying in your own story and if you have any questions about anything, always feel free to drop me an email. I'll speak to you next week.
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