emotions Archives — Karen Humphries

How To Measure Your Emotional Reaction

by Karen Humphries | Nov 9, 2024 | Self Development

Six Questions To Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

There’s a common theme when clients first come to see me — they have lost connection to their emotional (over) reaction. They report feeling trapped within their subsequent survival behaviours.

With a little reflection, clients can quickly gain insight into the intensity of their avoided emotional reactions. Through gentle exploration of what pushes you in the feelings department, an individual can grow their emotional intelligence to improve the way they live their life.

According to PositivePsychology.com, “We all have days when emotions get the better of us. Passion can cloud our judgment, fear can tyrannize our decisions, and resentment can lead us to do things we regret.”

Someone who has Emotional Intelligence (EI) can therefore be defined as having an ability to discern what they are feeling and expressing, and appropriately regulate that emotional response to effectively navigate themselves through life experiences.

Who wants to deep dive into the feels bucket?

The reality is, that when the going gets tough, it’s human nature to avoid uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Yet gaining an understanding of your emotions is how you begin to heal and make changes to live your best life.

Here are six questions that you can explore to gain an understanding of your Emotional Intelligence and make the desired improvements to calmly make decisions, and manage your stress and wellbeing.

1. What’s The Actual Emotion?

There’s so much power in gaining an understanding of what are you feeling. So very often, people come to me with stress-based symptoms. However, due to the discomfort of what those emotions generate, people shut themselves off from those feelings.

The reality is people actively avoid these big feelings. Once you disconnect from the emotional discomfort, you store that emotional energy within your body, until you’re ready to ‘sit with it’.

This infers you need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

When those big feelings arrive, I recommend this simple tip – sit quietly and perform some breath work — even if only breathing in slowly and sighing on the outward breath. There’s so much scientific research that demonstrates that just ‘sighing’ can deflate that heavy and uncomfortable emotional balloon.

2. What’s the story?

So, you’ve decided to become serious about taking responsibility for improving your emotional intelligence, and you’ve been identifying what those big feelings are. You’ve been taking some deep breaths.

The next step is to sit with those feelings and record them in your journal. When we first begin to explore the emotions, people report to me they are not sure where to start. You may commence with a word, or write a story about the felt emotion. You may even choose to write a ‘fuck you’ letter.

It might be a word, or perhaps a statement, or even a story. Sit with the emotion for as long as possible to gain an awareness of what it is you are feeling.

Be sure to ask yourself “What, not why”. “What?” supports you to become curious and look for solutions. A “Why?” question has you looking in the rear view mirror of the past.

3. How strongly does the body react in response to the emotion?

Ok, so you’ve named the big feeling and started to become aware of what it’s all about. Now it’s time to ascertain where you feel it in your body.

This can be tricky when you find yourself sometimes stuck in your head with too many thoughts — it’s so easy to become disconnected from the feelings within your body when your head is busy.

This step is especially important as you continue to acknowledge what feelings and where they reside — because then you will understand if some are on a repeat loop for you to re-experience.

If this is the case ask yourself how often you are feeling that big feeling, say for example anger.

Take a good look at its intensity and frequency, because big feelings that visit all the time get in the way of your relationships.

4. How long does the emotion visit?

When you begin to explore what is stored in the feels bucket, you should also begin to gauge how long it takes for that emotion to start to be felt or become most noticeable. Remaining present and simply allowing yourself to become curious enables you to not react or activate your subconscious survival program.

When you can observe what you feel, and how long it lasts, you can then recognise the true impact of not attending to the emotional visitor.

I recommend documenting the duration and frequency of how often a triggering emotion surfaces. This will gift you the understanding that a feeling might be activated every now, or you may become aware that when you are triggered, you are smacked around the back side of the head daily.

Understanding the frequency of your triggering emotion, and how long it lasts, will actively contribute to the mental energy you will require to become motivated to let it go.

5. What do you believe?

Did you know that what is contained in our belief system is housed in our subconscious? You can make changes, but this needs to be done consciously.

You have to work for it by acknowledging the feelings as they arise and then reflecting on how they affect your behaviour. It’s only then you can understand whether the stress story is real or relevant for your life today, versus appropriate for when you first experienced that feeling.

When it comes to your emotional response towards things, certain people and/ or yourself, you need to ask yourself to what extent your beliefs about those feelings and subsequent behaviours influence your opinion and actions.

Do these beliefs promote your ability to do something or stop you in your tracks? To what extent do your emotions and the events change your long-term behaviour?

6. How does my reaction affect others

Once you get the hang of reflecting on your big feelings and where they are stored and reflecting on your beliefs, you may like to observe how your reactions affect those people around you.

As you begin to comprehend how your subconscious reaction might impact others, you become more motivated to pause your response and make behavioural changes that are positive and reaffirming for your relationships.

Conclusion

The reality is that we all have big feelings. My wish for you is that you can utilise these six questions to begin gently undertaking an exploration of your emotions that arise.

Learning about your subconscious emotional programs can motivate you to make big changes and therefore increase your Emotional Intelligence.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here
8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here
Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

Prefer to listen to a podcast?

Karen has a free public podcast channel entitled “I Am Changeing” that stores resources for clients.

Click here for this episode.

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is an advanced Kinesiology Practitioner, Wellbeing Coach, Hypnotherapist (including psychotherapy), Resource Therapist (Ego State), Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and trainee Counselor (Mental Health).

Karen is a published author of This Is My Roar.

She is a self-confessed laughaholic. She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

Healing Emotions Hurt More Than The Physical Wounds

by Karen Humphries | Aug 24, 2020 | Breast Cancer

How to come to terms with the emotions of cancer

There are several reasons that cancer is associated with strong emotions. Cancer is an evocative word, which has traditionally referenced a deadly disease. Yet this doesn’t change the fact it is much harder to heal the emotions of cancer, more often than the physical wounds.

What I know to be true, is that upon diagnosis, there is an overwhelming sense of uncertainty thrown in your face. Your mortality is slapped down in front of you. There is an immediate fear of the future, fear of the unknown and fear of losing control.

I still vividly remember the Saturday morning my breast surgeon delivered the news of my pathology results. I had been able to get myself out of my hospital bed unassisted. It physically hurt like hell, but once I got comfy in the upright chair I was able to settle. The bed was for sick people, I didn’t perceive myself sick then. I was simply recovering from mammoth surgery.

When my surgeon sat at the end of my hospital bed, her face was serious and I knew something was wrong. You know that dread you feel watching a suspense movie? You experience that sensation when you know instinctively something is coming and can’t prepare for it?

She informed me that the results were significantly scarier, from what the original scanning and biopsy had shown. That was one of several days the floor disappeared and I felt like Alice falling down the hole.

I allowed myself to sit in the vulnerable

Hysterical tears don’t even come close to describing everything I felt and experienced that day. Hot mess doesn’t either. But I did both of those things and everything in between. Panic. Terror. Overthinking. Sadness. Worry. Anxiety. I experienced all of it, smothered by it in fact.

There was little resilience left after surgery earlier that week to do anything but cry. At that moment I felt completed defeated. In those conversation moments, my physical pain didn’t even rate. But I was gutted emotionally.

I can now reflect on that horrible day, understanding the true power of the fear of the unknown. It’s crippling and leaves you feeling nothing but raw, extremely vulnerable and very isolated.

The healing I’ve done on myself since has shown me that with patience and the loving support of friends and family, I have turned that raw into MY ROAR!

Even now, as broken as you may feel, you are still so strong. There’s something to be said for how you hold yourself together and keep moving, even though you feel like shattering. Don’t stop! This is your healing. It doesn’t have to be pretty or graceful. You just have to keep going. — Unknown

It did, in fact, take the promised eight weeks to recover from that mammoth reconstructive surgery. In hindsight that was the easy part. The hardest part was dealing with the resultant PTSD emotions that arose from a traumatic biopsy experience.

I had buried myself inside the physical recovery from surgery with very little time to deal with the magnitude of why I had surgery and my diagnosis in the first place.

The subsequent emotional feels that are incorporated deeply with diagnosis, and were often expressed as feelings like dismal failure and depression. Feelings of perpetual entrapment ensued, both physically and mentally.

Identifying dark places

That was a dark hole, which took some intense therapy to work through. With hindsight, I can see exposing the darkness of those negative emotions with external assistance, allowed me to openly explore all the feelings as the gift it was. Healing those emotions was so much more intense and way more challenging than healing from breast cancer surgery.

The talking therapy was the trick. I didn’t avoid it, I couldn’t, for that messy bitch of emotions slapped me every day. I didn’t process having cancer at the time of diagnosis. I was too busy being shuffled between appointments, having surgery and learning to walk again.

The emotional bastard bit me as I started chemo. The feels oozed out with my energy as the magic medicine flooded into my body. This was the time that my strong facade faded. And once again I was back to feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable.

The talking therapist supported me to gently explore the maze within and find myself again. The talking granted permission to the floodgates to open, which had been bolted tight. Those gates had held everything inside. It was everything inside that robbed me of my energy to recover physically.

As soon as I wrote in my journal or purged with my therapist the cascading avalanche of all my stuff spilled out. There was a release. It was those moments of releasing the emotional that granted permission for the physical to relax and heal.

A friend shared the following quote with me during these darker days. The message was received. Be kind to self. Put self first. Do what it takes to heal. So I did.

I know you are hurting — really bad. I will not tell you to love yourself or smile, but to keep surviving, to get through this day, to eat whatever you want and not feel guilt. I will not tell you to stay in bed for a week, a month or a year if that is what your soul needs. I will remind you that you are still beautiful, even when you are dressed in all the grief. — Rune Lazuli

The emotional roller coaster of cancer is expected and very normal. It’s our human response to a stressful situation. The various things we feel are simply exaggerated because there is a societal perception that we are fighting for our lives.

I worked with a therapist

With the support of my therapist, I dug deeper into the abyss of the connective tissue within the wounds I now wore. Initially, those new lines caused much shame and embarrassment.

I openly explored my old wounds

I openly explored what my breasts had meant to me as an individual, a woman, a girl, an infant, and mother. I healed more mother wounds, and in doing so in poured an immense and deeply felt gratitude for my feminine.

I worked through the physical loss

I worked through what it meant to have nipples, and the grief I felt when I lost one. I was forced to process the new bumps to my milky white chest landscape.

I worked through the tears

I worked through months of crying every time I looked at my new chest landscape. The red scarring, the skin graft, the puckered skin and the limited range of motion made the emotions raw. It was this rawness that slowed the physical recovery. I was looking too closely at physical wounds, spending all my energy literally trying to fix them. Trying to control the uncontrollable.

From every wound, there is a scar, and every scar tells a story. A story that says “I survived” — Ft Craig Scott’’

What I’ve learnt is the depth that connective tissue stores emotional trauma. It stores a negative outlook. The tissue stores the false expectations we think we need. The stretch of the tissue holds onto the need to control and keeps you in a state of physical stuck and emotional disbelief. This equates to non-acceptance and inability to flow physically and mentally.

Now that I am embracing my role as a patient it’s getting easier to see those new landscape lines. I’ve researched tattoo designs, and the meaning of the symbol I’ve learnt that the ancient Amazon Warrior amputated her right breast in order to shoot her arrow strong and true.

The lesson learnt and accepted is that I now point true north — metaphorically, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

Final words

If you find yourself, a friend or relative, on the cancer rollercoaster, and the likelihood is that someone in your life will be affected at some time, I offer you this. We are gifted challenges, not to endure but to experience. These challenges which arise enable us to explore more of self. These challenges gift us the chance to choose a mindset to focus on what is in our control and surrender to that which is not.

The more we can soften our emotional and mental perspective, the faster and more at peace our physical vessel will respond.

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, self-confessed laughaholic, and now Wellness Advocate residing in Gippsland Victoria Australia. She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’