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Tune into your emotions if you want healthy relationships.
By Curtis Watkins & Dan Newby — Written on Oct 11, 2019
Getting in touch with your body and emotions is key to healthy relationships that last.
How often do you question yourself, and wonder if you are with the right person?
The relationship started off with openness, love, and passion and ended up in resentment and sadness. You feel yourself closing down. What happened?
All too often, we blame ourselves for not seeing some of the warning signs.
"Why was she always canceling on me at the last minute?"
"Why was I so eager to get his phone calls?"
"I never followed anyone around like a little puppy before."
In addition to these external signs that perhaps your prince charming is really a frog, there are also internal signs that can help you navigate the romantic territory (and indeed any relationship territory) more effectively.
This means being a little more emotional but it's not really a bad thing. In fact, you need to become more aware of the signals your body is sending you — namely, whatever emotion you are feeling in the moment.
Unfortunately, our bodies are often seen more as a problem than a solution.
Body image, shaming, objectification, and other aspects of modern life, remove us from our most basic relationship — the one with ourselves.
In our coaching practices, we see so many people who are competent and successful yet yearn to have a greater connection with their families, partners, and their purpose in life.
These are almost impossible without a healthy relationship and deeper connection with themselves.
Instead of using your body just to carry your head around as a "brain taxi", you are better served to relate to your body and basic emotions as legitimate domains of wisdom and knowledge.
What does that mean in real life?
It means taking the time to check, pay attention, and listen to what is happening in our emotional and physical worlds.
And, yes, this includes negative emotions. How many of us have had a tight feeling in the pit of our stomach that pointed towards apprehension, doubt, or worry when we were with our new love but ignored it?
Feelings like that are the body’s way of giving us information.
Evolutionary biologists tell us that we developed emotions to guide us to what was good for us and what was not; what we should approach and what we should distance ourselves from.
This emotional system was developed much earlier than our rational decision-making prefrontal cortex. And, yet, over and over again, we privilege our cognitive functions over our physical and emotional ones.
This is continually reinforced by society bombarding us with messages not to trust our bodies and emotions.
"Big boys don’t cry."
"A woman could never be President. She would be too emotional."
"Emotions have no place at work."
"You cannot let emotions sway you"
And on and on.
Current research increasingly points to emotions being the determining factor in our decision making.
So, now what? How do you begin to make better choices?
In order to have healthy relationships, you need to trust your body and emotions and there 4 ways to do it.
1. Commit to taking time every day to sit with yourself and pay attention to what is going on in your body. Where do you feel tight, constricted, collapsed, weak? Begin slowly. Just 5 minutes each day.
2. Bring attention to your emotions. Sit quietly and see if you can notice what emotion is present. What is that emotion trying to say? All emotions have a purpose, a story, and an impulse to action. See if you can uncover what those might be. It will take work, but the payoff is fantastic.
3. Increase your emotional literacy. Select an emotion to observe each week and see when, where and why it shows up and what its impact is on you.
4. Hire a coach. Most of them will be happy to help if you have questions, get confused, or stymied.
Dan Newby is the founder of School Of Emotions and author of several well-received books on Emotional Literacy. He works with individuals and organizations globally to elevate their emotional awareness and competence. You can reach him on his e-mail.
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Curtis Watkins is a master somatic coach and works internationally with individuals and corporations. You can reach him on his e-mail.