Emotions hold intelligence and wisdom, but we tend not to listen. I am not speaking of emotional intelligence, which generally refers to one’s understanding of how another person is feeling or will feel given a certain situation. Rather I am speaking of what we possess inside. Our emotions are our internal compass, and through the wisdom they have to offer they can show us the right path.
It would be easy to disagree with the above statement, when you think of an emotion such as anger. There are many times that if each of us followed our anger we perhaps definitely would not have gone down the right path. But this conclusion only comes when one mistakes the emotion of anger as an action, rather than just a signal. Emotion is not an action, it is just a signal and this signal holds intelligence and wisdom. The problem however, is that we have been trained from a young age to be anxious about the
It would be easy to disagree with the above statement, when you think of an emotion such as anger. There are many times that if each of us followed our anger we perhaps definitely would not have gone down the right path. But this conclusion only comes when one mistakes the emotion of anger as an action, rather than just a signal. Emotion is not an action, it is just a signal and this signal holds intelligence and wisdom. The problem however, is that we have been trained from a young age to be anxious about the
signals our emotions provide us. Our sadness or grief has often been shushed or quieted due to the anxiety it causes in others, similar with our anger, and for some who are traumatised the signals of love and joy even bring anxiety, due to abandonment, either physically or emotionally. Guilt, perhaps the most beautiful emotion of all, is often discouraged and instead punished leading to shame.
All of this quietens the intelligence on offer to us, and thus we found ourselves lost. A silent bystander to a life we never consciously signed up for. What would life look like if we followed the intelligence our emotion offers us, if it was not covered by our anxiety?
Love would be deeply felt and responded to with an opening of our arms, allowing all the love we felt out, and all the love we receive in.
Joy would be unbridled
Sadness would be moved through and fully expressed so we can honour our pain and move forward
Anger would be just a signal that tells us when we have been disrespected, invalidated, unsupported, neglected and/or abused, and responded to with simple and healthy assertion.
Guilt would be seen as an indicator of our inner goodness, a signal that we have not lived up to our ideal and thus compels us into a corrective, reparative action.
This is the intelligence and wisdom our emotions hold. We can only listen and follow the intelligence by becoming acutely aware of how they show themselves in our bodies. Feelings are called “feelings” for a reason, and that is because we feel them in our body. This is part of the intelligence they offer us. Your stomach may feel hollow when you are guilty, or your chest and throat may feel sore when you are sad, or your core may heat up and your neck, shoulders, and arms may tense when you are angry, or your heart may feel fluttery and warm when you feel love or joy. These are the signals when listened to and given space to be noticed give us the intelligence to direct our behaviour towards appropriate action. Action, which is not defensive or resistant but rather is true to our desire and mean we are living according to our internal compass.
Much of our work in therapy is about helping people experience and embody their feelings, and helping them recognise the anxiety bringing attention to their feelings cause. The symptoms of people in suffering often derive from the acts they engage in to avoid the anxiety their emotions bring. The intelligence our emotions hold can be hard truths we do not want to face, or indeed cause a state of vulnerability we have sadly learned cannot be tolerated. But we, as therapists know and have seen that, if the intelligence our clients hold inside them is listened to, it will lead them out of the darkness and towards the freedom to love deeply, and to be who they truly are and always were.
