Do you bottle or brood?

This article is based on an interesting article I read on Emotional Agility by Dr. Susan David. Psychologist from Harvard Business School.

It is about how we handle our difficult emotions.?

But first, let's understand what difficult emotions are. There are so many to name; it could be anger, frustration, irritation, disgust, greed, jealousy, fear, anxiety, shame, guilt and so on.

 

While all these sound like negative emotions, Dr. Susan David uses the term, difficult emotions. It enhances the clarity of how we look at emotions. By labelling something as a negative emotion and trying to avoid it, we might miss out on the valuable messages those emotions are trying to convey to us.

We experience such difficult emotions almost every day and our ability to deal with it in a right manner, determines our level of wellbeing or happiness.

 

There are typically two ways we deal with our emotions. It is either we bottle them up, by discounting it or we brood over it by dwelling excessively over it. Research indicates that while most men tend to bottle up their negative emotions, many women tend to brood over it.

 

While we might think, that one of the two is better than the other, both are harmful and destructive in its own way. Research shows that both bottling and brooding can decrease well-being, increase depression and anxiety, diminish cognitive performance, affect relationships and quality of life.

 

Let's first look at Bottling up. Bottling is a tendency to push aside emotions, almost pretending they don't exist. Bottling up is typically a way of discounting an emotion, as not worthy of our attention.  Bottling tends to suppress useful clues like stress, disaffection, dissatisfaction, anger, and sadness. But these emotions are very much there within us and can be useful signals for helping us calibrate our lives.  People think that it is a brave thing to do. "Men don't cry" is a sort of childhood conditioning, many children across different cultures have learnt to believe.

Next is Brooding. Brooding is the tendency to dwell and ruminate on emotions. Brooding paradoxically draws our attention away from useful emotions. People think of brooding as a way to let go of the difficult emotions, but in the process, it neither feels good to them or to the people they are surrounded with. People hate to be around brooders, because they seem to suck and drain, one's energy.

While bottling our feelings might help us see things more objectively in the moment, it cuts us off from all subjective data. Brooding might help us understand them better, but it can cut us off from the needs and perspectives of others. It can blind us from the objective reality.

 

So, what’s the alternative? Not surprisingly, like anything else there is a middle way.  It is a 3 step process, which involves Embracing, Labelling and Addressing.

Embracing – The first step is to accept your emotions as a part of you and become less self-critical about yourself. Don’t judge yourself. Welcome your emotions in a kind, compassionate, and curious way.

 

Labelling – Unhook yourself from the emotion and try to give the emotion a perfect label. Move away from identifying with the feeling by being more precise about what it is. Once you can gain distance and  clarity on difficult emotions by labelling them precisely, acknowledging exactly what you’re feeling, distinguishing frustration, for example, from impatience, or shame. Recognizing these emotions for what they are, without getting lost in them, is the key to seeing them as temporary bits of useful information, but not immutable facts.

Addressing – Take the effort to find the cause of the emotion. For example, I am feeling angry, because I am disappointed by someone. Once you are clear about the cause behind an emotion, it is often easier to act upon it in a more objective fashion, which might help us to overcome it, without further emotional damage to ourselves and others.

Consider a difficult situation you’re currently facing and see how you can handle it better by using this “middle approach”. 

D. Senthil Kannan,

  Managing Trustee, PALMS, Tuticorin.

  Author of "Transformational Thoughts" - A Journey of learning 

  Email: senthilkannand@gmail.com