Are Emotions Running your Life?

As a social worker & therapist, I think about emotions A LOT. Allll the time. Through my work with people, I've seen the numerous ways that emotions are the root reasons people make choices. In today's episode I share different aspects of life showcasing my thoughts on this concept. I cover how our thinking & emotions are tied together, how avoiding or attracting emotions drives choice, how emotions show up in our finances & a simple tool that you can use to become more self aware.

Thoughts/Emotions/Body/Behavior Exercise
Purpose: To consider a recent situation where you'd like to understand yourself more, gain insight and motivation as well as how to choose better next time.

Set up: On a piece of paper draw a vertical line down the center of the paper, & then another horizontally. Now you have 4 sections on your paper, label them Thoughts, Emotions, Body, Behavior. (Profound, right?)  You may run out of room on the paper, so have extra paper available.  

1) Select the situation you'd like to reflect on. It is often contentious or you experienced a lot of emotions. You can even label the paper with that situation and give today's date, if you like.

2)  Go back to the situation in your mind and write down ALL the thoughts you were having throughout the experience. Thought are often not complete sentences and can be something as simple as, "Ugh" or "Eeeeewwww".  These thoughts have depth behind them and should be included in your thoughts list.  

3)  Then do the same for emotions, with writing down all the emotions you experienced.  Using an emotions chart or emotions wheel here will be helpful.  

4) Body and behavior can be confused for one another.  

• Body is things your body does as a reaction without a choice involved, such as your face turning red, your pupils dilating (although you likely won't notice this in yourself), breathing heavier or your heart beating faster. Maybe your arm hair stood on end.  
• Behaviors are choices you made, even if you weren't really thinking.  This could include talking loudly, pacing, phoning someone, crying, etc

5)  Fill in the section for what your Body did (things that your body does on it's own with the nervous system that you generally do not have control over.)

6)  Now write down all your behaviors you did during this situation.

7)  As you look at the list, if you've noted 'jealous' as one of the emotions, ask yourself if there were any thoughts you had while feeling jealous that you've not written down yet in the thoughts section.  Utilize  the list in each section in this way to more fully fill out the other sections.  When you have truly written down everything from these 4 categories for the situation you identified, you will have a feeling of completeness.

8)  Notice what is on this paper and ask yourself quality questions about it.  Why?  What?  How?

9)  Use this information to become a better version of you

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Make this year the year you leave codependent behavior, people pleasing and being a doormat behind!  Join other women in The People Pleaser Recovery Roadmap.  Vanessa is scheduling Curiosity Calls right now to help you find out if this is the right choice for you!  If you want to have a strong voice, give yourself all the love you need and live your dream life  then contact Vanessa today!

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