What Do Emotions Have to do With Spirituality?

“The environment is not an “other” to us. It is not a collection of things that we encounter. Rather, it is part of our being. It is the locus of our existence and identity. We cannot and do not exist apart from it.” – George Lakeoff 

Vicious Cycle of Resistance to Our Emotional Life 

Humanity has a real problem with our emotions. We don’t know what they are, and we don’t know how to access them. We are often numb and disconnected from this essential part of our humanness. This is an epidemic in the West. We as humans have not received a sound education in how to experience or understand emotions and our emotional lives. Too many of us are stuck in our heads. 

Instead, we have been taught that feeling our emotions, expressing them, or even talking about them is inappropriate. We live in a society that values the intellect and the mind. Science and knowledge are revered.  We may think our rational mind is our greatest strength, but it is also dangerous.  The intellect is often the source of our troubles as it traps us into believing a lot of information that simply isn’t true.  (Scientists have proven that information and experiences can be processed more easily and viewed more positively.  Thus, we avoid difficult facts. Consequently, our intellect is full of flawed ideas, thoughts, and assumptions about how the world works that we want to believe but that aren’t true.) 

Many of us were told to hide or suppress our emotions.  From a young age, we were taught that certain emotions were not okay – anger, frustration, fear, or sadness.   How many times have we heard, “Don’t cry or I will give you something to cry about?”, or,   “Boys don’t cry”, or “Be nice and don’t be angry.” To make matters worse, when we did express our emotions, we were often called dramatic, intense, and overly sensitive. The psychological experience we have about our emotional life is that it is shameful. 

Thus, we are set in a vicious cycle and a no-win situation. When we tap into our lost emotions, we encounter the shame attached to them. This then triggers the denial and suppression reaction because the shame is painful to feel, which in turn creates more shame. We then have related thoughts of “There must be something wrong with me because I feel this way” or “I shouldn’t feel this way.” We grow up with a seminal negative belief about ourselves that plagues us throughout life.  

Emotionally Illiterate 

Sadly, we have become a culture of emotionally illiterate people.  Professor, social worker, and author Brené Brown’s research has revealed that we only can name only three emotions – happy, sad, and pissed off.  However, the same research proves that we need to identify and articulate 30 emotions and recognize the accompanying responses in the body. 

The ability to accurately recognize and name emotions is key to living a healthy, functional, and successful life.

Emotional literacy is at the very core of resilience. When we are connected to our emotions, we can manage the unexpected, we can master life, and we are not the victim of overwhelming strong emotions. 

We need our emotions to make sense of our lives.  

Emotions Tell Us Something

Our emotional lives are a fundamental aspect of our lives and our humanity. They are an important component of our information feedback system. Our emotions are a guidance system for life. They tell us about what we are experiencing and help us know how to react. Emotions move us forward in life—they are energy in motion.  

Keys to Emotional Intelligence 

Emotional connection is the ability to recognize an emotion and feel it. As Psychologist and author Daniel Goldman detailed in his book Emotional Intelligence, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage emotions. People who have strong emotional intelligence know what they are feeling, what their emotions mean, and what impact they have on other people. 

Goldman offers a model of five components that we can follow to master our emotional intelligence:   

Component #1: Self-Awareness

Knowing oneself is essential to understanding one’s emotional life. To master this component, we must know our emotions, our strengths and weaknesses, what motivates our actions, and our values. The hallmark of this trait is the ability to be honest with oneself and others. 

Component #2: Self-regulation

People with a high degree of emotional intelligence can manage and redirect disruptive emotions and impulses into appropriate forms.  At this level, we are not prisoners of our feelings. We find healthy ways to channel our emotions in useful ways. 

Component #3: Motivation

We become internally motivated to achieve things that are important to us. We also know how to transform negative thoughts and attitudes into positive ones. 

Component #4: Empathy

We can recognize how other people feel and consider their feelings when making =decisions. This is a highly valuable trait to possess. 

Component #5: Our feeling is our connection to the DIVINE and being in the MOMENT 

Rather than seeing the Divine as an old man with a long white beard who lords over us and passes judgment,  embodied spirituality recognizes that the sacred is present in the here and now and lives in the body of our feelings.  

In this perspective, we are invited to see the divine in all aspects of the world –  every human, animal, plant, and thing. 

Then, we can also see that the Divine is also present during moments of pain and suffering.

The French priest and scientist Teilhard de Chardin’s wisdom draws us to the awareness that “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” In our human experience, we can become spiritual warriors in protecting the natural world and how we show up in our communities.  And it all comes back to how we feel about things. 

If you want to check in on your feelings, there is a free app, “HOW WE FEEL: A JOURNAL FOR OUR WELL_BEING”. Click HERE to try it! 

Christina Becker
May 2024

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