Are emotions really that important?

The answer to the question in the title is "absolutely yes." Let's see why.

Let's try to go back in time and visualize ourselves in school, where they told us that the human being is the "Only rational animal", indicating that we are at the highest point of the scale evolutionary. Why? Because we have consciousness and a cerebral cortex exclusive to people that allows us to think.

Yes, all this is true: our cortex or cerebral cortex, which is characteristic of the human being, is what allows us to analyze, plan, deduce, anticipate and, ultimately, have intellectual capacities that have led us, evolutionarily speaking, to where we are today. we find.

But... What about the other word that defines our species: "animal"? Indeed: whether we like it or not, we are animals, specifically mammals and, more specifically still, those mammals whose young need more care, protection and time for development to occur until adulthood.

Y this is where we find our emotional component, to which apparently we do not give too much importance: "This emotion is a thing for psychologists!" And you also hear things like... "This emotion thing is a woman's thing!" And what about the terrible "norm" of "men do not cry"?

But we say apparently because there are professions (Marketing, Advertising or Sales) in which human emotions are known extraordinarily well and studies what mechanisms move us in our most daily lives, to use them and sell what in those touch moments: a car brand, a trip, a clothing brand, a mobile phone... a specific lifestyle and even values vital priorities.

• Related article: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

We underestimate the emotional

This reflection on the great weight that the emotional component supposes for the human being is not exaggerated.. It is true that in our westernized society (ours, where we live and, therefore, the one that influences us daily) not much is said about them, at least in a manifest way. This gives the feeling that, although in some environments, situations, gatherings and media they can be the object of attention, we must recognize that normally they are not considered neither as essential for life, nor as important.

What are the consequences of this withdrawal, this “not paying attention” to our emotional aspect? Let's see it:

By not talking about them (as if they did not exist or were not so important) it is difficult to attend them and therefore be aware that we experience them.

By not attending them, it is even more difficult to identify them, give them a name when we experience them.

By not identifying them we can't understand them nor, of course, handle or channel.

And, therefore, when they become intense (or directly annoying, even disabling), it is really difficult to "live them".

And, now yes, we already have the blockage, anxiety, discomfort or suffering more or less intense on a psychological level ...

The importance of emotions

Of course it is not necessary to go to extreme discomfort or psychological disorders to show the importance of our emotional life. What's more, we just have to do a review of our day to day, of what is happening to us at the moment, to realize what it weighs our emotional state to "value" it as something good or something bad, which causes us discomfort or well-being (to a greater or lesser extent, of course this).

Could examples like the following sound: "I don't know how to tell my boss... I can't stop thinking about it and it overwhelms me"; "It makes me nervous to go to eat at my parents' house and I don't know what happens, because they behave very well with me ..."; “I don't feel like going with Sara, but I can't do anything else, because she would be very sorry if I didn't go”; "I'm wrong with Pablo but I don't even know what's wrong with him"; "Everyone tells me that I have everything and I notice a kind of dissatisfaction ...".

The emotions we experience in those moments have a decisive influence on the positive or negative assessment of the event or situation in which we are involved, giving it a greater or lesser degree of severity... And, of course, emotions influence a very high percentage (without wanting to put a number, but let's say more, much more than 50% ...) in the way of solving those problems, of responding to they.

Some recommendations

Definitely, emotion is an unavoidable human component or dimension, fortunately, without which we could not react to any event in everyday life. Hence the extraordinary importance of taking care of it so that it accompanies us in our favor and does not go against us.

With what has been seen, it is already demonstrated that we are emotional beings. Now what? Without pretending to offer a manual on emotional management, and being very simplistic, allow me to make some recommendations:

1. Identify what happens

At moment one, as soon as you start to feel a certain discomfort, a certain feeling of displeasure, stop a second to try to identify what you feel: Is it rage, is it anger, is it discomfort, is it anguish, is it grief,... are they all together?

2. Take your time

Wait to do or say anything! Hold, do not react immediately to whatever caused you what you feel (I know it costs ...).

• You may be interested: "What is emotional intelligence?"

3. Try to find out what has bothered you

Has it hurt because you interpret it as a lack of respect? Do you think there is no solution to what has been raised? Do you consider it an irrecoverable loss? There are thousands of reasons, as many as people ... Depending on what you have found, you can develop a response that is adaptive to the situation you have experienced.

Conclution

How easy it seems, right? Well really no, it isn't. We are used to reacting immediately to what happens to us, because of everything we have seen Previously, we do not realize what we are experiencing, much less do we know how handle it... Hence the importance of seeking help to learn to direct our emotional world so that it is not the one who governs us.

Let's take care of our emotions. How? Identifying them, welcoming them (they are all functional, you just have to know how to treat them), making friends with them and, well through contact with people who have gone through similar experiences, through psychological counseling, emotional or personal development courses, bibliography or, if necessary, psychological therapy, let us channel and manage that fundamental component of our being that facilitates to live.