Emotions are often misunderstood. Basically, they are neuromodulators, and are messages filled with data. It’s what we do with our emotions that can either provide solutions, options, possibilities for improvements, OR pull things down, create more problems, or make things worse.

Not everyone understands the value of emotions & what to do with them, particularly what to do with more challenging emotions, such as sadness, anger, grief or shame. If we let emotions turn into stories, this can create misinterpretations/misguided feelings or misunderstandings.

Areas that we can work on to improve our understanding of emotions & what to do with them include: emotional awareness, emotional ownership, emotional processing, emotional regulation, emotional expression, and impulse control.

It’s key that we understand how we might sometimes consciously or unconsciously attach our thoughts/biases/beliefs to our emotions-which can create longer lasting feelings, stories, mental mental models that might not be helpful. We have a lot of choices when it comes to emotions

My hope for everyone is that we make the choice to start understanding our emotions & make it a priority to learn (& teach our kids) what to do with them. By doing this, I believe we may see a world of healing, compassion, effective communication, reduced conflict & so much more.