Many are critical of emotions, seeing feelings as something that stifles them, as something they must overcome with reason and rationality, but that is foolish in the long run. We should be aware of our emotions because they teach us crucial lessons about ourselves and our needs.
Emotions are one of our internal mechanisms to orient us towards what we need. Thus, they are crucial. Even though sometimes emotions can be overwhelming or lead people to make decisions in the moment that turn out to be poor ones, we should not ignore or suppress our emotions.
Instead, we should seek to understand what they are telling us about what we need. Anxiety is a sign that we consider whatever we are anticipating as important. Worry and fear area signs that we are concerned about our wellbeing. Anger is a sign that we feel an injustice has threatened ourselves or others we care about.
At the end of the day, they are signals. Signals that can turn out to be correct or incorrect. Sometimes we are angry at something that we discover is not a real injustice, and sometimes, what we fear turns out not to be much of a concern. But often they are not wrong: our minds can be very good at assessing what is important.
Either way, it’s important to process the emotion, understand why you feel it, and then determine the best response to having the emotion. Through this, we can synchronize our emotions with our rational thinking. Using our reason to think about whether our emotion’s assessments are missing important information, and in turn, determining whether our rational self is ignoring something our emotions are picking up on.
A successful marriage between the two is a healthier way to respond to our emotions than suppression and a better way to use the tools in our psychological toolset to engage the world and live a good life.
