Emotions relate to our feelings, they are felt physically and go beyond our thoughts and our minds. Emotions come from our more primitive mind, sometimes known as the reptile brain. They work as impulses and are very useful: to know when to be scared or angry or sad is useful from a survival point of view. The problems come when our emotions overwhelm us, are out of our control, are absent in some way or are making us feel physically ill to the point of being debilitating.
Often we turn to medicine to treat our emotions; tranquillizers to bring us down, anti-depressants to bring us up, alcohol and drugs to avoid the feelings altogether.
Talking therapies, such as the one in which I am trained, are shown to help alleviate both the symptoms and help to understand the cause of various emotional distresses. Often it is simply the saying out loud of what we truly think and feel which releases the emotional pain and allows us to move past the blockage and eventually to recover our sense of self and wellness again.
We are born into relationships as relational beings. As humans, we are designed to live in groups and associate in tribes or families or teams as one of many. We tend not to do so well as solitary beings. That said the root of most of our emotional dis-ease comes from relationships of one kind or another. Our relationships with our parents, spouses, children, friends, work colleagues and so on are extensive.
Imagine someone is traumatised because of how they were treated as a young person, or depressed because they have lost a job, marriage, or a loved one to death. Someone is an alcoholic as a result of a marriage breakdown or is angry because they are never listened to or withdrawn because of bullying.
In very many cases the cause of emotional discomfort is found in a dysfunctional relationship or in the way in which we have chosen to respond to a relationship. We are born into a relationship and we live in relationships all of our lives. The relief from our emotional dis-ease and distress is found in relationships and how we may choose to change how we are in a relationship.