Relationship Skills 101 for Teens by Sheri Van Dijk

Author:Sheri Van Dijk
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626250543
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Published: 2015-02-10T16:00:00+00:00

The Emotional Self

The emotional self is the flip side to the reasoning self. While spending too much time in your reasoning self can cause problems, the problems of acting from the emotional self are usually more noticeable because its style of thinking often tends to get you into trouble. You know you’re thinking from this perspective when your behaviors are being controlled by your emotions. Typical examples of this would be when you’re feeling angry at someone and you talk about him behind his back or post something hurtful about him on Facebook, or when you’re feeling anxious and you avoid what’s causing the anxiety.

But you might also act from your emotional self with pleasant emotions—for example, if you get a letter of acceptance from your first-choice college and call all your friends and family to share your excitement. When you act from your emotional self when overtaken by a pleasant emotion, though, it doesn’t usually have the negative consequences that acting from a painful emotion does. Think back to Carter and Caitlyn for more examples of this state of mind.

Carter experiences a lot of anger and lashes out at whomever is closest—this is how he ended up alienating his friends and his girlfriend, and how the band’s equipment ended up trashed. In these instances, Carter allowed his emotional self to take over, simply reacting from the anger he was experiencing without thought of what the consequences might be. Likewise, Caitlyn allows her emotional self to control her, resulting in her avoiding any kind of social situation because she feels anxious. In both these examples, Carter and Caitlyn don’t allow their reasoning selves to contribute to their actions; they simply act on the urges that result from their emotions in the moment.

Just like with your reasoning self, acting from your emotional self isn’t necessarily a negative thing, but when you’re regularly responding from this thinking style, it will likely become problematic. So what’s the solution? Again, it’s aiming for balance.

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