For example, if you grew up in a home where strong emotions were constantly on display, you may have no trouble experiencing and expressing fear, anger, or joy. But if your family kept quiet about their feelings, you may not notice your own emotions very easily, or you may not feel comfortable letting others know when you feel afraid, angry, or even happy. For instance, if you become intensely angry whenever people don’t act the way you thought they should, you might express it immediately in an aggressive way. If this is the case, it can be helpful to ask yourself which of the five universal emotions (joy, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger) you tend to experience most intensely and express most easily. For example, if you have trouble accessing your emotions, it can be hard for others to know what you’re feeling—they certainly can’t help you if they don’t know whether you’re worried, sad, angry, or none of the above. Also, with your emotions off-limits even to yourself, it can be difficult for you to show empathy for others, which can further contribute to the distance people may feel in their relationships with you. As an adult, not surprisingly, she finds it difficult to express her emotions directly, even when she is experiencing them with intensity. She experiences her emotions, but she does not admit to experiencing them. When she feels joy, she tends not to smile, and she’s the last one to join in on the dance floor. When she feels intense anger, she tries hard to cover it up. Her emotions tend to be hidden but lurking, lying in wait to emerge, when it is the nature of emotions to be expressed. When we do not consciously express them, they often materialize anyway, in ways we don’t intend. Because my client did not feel comfortable expressing her emotions directly, she has little control over how they will come out. Especially when she experiences emotions intensely, they do inevitably surface—just not always in ways she’d like. One day during a reporters’ meeting, she became furious at a colleague whom she felt was trying to edge her out of a plum job assignment. Without intending it, an expression of contempt spread across her face when she looked at him. When colleagues who had been at the meeting told her that she had seemed angry with him, she vehemently denied it and told them they were wrongly accusing her of having been angry when she wasn’t. That caused quite a stir between my client and her colleagues. As she discovered, emotions can betray you by oozing out even when you try to conceal them, which can lead to miscommunications and conflict with others. Adapted from Optimal Outcomes. Used with permission of HarperCollins. Copyright © 2020 by Jennifer Goldman-Wetzler.
