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Learning the Basics: Emotions
Sorry about the lack of post last week, it was a busy week and I was short on time. The important bit to me is that I'm posting now. I have a tendency to say "Oh, I missed one, so if I miss another it doesn't matter." I have derailed myself this way many times, so any time I avoid doing that and stay on track instead is a win for me.
Over the past two weeks, I looked into coping skills and took a look at emotions. For coping skills, I sat down and went through the lists of potential coping skills, looking for which ones might work. I also tried to sort them by category, to cover all the bases. I found far more that fit into the Distraction category than any of the others, but I do have a better idea now of the different things I can try. I also have coping skills to try in different situations or when I feel differently.
I haven't tested most of them yet but I picked the ones that seemed most likely. I also found that a coping skill I didn't think would work for me actually does, in the right situation. "Hyperfocusing" on something; I thought this would be a bad idea because I tend to end up lost in my own head and that is what I typically need coping skills for, dealing with the emotions that pop up when I'm too deep in thought. However, as a calming technique, hyperfocusing actually works pretty well. If I'm frustrated or angry, focusing very closely on something concrete, like a cardboard box or my hand, allows me to calm down and overcome the sense of frustration.
I am not very fluent in emotions, so the links I checked out were very illuminating. The first link was very detailed and helpful. I will did to check it out in depth later. It explained what Plutchik's Emotion Wheel was and how to use it. It also explained a bit how emotions work and the break down of them. As a science logic type person, this was very useful for me. It also included a link to being mindful of your emotions and a second emotion wheel. I liked the emotion wheel a lot, because it has a lot of different emotions and it breaks them down into their components. For me, it is helpful to know that if I'm feeling bored, I may also be feeling indifferent or apathetic. Seeing the breakdown of emotions like that made a lot of sense to me and I think it will help with identifying and acting on my feelings in the future.
Another bonus about this link is that there are two emotion wheels. The first is similar to Plutchik's wheel, but it has faces. I like how it shows which emotions go together and seeing one demonstration of the emotion was helpful. Something I may come back to in the future, if I need some help reading other peoples' emotions.
The link about emotions look like was interesting but overall not very helpful for me. It only showed eight basic emotions, and the faces all seemed super exaggerated. It is a good starting point but I think I might attempt to find better faces showing emotions.
The last link talked about how to examine your feelings and deal with them. It was written by a person who had personally struggled with this and it made a lot of sense to me. I don't have much skill in identify or dealing with my emotions, so a step by step guide that worked for someone else was a nice starting point to have.
All in all, very useful resources and a good start to understanding what is going on within me. Now I might be able to more than just "I'm upset". I have a hope of defining the emotion I'm feeling and, consequently, finding a way to deal with it, or the problem causing it.
Over the past two weeks, I looked into coping skills and took a look at emotions. For coping skills, I sat down and went through the lists of potential coping skills, looking for which ones might work. I also tried to sort them by category, to cover all the bases. I found far more that fit into the Distraction category than any of the others, but I do have a better idea now of the different things I can try. I also have coping skills to try in different situations or when I feel differently.
I haven't tested most of them yet but I picked the ones that seemed most likely. I also found that a coping skill I didn't think would work for me actually does, in the right situation. "Hyperfocusing" on something; I thought this would be a bad idea because I tend to end up lost in my own head and that is what I typically need coping skills for, dealing with the emotions that pop up when I'm too deep in thought. However, as a calming technique, hyperfocusing actually works pretty well. If I'm frustrated or angry, focusing very closely on something concrete, like a cardboard box or my hand, allows me to calm down and overcome the sense of frustration.
I am not very fluent in emotions, so the links I checked out were very illuminating. The first link was very detailed and helpful. I will did to check it out in depth later. It explained what Plutchik's Emotion Wheel was and how to use it. It also explained a bit how emotions work and the break down of them. As a science logic type person, this was very useful for me. It also included a link to being mindful of your emotions and a second emotion wheel. I liked the emotion wheel a lot, because it has a lot of different emotions and it breaks them down into their components. For me, it is helpful to know that if I'm feeling bored, I may also be feeling indifferent or apathetic. Seeing the breakdown of emotions like that made a lot of sense to me and I think it will help with identifying and acting on my feelings in the future.
Another bonus about this link is that there are two emotion wheels. The first is similar to Plutchik's wheel, but it has faces. I like how it shows which emotions go together and seeing one demonstration of the emotion was helpful. Something I may come back to in the future, if I need some help reading other peoples' emotions.
The link about emotions look like was interesting but overall not very helpful for me. It only showed eight basic emotions, and the faces all seemed super exaggerated. It is a good starting point but I think I might attempt to find better faces showing emotions.
The last link talked about how to examine your feelings and deal with them. It was written by a person who had personally struggled with this and it made a lot of sense to me. I don't have much skill in identify or dealing with my emotions, so a step by step guide that worked for someone else was a nice starting point to have.
All in all, very useful resources and a good start to understanding what is going on within me. Now I might be able to more than just "I'm upset". I have a hope of defining the emotion I'm feeling and, consequently, finding a way to deal with it, or the problem causing it.
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Or in baseball terms, you're not trying for a home run. Just put the ball in play. They may even throw you out, but the fact that you *hit* that curve ball will give the brain weasels pause for thought. (At which point you take that lovely ash bat and swat a few of them! :)
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Perfect can absolutely be the enemy of the good. I actually think this is one of the many things with my partner that led to the Thing. Waiting for everything to be absolutely perfect means a lot of stuff didn't happen, where as I would have been happy just to go and give it a try. Communication may also have been a big issue...
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I've always had trouble identifying my emotions, and often even noticing that I'm having them (I tend to try to work it out afterward, but that doesn't work all that well either. Alexithymia is a thing. I'm not sure I'm getting any better at it.
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And thanks for making me remember a
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Running back through the Mood: fields in my post archive, there's a lot more variety in the older ones. That may, however, be partly because I was making smaller posts, more frequently.
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I really do like the last link I posted above, because it is someone talking about their tendency to repress all emotions and how they are working to stop doing that. I always do better with concrete examples instead of vafue abstracts so I think I'll be coming back to that one myself.
Every little bit counts. Even if it's just a tiny improvement, it's still good :) And some days all that matters is that you tried, even if it fails spectacularly. (I try to remember this myself) Hugs for you! And good luck with your journey, wherever it leads!
Yay!
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I'm realizing this isn't something I can just power through in 10 steps and then forget about it; I have to keep working at it. I do feel like I've made some small improvements, so yay!
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Thanks for the suggestion! :)
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https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/15050/everyday-cooking/cooking-for-one/
https://www.foodnetwork.com/topics/for-one
https://greatist.com/health/healthy-single-serving-meals
http://www.pbs.org/food/theme/cooking-for-one/
https://www.bonappetit.com/gallery/21-healthy-recipes-for-one
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We kind of wish there was an emotion wheel in text.
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Finished Emotion Wheel
I transcribed both the complex wheel I like and the simpler wheel with faces from the same document. The simple one is similar to Plutchik's wheel, but not identical.
Would you like me to post it as a comment, send it in a PM, send it in an email, or make it a post on my journal? Any of these methods works for me, just let me know what works best for you. Hopefully it helps!