Most of us tend to think about emotions as either good or bad, positive or negative but every emotion can be helpful and destructive. One goal of DBT and CBT is to help folks use emotions more effectively; to understand the purpose of each emotion and to decide how to use emotions (if at all) in achieving our objectives. One important step is to determine whether the context or situation reasonably connect to the feeling. If they do, then we work towards figuring out how to abide by the emotion effectively. If they don’t then we act opposite the emotion.
What purpose does each emotion have?
Sadness prompts us to seek comfort and communicates to others that we are in need.
Anger provokes us to action, to change harmful situations and communicates to others to change their behaviors.
Anxiety provokes us to either action or vigilance and causes us to act in our self-interest to solve problems.
Shame causes us to hide what might create more harm than good if it were revealed.
Guilt causes us to comply with our values and generally accepted cultural values.
All of these emotions allow us to validate our experience and empathize with others; feeling these emotions helps us recognize them, understand what they may mean and guides us on a reaction when someone else is experiencing them.
Sometimes we can become confused about why we’re feeling the way we do, or we feel things too intensely – this can cause us to act in ways that are harmful to ourselves and others. We may become too dependent, aggressive, defensive, secretive or passive.
Next time you are feeling an intense emotion balance the facts against the feeling and play out how you intend to act from that emotion (as well as the possible consequences of that action) before you give in to what your feeling wants you to do. There are many times when it’s okay or even advisable to give into your emotions, just do it effectively.