Today I’m going to be discussing your internal compass, or what Danielle LaPorte refers to as “the GPS of your soul,” namely: your emotions.
“Emotion” has been considered inferior in many ways to the almighty “cognition,” our newly evolved and highly sophisticated neocortex, where we can compute complex math problems and think things through (sometimes).
The thing about emotions is that they are more sophisticated than we have given them credit for.
In fact, emotion is sort of like our internal compass, a guidance system that we can always count on to help us navigate the intricacies of our lives in a simple way.
My advice to you is – actually, I’m begging you – to please pay attention to your emotions.
The root of the word means “to move,” and emotions are fluid in nature.
When we don’t acknowledge them or pay attention to them, they can become stuck.
Unacknowledged anger turns inward and depression ensues, for example.
Or, because we don’t listen, we become stuck.
I just got off the phone with someone who has been questioning herself and listens to her husband’s voice over her own. He tells her she’s uptight so she questions herself and asks, “am I too uptight?” and as a result, becomes even more restricted and uptight in the process.
While I’m all about thinking of two people in a relationship as a system, and I believe we are all connected, it’s important that you never let your partner drown out the signals that you need to hear from yourself.
What you should do instead is STOP.
Slow down.
Pay attention.
Ask yourself: How do I really feel?
Your emotions are your friends. They are incredibly sophisticated and we have them to thank for helping us survive this far.
If you’re struggling to tap into your feelings, try to just feel yourself in your body. Ask yourself, how does your body feel? Is there tightness anywhere? Restriction?
As entrepreneurs and busy people, we are running, running, running. We hardly stop and take a breath to check in.
We must not only be aware of our emotions but ACCEPT them.
Another thing I’m sick and tired of hearing about?
All this talk that you can control your emotions.
You can’t.
The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio wrote that we are about as capable of controlling our emotions as we are of stopping a sneeze.
All we can do is shine a light on them and pay attention to them.
Allow them, listen to them, and consciously tap into them as we make easy and difficult decisions in our day to day lives.
Do what feels good.
Do what makes you feel light.
Do what helps you feel free.
Just don’t apologize for your feelings.
And don’t let ANYONE convince you that what you are feeling is invalid.
Your emotions are ALWAYS valid.
Even if they may not make sense on the surface, there is some reason or perspective or story that you are telling yourself that makes your feelings TOTALLY valid.
The story may not be valid, but your feelings ALWAYS are.
If you don’t like the way you feel, accept your emotions anyway, and try to understand where they are coming from.
Is the story flawed?
Or do you need to change up your reality?
Either way, honor your internal compass and in the words of Sting, “Let your soul be your pilot.” Your emotions will get you there a whole lot faster than anything you can think of.
Cheers to thriving in business & love,
I couldn’t disagree with you more and feel this is very irresponsible advice. While anything can have merit in some situations, this gives free reign to us acting out in any way we like as long as it makes us “happy”. After all, I “deserve” to be happy, right? I shouldn’t let anyone tell me otherwise. My emotions tell me I should leave my wife and family for my hot secretary. The “new” of the relationship fills me with all sorts of good feeling emotions. I should listen to that voice and follow my emotions, right? I am compulsively driven to have sex with children. I should follow my emotions because that would make me happy. Here is an emotion for you, anger. I feel angry that you would post something like this with no disclaimer or without representing being responsible to something else besides raw emotion. Perhaps there is another emotion in these circumstances that hides underneath called “guilt” and that is what we should pay attention too when our need to be happy is in conflict with our own best interest and the interest of others?
Hi Fred! First, I am SO sorry this response is so late to your post, my assistant literally just alerted me to this and several other comments that I missed.
Thank you for your feedback — I can see why you’d be angry if I wrote that we should always ACT based on our emotions. I totally agree with you – we shouldn’t do that. If doing a bunch of cocaine will make me feel good right now while my daughter is napping…well, that’s obviously not cool (for the record, I don’t do cocaine). I’m just asking people to start PAYING ATTENTION to their emotions.
Fortunately I don’t wish to do any cocaine right now, but if I did, this post would encourage me to take a closer look at what’s really going on, what am I trying to escape/avoid, etc. Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. Hope this makes the post more clear.
I absolutely agree! In fact, I’ve always told my kids (oldest is 43) to “trust your gut”. Sometimes the advice is taken and sometimes not, but we have all learned a lot about ourselves through the years.
Hi Bobbi!
Thanks so much for your comment. Yes…I agree…sometimes it’s easier said than done to trust our gut but it usually is the best guidance system we have.
xoxoxo
jenev