Emotions are complex and at times can be overwhelming. Emotions help us deal with the world around us and to handle our experiences. On today’s episode of Insights Into Teens we’re going to take a look at how emotions help us, we’ll discuss some basic rules about emotions and we’ll look at tips on building emotional awareness.
Show Notes
INTRO THEME]
[INTRODUCTIONS]
Insights Into Teens: Episode 163 “Understanding Your Emotions”
My happy and healthy co-host Madison Whalen
Summary
Emotions are complex and at times can be overwhelming. Emotions help us deal with the world around us and to handle our experiences. On today’s episode of Insights Into Teens we’re going to take a look at how emotions help us, we’ll discuss some basic rules about emotions and we’ll look at tips on building emotional awareness.
But before we get to that I’d like to invite our listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast.
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[TRANSITION]
[SEGMENT 1]
How Emotions Help Us
What are you feeling, right now, as you listen or watch this podcast?
Are you curious?
Hopeful that you’ll learn something about yourself?
Bored because this is something you’re not really into — or happy because it’s something you enjoy?
Perhaps you’re distracted by something else, like feeling excited about your weekend plans or sad because you just went through a breakup.
Emotions like these are part of human nature.
They give us information about what we’re experiencing and help us know how to react.
We sense our emotions from the time we’re babies.
Infants and young children react to their emotions with facial expressions or with actions like laughing, cuddling, or crying.
They feel and show emotions, but they don’t yet have the ability to name the emotion or say why they feel that way.
As we grow up, we become more skilled in understanding emotions.
Instead of just reacting like little kids do, we can identify what we feel and put it into words.
With time and practice, we get better at knowing what we are feeling and why.
This skill is called emotional awareness.
Emotional awareness helps us know what we need and want (or don’t want!).
It helps us build better relationships.
That’s because being aware of our emotions can help us talk about feelings more clearly, avoid or resolve conflicts better, and move past difficult feelings more easily.
Some people are naturally more in touch with their emotions than others.
The good news is, everyone can be more aware of their emotions.
It just takes practice.
But it’s worth the effort:
Emotional awareness is the first step toward building emotional intelligence, a skill that can help people succeed in life.
[AD1: SSE]
[SEGMENT 2]
The Basics of Emotions
Emotions come and go.
Most of us feel many different emotions throughout the day.
Some last just a few seconds.
Others might linger to become a mood.
Emotions can be mild, intense, or anywhere in between.
The intensity of an emotion can depend on the situation and on the person.
There are no good or bad emotions, but there are good and bad ways of expressing (or acting on) emotions.
Learning how to express emotions in acceptable ways is a separate skill — managing emotions — that is built on a foundation of being able to understand emotions.
It’s All Good
Some emotions feel positive — like feeling happy, loving, confident, inspired, cheerful, interested, grateful, or included.
Other emotions can seem more negative — like feeling angry, resentful, afraid, ashamed, guilty, sad, or worried.
Both positive and negative emotions are normal.
All emotions tell us something about ourselves and our situation.
But sometimes we find it hard to accept what we feel.
We might judge ourselves for feeling a certain way, like if we feel jealous, for example.
But instead of thinking we shouldn’t feel that way, it’s better to notice how we actually feel.
Avoiding negative feelings or pretending we don’t feel the way we do can backfire.
It’s harder to move past difficult feelings and allow them to fade if we don’t face them and try to understand why we feel that way.
You don’t have to dwell on your emotions or constantly talk about how you feel.
Emotional awareness simply means recognizing, respecting, and accepting your feelings as they happen.
[AD2: ENTERTAINMENT]
[SEGMENT 3]
Building Emotional Awareness
Emotional awareness helps us know and accept ourselves.
So how can you become more aware of your emotions?
Start with these three simple steps:
Make a habit of tuning in to how you feel in different situations throughout the day.
You might notice that you feel excited after making plans to go somewhere with a friend.
Or that you feel nervous before an exam.
You might be relaxed when listening to music, inspired by an art exhibit, or pleased when a friend gives you a compliment.
Simply notice whatever emotion you feel, then name that emotion in your mind.
It only takes a second to do this, but it’s great practice.
Notice that each emotion passes and makes room for the next experience.
Rate how strong the feeling is.
After you notice and name an emotion, take it a step further:
Rate how strongly you feel the emotion on a scale of 1–10, with 1 being the mildest feeling and 10 the most intense.
Share your feelings with the people closest to you.
This is the best way to practice putting emotions into words, a skill that helps us feel closer to friends, boyfriends or girlfriends, parents, coaches — anyone.
Make it a daily practice to share feelings with a friend or family member.
You could share something that’s quite personal or something that’s simply an everyday emotion.
Just like anything else in life, when it comes to emotions, practice makes perfect!
Remind yourself there are no good or bad emotions.
Don’t judge your feelings — just keep noticing and naming them.
[TRANSITION]
[CLOSE]
Closing thoughts shoutouts
[OUTRO AND CREDITS]
Show Plugs
Subscriptions:
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Contact Info
Email us at:
Comments@insightsintothings.com
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Hi-res videos on Youtube:
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Links to all these on the web Web:
https://www.insightsintothings.com
Transcription
00:00:00:09 – 00:00:41:19
Michelle
Those insightful podcasts by informative host insights into things. A podcast network. Welcome to Insights into Teams, a podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison, as well as a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of.
00:00:41:19 – 00:00:50:25
Michelle
The teenage years.
00:00:51:23 – 00:01:08:05
Joseph
Welcome to Insights in the Teens. This is episode 163. Understanding Your Emotions. I’m your host, Joseph Wayland, and my happy and healthy co-host Madison Whalen. Everyone, how are you doing, Matty?
00:01:08:20 – 00:01:10:13
Madison
I’m all right. How about you? I’m doing.
00:01:10:14 – 00:01:24:28
Joseph
All right. This was a not a bad week. We’re a day late here because we had a family firepit night last night before the weather turned bad on us here. So we kind of postponed the day. Anything exciting going on with your week?
00:01:25:15 – 00:01:30:21
Madison
I’m not currently. It’s kind of been chill week, Joey.
00:01:30:29 – 00:01:32:01
Joseph
Nothing wrong with that.
00:01:32:07 – 00:01:34:19
Madison
No, while not what the temperature at least.
00:01:34:28 – 00:02:07:01
Joseph
Well, yeah, temperatures like in the sixties here, it’s ridiculous. So part of our effort in this series of ten here is we’re kind of building on what we kicked off in 161 with our emotional intelligence. So today we’re talking about understanding your emotions. Emotions are complex and at times can be overwhelming. Emotions help us deal with the world around us and to handle our experiences.
00:02:07:29 – 00:02:33:26
Joseph
Well, today’s episode of Insights into Teens, We’re going to take a look at how emotions help us. We’ll discuss some basic rules about emotions, and we’ll look at tips on building emotional awareness. But as always, before we do that, I’d like to take a moment to invite our listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast. You can find audio versions of this podcast listed as insights in the teens.
00:02:34:18 – 00:02:57:23
Joseph
You can find video and audio of all the network’s podcasts listed as insights into things, and we’re pretty much anywhere you can get a podcast. Now Apple, Spotify, Google and so forth. We’d also invite you to write in, give us your feedback, tell us how we’re doing. Give us your show suggestions. You can email us at comments and insights into things.
00:02:57:23 – 00:03:15:13
Joseph
Dot com. You can DM us on Twitter at insights, underscore things, or you can find links to all our social media and more on our official website and insights into things dot com. Are we ready? Yes. Here we go.
00:03:19:19 – 00:03:49:05
Joseph
So we are back again talking about emotional intelligence related things. And like our previous few episodes, this comes to us from Kids Health talk. They say how emotions help us. So what are you feeling right now as you listen to this podcast or watch this podcast? Are you curious? Are you hopeful you’ll learn something about yourself? Are you bored because this isn’t something you’re really into?
00:03:49:12 – 00:03:51:27
Joseph
Or if you are, you probably shouldn’t be listening or watching this.
00:03:51:28 – 00:03:52:11
Madison
Yeah.
00:03:52:29 – 00:04:17:00
Joseph
Or are you happy because it’s something you enjoy and perhaps you’re distracted by something else, like feeling excited about your weekend plans or sad because you just went through a breakup. Emotions like these are part of human nature. They give us information about what we’re experiencing and help us know how to react. We sense our emotions from the time we’re babies.
00:04:17:15 – 00:04:34:15
Joseph
Infants and young children react to their emotions with facial expressions or with actions like laughing, cuddling or crying. They feel and show emotions, but they don’t yet have the ability to mean the emotion or say why they feel that way.
00:04:35:13 – 00:04:57:06
Madison
As we grow up, we become more skilled at understanding emotions instead of just reacting like little kids do. We can identify what we feel and put it into words. With time and practice, we get better at knowing what we are feeling and why. This skill is called emotional awareness. Emotional awareness helps us know what we need and want or what we don’t want.
00:04:57:22 – 00:05:10:13
Madison
It helps us build better relationships. That’s because being aware of our emotions can help us talk about things more clearly, avoid and resolve conflicts better, and move past difficult feelings more easily.
00:05:11:05 – 00:05:37:09
Joseph
Some people are naturally more in touch with their emotions than others. The good news is everyone can be more aware of their emotions. It just takes practice, but it’s worth the effort. Emotional awareness is the first step towards building emotional intelligence, a skill that can help people succeed in life. So we’ve been talking about emotional intelligence in and numerous times in the past.
00:05:37:09 – 00:06:06:13
Joseph
One of the things that we’ve tried to do on this podcast is to kind of talk about identifying our feelings and understanding our emotions and realizing that that’s an important part of controlling your emotions and not letting your emotions control you. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you say you are at understanding your emotions?
00:06:07:15 – 00:06:11:05
Madison
I’d say like a six, six and a half ish.
00:06:11:19 – 00:06:14:05
Joseph
Okay. Has the podcast helped you at all?
00:06:14:15 – 00:06:36:09
Madison
Definitely. I remember I know I talk about sixth grade a lot, but really sixth grade was the year when my emotions were rampant. I didn’t know how to define them and I was most prone to lashing out at people I lost on my teacher. One time I’ve lashed out at my friends multiple times. I’ve lashed out at you guys.
00:06:36:09 – 00:07:02:05
Madison
And that was kind of I feel like that was one of the things that led to the podcast, seeing what I was going through. You thought that trying to talk about it through a podcast or a method that you know would also possibly be helpful for other people has really helped me. I’ve realized that after we’ve been doing the podcast, I’ve gained a lot more emotional control.
00:07:02:06 – 00:07:14:13
Madison
I matured a lot from when I first started sixth grade too, by the time I left it. So yeah, I definitely say the podcast was really beneficial when it came to helping me understand my emotions.
00:07:14:21 – 00:07:47:29
Joseph
Well, that’s good. I’m glad it’s worked out for you. I think it’s kind of interesting. As I get older, I find I’m always learning something new about understanding and controlling emotions, and I react differently now to two things that I would have reacted the same way two years ago. And an a great example of this is Sam. Your brother Sam had me playing the new God of War Brother.
00:07:47:29 – 00:08:12:02
Joseph
We’re Ragnarok and it’s a it’s a that and the one before it was a very father son type story based game. And there was a little bit of that in the in the first game. But the second game and this is a credit to the game developers. It’s it’s a very well-written game, very thematic in how you play through it.
00:08:12:27 – 00:08:43:26
Joseph
But I found myself reacting to things from a storyline standpoint in the game that touched me in ways and moved me emotionally in ways that I’ve never experienced in a video game before. Occasionally a TV show or a movie or a book or something like that. But a video game has never done that to me. And I think part of that is because Sam and I were well, it’s not a cooperative play game.
00:08:44:21 – 00:09:12:26
Joseph
You play it individually. We were playing it at the same time. So we would I would experience something in game and then I couldn’t wait to talk to Sam about that as well. And it kind of fed into the whole thing. So even at my age, I’m still learning about emotions. What are your thoughts on that? Do you do you think there’s a point where you become I mean, is it is it an education thing?
00:09:12:26 – 00:09:15:18
Joseph
Is it an experience thing where you become an expert on emotions?
00:09:15:29 – 00:09:42:03
Madison
Well, I feel like just about with anything, you can learn something new every day, no matter your age. Like you’re not going to be able to hold all the answers of the universe. You’re not going to have like you can learn how to control your emotions, but there’s so many other things that you can experience because there’s so much out there that you may like, you may never experience, or you’ll only experience once.
00:09:42:03 – 00:09:59:28
Madison
And it’s like even if you’re added point where like you have a good understanding of your emotions, something can happen where you’ve never experienced it before, even through all your years of experience that you have, there can always be new things that always happen. You know.
00:09:59:29 – 00:10:36:28
Joseph
It’s a very good point. Very well said. What I find is that as I’ve grown and I’ve I’ve aged, my end goal for understanding emotions has changed. You know, very early on, my goal was really to control my feelings, control my anger, because I had anger management issues. And nowadays I find that my goal isn’t so much to control my emotions as it is to understand my emotions, to make me a better person, to make me a better father, to make me a better husband.
00:10:37:16 – 00:11:08:21
Joseph
You know, it helps me. Understanding my emotions and emotions in general have helped me to be more empathetic to other people, to understand different people’s points of view, to not jump to conclusions and to be less judgmental in your understanding and continued understanding of emotions and feelings. What are some of the things that you’ve noticed have changed in you?
00:11:08:21 – 00:11:10:12
Joseph
Can you have do you have any examples?
00:11:11:23 – 00:11:38:22
Madison
Yeah, I have a few examples. I used to be the type of person that would get mad very easily, like I would be playing a video game and it wouldn’t be working. I one wouldn’t be or like something bad would happen and I’d scream about it. There have been instances where, like my friends did the littlest thing that just got me really mad and I would yell at them or we would get into a fight or something.
00:11:39:04 – 00:12:04:12
Madison
And as I matured, or at least through getting to understand my emotions more, I started to find ways that I could better control and understand that anger. It’s like. And then I understood that like half the time when I was angry, things didn’t really matter. So it was like I really had no point of being angry at that point.
00:12:04:12 – 00:12:29:16
Madison
And it stopped me from getting so mad at my friends. Whenever that happened. And I noticed we had a lot less fights afterwards. And I also noticed that other people didn’t bug me as much as they used to. So learning to control that anger also got me to, you know, kind of loosen up a bit. Not like always seem so negative because I was very negative.
00:12:30:15 – 00:12:53:20
Madison
Before we really before I really understood my emotions. Every day was a bad day. I never found anything good through it. And now, yeah, well, I’m not incredibly positive. And I don’t always say like, Oh, today’s been the best day. You’re like, Yeah, I’m doing great. I still like find funny stuff that happens and I’m not always as mad as I used to be.
00:12:53:20 – 00:13:04:06
Madison
I’m not like, Oh my God, this was the worst day ever. But you know, I’m also not I’m I’m, you know, kind of getting a middle ground there, being slightly more positive at least. So.
00:13:04:21 – 00:13:31:05
Joseph
Yeah. And that balance that emotional balance that you demonstrate is very obvious to the casual observer. The one thing that I’ve noticed in understanding my emotions better and making that effort and it is an effort I mean, it’s not it doesn’t just come naturally. You have to observe, you have to be patient with yourself. You know, it’s it’s an effort to understand emotions.
00:13:31:05 – 00:13:48:29
Joseph
But I found that in understanding my emotions, it helped me to better understand other people and their emotions. Have you found that to be the same type of thing for you, where you understanding your emotions have allowed you to be more in touch with other people’s emotions?
00:13:49:09 – 00:14:06:12
Madison
Yeah, definitely. And again, in example, with my friends, whenever I would get mad at my friends and I’d yell at them and weaken and the fights, eventually when I stopped doing that, I kind of became the mediator for my friend’s conflicts because they get mad at each other and I would kind of be the one to sell them.
00:14:06:20 – 00:14:33:23
Madison
Hey, come on, let’s chill out. Let’s talk about it. It’s going to be fine. And I realized that after like I basically went from starting the conflicts to trying to understand all the different sides of the argument to stopping them. And another thing is when I would have experiences that some of my other friends would experience, and while they’d obviously not be the same, probably wouldn’t react the same and learned it got me to learn basic empathy for people.
00:14:33:23 – 00:14:42:05
Madison
And even though I was empathetic beforehand, I got really empathetic and I was able to better understand what people were going through, especially if we had a similar situation.
00:14:42:26 – 00:15:04:01
Joseph
Yeah, and that’s that’s a good point. You know, emotions influence pretty much every aspect of our lives, and understanding even them just a little bit better makes us better attuned to the world around us. We’re going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we’re going to talk about the basics of emotions. We’ll be right back.
00:15:10:02 – 00:15:46:19
Michelle
Insights into Teens, a podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Talking to real teens about real teen problems. Explore issues from races to puberty, social anxiety to financial responsibility. Each week we talk about the topics concerning today’s youth. We look at how the issues affect teens, how to cope with these issues, and how parents, friends and loved ones can help teens handle these challenges.
00:15:47:10 – 00:16:12:22
Michelle
Check out our video episodes on YouTube.com backslash insights into things. Catch our audio versions on podcast are insights into teens. XCOM or on the web and insights into things. XCOM.
00:16:12:27 – 00:16:35:24
Madison
Welcome back to Insights into Teens. Today we’re talking about understanding your emotions, and now we’re going to talk about the basics of emotions. Emotions come and go. Most of us feel many different emotions throughout the day. Some large just a few seconds. Others might linger longer and become a mood. Emotions can be mild and tense anywhere in between.
00:16:35:25 – 00:17:02:26
Madison
In between the intensity of an emotion can depend on the situation and on the person. There’s no good or bad emotions, but there are good and bad ways of expressing or acting on emotions. Learning how to express emotions in an acceptable way is a separate skill. Managing emotions, which is built on a foundation of being able to understand emotions.
00:17:02:26 – 00:17:37:08
Joseph
It’s all good. Some emotions feel positive, like feeling happy, loving, confident, inspired, cheerful and so forth. Other emotions can seem more negative, like feeling angry or resentful or afraid, both positive and negative emotions are all normal. All emotions tell us something about ourselves and our situation. But sometimes we find it hard to accept what we feel. We might judge ourselves for feeling a certain way, like if we feel jealous, for example.
00:17:38:11 – 00:17:44:27
Joseph
But instead of thinking, we shouldn’t feel that way, it’s better to notice how we actually feel.
00:17:45:22 – 00:18:07:25
Madison
Avoiding negative feelings or pretending we don’t feel the way we do can backfire. It’s harder to move past difficult feelings and allow them to fade if you don’t face them and try to understand why we feel that way. You don’t have to dwell on your emotions or constantly talk about how you feel. Emotional awareness simply means recognizing, respecting and accepting your feelings as they happen.
00:18:09:12 – 00:18:25:06
Joseph
So we talked about negative and positive feelings several times in the past. Do you recognize the fact that that feelings themselves are neither negative or positive at this point in time? Are you confident in understanding that?
00:18:25:17 – 00:18:42:23
Madison
Yeah, especially through the recent podcast we’ve done basically. Yeah, I definitely understand that emotions can be channeled in both negative and positive ways, but the emotions themselves aren’t necessarily negative or positive.
00:18:44:01 – 00:19:21:15
Joseph
Yeah, when you when you classify something as negative or positive, you’re kind of classifying it as having intent. And emotions don’t have intent. Emotions are just what we feel given a a number of circumstances. So I think I think the important thing really to understand is that everybody has the emotions, the the difficult thing, especially when there are strong emotions, you know, there are emotions we have where you can be happy being happy and being elated.
00:19:21:23 – 00:19:57:14
Joseph
You know, if you think of emotions on a scale. So as they scale up, there’s a point that they reach where you they tend to overwhelm us. And finding that point of being overwhelmed is is difficult. You know, if you’re happy, you’re you can recognize that, you can describe that, you can name that. But as that happiness gets to a point where you’re elated or more more happy than that, it tends to blur your ability to recognize those things.
00:19:57:27 – 00:20:19:03
Joseph
And sometimes that can blind you to other things. Have you ever had a situation where you’ve seen that emotional scale up, where you’ve started it at one level and it’s, you know, whether it was anger or love or hatred or whatever it was, And it reached a point where you kind of lost control of it.
00:20:19:27 – 00:20:40:25
Madison
Yeah, I probably have the most experience when it came to anger, especially when it came to fights with my friends. It’s like they did something small and like I kind of got a little angry about that. And then eventually the anger started to rise and rise until I lost control and just shouted at them. And, you know, we got into a fight and so forth.
00:20:40:25 – 00:20:49:10
Madison
So yeah, I’ve had experience when it came to having an emotion, start small and then grow to the point where now I couldn’t even control it.
00:20:49:26 – 00:21:28:25
Joseph
And understanding your emotions means recognizing that point because we all have the breaking point or the point that we get fed up, whatever you want to call it. Everybody has that point. And you really you have it for every emotion, you know, frustration, anger, love. You know, there’s a point in love where, you know, you may love going to Disney so much and you may reach a point where you want to go to Disney so much that you can’t afford to go to Disney, but you still do it and you wind up making bad decisions because you lose that perspective.
00:21:29:24 – 00:21:53:03
Joseph
So being able to maintain that perspective is a very important part of understanding your emotions. What what advice would you give to someone if that line was blurred? How would you how would you kind of coach them to sort of bring them back down to earth and be more objective in how they’re dealing with their emotions?
00:21:53:29 – 00:22:19:23
Madison
Well, as somebody that personally has experience, when it came to letting their emotions go too far, I’d probably say that what ended up getting me to finally become more rational about it is normally kind of just time to yourself and time to kind of just reflect on the situation on your own. Same thing with realizing how other people ended up reacting to it.
00:22:19:23 – 00:22:51:16
Madison
And, you know, a big some of the big things that helped me to finally start to understand and define the lines of my breaking point were when I had time to think about it on my own without anybody else interfering. When I had time to calm down and when I was more logical in my thinking as well as understanding, you know, getting that basic empathy and realizing that if I lash out, then like other people are going to be hurt or there’s going to be negative consequences.
00:22:51:16 – 00:23:08:21
Madison
So I’d say that the best thing to do is if you do, if if the lines are blurred, the best thing you can do is just get away from people, calm yourself down, and then think about and then think about the situation. And with in a less heightened state.
00:23:09:03 – 00:23:41:28
Joseph
I think that’s great advice. I think that’s that’s kind of what you have to do, because a lot of times the emotions that you’re fighting with are either originating or being influenced by the people around you. So kind of getting away from that noise so you can calm things down. Probably helps have you run into a situation where you’ve crossed that line of control and it’s had an impact on someone and their reaction to you crossing that line is what kind of pulled you back, like something that direct.
00:23:42:26 – 00:24:15:19
Madison
Yeah, but again, I’m going to go to my friends because I remember that I’d have a lot of fights with my one friend and I would get mad at them for honestly pretty inconvenient in significant reasons. And I would like step back and with one of my other friends at lunch, I’d kind of talk about it. I remember a specific example is when I was talking to my friend and like I had realized what I said was wrong.
00:24:15:19 – 00:24:36:15
Madison
And it was around the time when I was when like we rarely ever fight, but we had a fight. And I, like, knew that I was in the wrong and I wanted to fix it. And then we had art and I made them a bookmark as an apology. And since we saw us, we see each other in the morning and afternoon.
00:24:36:15 – 00:24:40:14
Madison
I gave it to them and we were back on good terms.
00:24:40:23 – 00:25:00:15
Joseph
Oh, well, that’s nice. Have you ever had a situation where you’ve had a friend or a loved one who you saw crossed that point and then you actively did something to kind of pull them back and help them get back on their control? Because it’s hard when you see somebody else that you care about go through that type of thing.
00:25:01:15 – 00:25:16:11
Joseph
And it’s it’s difficult to know whether you should say or do something if it’s appropriate and and what’s appropriate. Have you ever run in a situation like that where you’ve had to be kind of that that calming effect to bring someone back down?
00:25:17:24 – 00:25:53:04
Madison
I guess I’m going to use an example with you. Sometimes I you’re definitely doing it, doing better. But you still you still tend to yell at technology at times and when you really, like, get to the point where, like, you’re screaming at it, I’m kind of like, okay, it’s fine. Let’s just step back a bit. Or like I offer my advice or possible advice like, okay, maybe it’s not this, let’s try stop working with that or let’s just walk away from this, okay?
00:25:53:08 – 00:25:54:24
Joseph
Is that effective with me?
00:25:55:13 – 00:26:08:04
Madison
I mean, I’m not sure I, I always offer for you to kind of step back. Occasionally. You do, occasionally you don’t. And then, I mean, it seems like you’re calmer afterwards. I don’t know.
00:26:08:14 – 00:26:16:15
Joseph
So. So you do have that that calming effect on me when I when I get to that. I’m so glad I could be that. The example of bad example.
00:26:16:15 – 00:26:22:04
Madison
I’m sorry. I keep mentioning my friends and I don’t and and like I don’t want to have to use the same example.
00:26:22:04 – 00:26:41:29
Joseph
That’s fine. I mean, it is what it is. If, if I’m the first one that comes to mind there, then that’s perfectly fair. I ask the question right. I shouldn’t ask a question if I don’t want to hear the answer. Yeah. All right. Well, we’re going to take another break. And when we come back, we’re going to talk about building some emotional awareness.
00:26:41:29 – 00:26:42:20
Joseph
We’ll be right back.
00:26:42:24 – 00:27:22:17
Michelle
All right. Insights into entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Our husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom. We’ll look at the interesting and obscure entertainment news of the week. We’ll talk about theme park and pop culture news. We’ll give you the latest and greatest on pop culture conventions.
00:27:23:16 – 00:27:53:27
Michelle
We’ll give you a deep dive into Disney, Star Wars and much more. Check out our video episodes at YouTube.com backslash insights into things, our audio episodes and podcast insights into entertainment dot com or check us out on the Web. Add insights into things, icon.
00:27:53:27 – 00:28:24:26
Madison
Welcome back to Insights into Teens. Today we’re talking about understanding your emotions. And now we’re going to talk about building emotional awareness, emotional awareness helps us know and accept ourselves. So how can you become more aware of your emotions? Start with these three simple steps Make a habit of turning into a tree. Okay. I’m sorry. Okay. Make a habit of tuning in to how you feel and different situations throughout the day.
00:28:25:19 – 00:28:45:02
Madison
You might notice that you feel excited after making plans to go somewhere with a friend, or you might feel nervous before an exam. You might be relaxed when listening to music inspired by making, but no inspired by an art exhibit or please, when a friend gives you a compliment, simply notice whatever emotion you feel the name, the emotion in your mind.
00:28:45:16 – 00:28:57:24
Madison
It only takes a second to do this, but it’s great practice. Notice that each emotion passage notice that each emotion passes and makes room for the next appear experience rate.
00:28:57:24 – 00:29:06:09
Joseph
How strong the feeling is after you notice the main I’m sorry. After you this this whole section. We must all read through this.
00:29:06:10 – 00:29:06:25
Madison
Yeah.
00:29:07:06 – 00:29:30:25
Joseph
After you notice and name an emotion, take it a step further. Read how strongly you feel the emotion on a scale of 1 to 10, with one being the mildest feeling and ten being the most intense. It’s kind of what I was telling you about how to share your feelings with the people closest to you. This is the best way to practice putting emotions into words.
00:29:31:12 – 00:30:01:14
Joseph
A skill that helps us feel closer to friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents, coaches, etc. etc. Make it a daily practice to share feelings with a friend or family member. You could share something that’s quite personal or something that’s simply an everyday emotion. Just like anything else in life. When it comes to emotions, practice makes perfect. Although nobody’s perfect. Remind yourself there are no good or bad emotions and don’t judge your feelings.
00:30:01:14 – 00:30:31:12
Joseph
Just keep noticing them and naming them. So I think that’s another interesting point that they make, is naming emotions. I think naming emotions when you feel them connect you to them and it makes them a little bit easier to comprehend and understand. When when you have these feelings, do you do you find that that you could accurately name them and better understand them.
00:30:33:22 – 00:30:54:16
Madison
Half the time? Because like there’s certain points from like I can tell what my emotion is like times when I tell myself I’m tired, times when I saw that to tell myself I’m stressed, Times when I tell myself I’m angry and times when I tell myself that I’m sad. But there’s other points when I really don’t know what emotion I feel.
00:30:54:16 – 00:31:05:05
Madison
The best way I can really describe that is possibly numbness. But at the same time, I also still feel something other than numbness. But I don’t really know how to define it well.
00:31:05:05 – 00:31:32:23
Joseph
And numbness is actually a good way to describe it, because a lot of times you you when you get overwhelmed with feelings, it can make you feel numb because your body just sort of doesn’t process them at that point in time. It’s kind of like when you’re when your nervous system is overstimulated. One of the things that we used to do in football is we would do tackling drills and occasionally you would get what we would call a stinger.
00:31:32:29 – 00:32:01:25
Joseph
You know, you would bang the nerve on your shoulder as you’re doing tackling drills, and it would overstimulate the nerve and it would hurt when it happened, but then you would just get a cold numbing feeling down your arm because it was overwhelmed. And when we we experience an overload of emotion, sometimes that’s what we do because we can’t handle them and we kind of shut down and and get numb from that type of thing.
00:32:02:28 – 00:32:04:24
Joseph
Does that happen frequently with you?
00:32:05:14 – 00:32:30:26
Madison
I mean, yeah, sometimes. Like mainly when it comes to my thoughts and like the various thoughts, emotions that my thoughts tend to express, I tend to just feel numb. I don’t really feel so much, but it could just be that I was like, There’s just so much going on in my head that like, you know, I can’t really feel anything.
00:32:31:07 – 00:32:34:02
Joseph
What do you do when that happens? How do you how do you cope?
00:32:34:21 – 00:32:52:19
Madison
I don’t really know how. I kind of just don’t talk about it. I kind of just like see if my sit kind of almost a weight on other experiences to jumpstart my emotions almost. I don’t really talk to anybody about it. I don’t really know how to talk to anybody about it.
00:32:53:16 – 00:33:02:17
Joseph
Do you feel that you have someone that you can talk to about it, or do you not even have that that confidant that you think you can turn to?
00:33:03:16 – 00:33:28:09
Madison
And thing is, I don’t know. There’s just like occasionally there’s just things that I don’t feel I can talk to anybody about. Not that I don’t trust people. It’s just I don’t know how to put it in words. I don’t know how they take it. I don’t I don’t know. It just there’s a lot of confusion when it comes to it and a lot of concern about what other people might have might think of it.
00:33:28:13 – 00:33:43:19
Joseph
Have you ever tried writing a diary or just writing the words down or just writing the thoughts down in like bulleted note form and then going back and trying to rearrange them and make sense out of them?
00:33:44:22 – 00:33:57:20
Madison
What I normally do when I have these things is I especially if I get home from school, I kind of just go in a place where nobody can hear me and I kind of just rant to myself.
00:33:58:02 – 00:34:00:09
Joseph
Does that help?
00:34:00:09 – 00:34:02:11
Madison
I mean, I guess sometimes.
00:34:02:27 – 00:34:06:27
Joseph
Have you ever tried recording yourself when you do that and then going back and listening to it?
00:34:07:20 – 00:34:08:16
Madison
Not really know.
00:34:09:06 – 00:34:43:00
Joseph
One of the techniques that used a lot in project management, business analysis and, you know, things like that is we you have to write various types of documents. And those documents help to keep you organized and plan and stuff like that. And one of the techniques is like if I’m running an email, professional email to someone, you don’t trying to sit down and write anything from start to finish and send it because it’s it’s a rough draft at that point.
00:34:43:24 – 00:35:08:09
Joseph
So the thought pattern is to sit down and take all your thoughts and just make a list of thoughts and what they are and then walk away. Leave that, come back a little bit later, reread that, and then start taking those thoughts and concepts and themes and delving deeper into them and putting them in different orders and rearranging things.
00:35:08:09 – 00:35:39:18
Joseph
And you’ll find that when you do that, bring that initial brain dump, you get everything out, you know, you get all that stuff, especially if you’re if you’re agitated or excited or somebody made you angry or whatever. You do that initial brain dump and just just write just write everything that you feel, whatever comes to your mind. And by doing that, you’re you’re kind of emptying the trash and then you can come back later and sift through that trash and keep the good stuff.
00:35:40:24 – 00:36:06:09
Joseph
And by doing that yourself, you can rid yourself of a lot of that emotional baggage that makes you numb. Just just regurgitate everything out onto a piece of paper. Or if you have a digital recorder or a phone, you can do it on your phone or phones. Just get it out. And and in doing that, you may find that that tends to help you deal with these things better.
00:36:06:09 – 00:36:29:03
Joseph
And once you get it out, come back, you know, an hour or 2 hours later after you’ve had a chance to distract yourself with something else and then reread what you had. Because chances are there’s something in there that you probably need to deal with or be concerned with or delve into more deeply or investigate further. But you’ll probably find a lot of the stuff that’s in there was just noise.
00:36:29:08 – 00:36:55:14
Joseph
It was all that noise that was rattling around in your head because you we tend to impose circumstances and scenarios when we’re in these highly emotional states. And I think once you put that down and sift through it all, what’s left over is really how you feel. That’s really what your emotions are and what’s important. And you can concentrate on that.
00:36:55:14 – 00:37:07:19
Joseph
And I think it’ll help you to manage those things better and to control and understand your emotions better. That sound like it’s something that that might be helpful or worthwhile to you?
00:37:08:16 – 00:37:30:27
Madison
Yeah, at least with the recording part, I might not write everything down because I don’t write all fast. And I don’t know, it might not be the best method for that, but I definitely think the recording part probably works as I talk a lot and when I do go on those rants, it probably would be nice to go back and listen to what I was saying.
00:37:31:10 – 00:37:53:25
Joseph
Yeah, I think you’ll find that after you do that and you do it a few times, you’re probably going to see kind of a theme of of what you’re throwing out and what you’re holding on to and you’re going to hold onto the important stuff there. And that’s going to help guide you to understand your feelings a little bit better when it comes to actually talking to people.
00:37:53:25 – 00:38:17:16
Joseph
I know you talk to mom and you talk to me and you talk to us about different things. And I think that’s great. There’s different you know, Mommy and I have very different skill sets, very different backgrounds and experiences. Is there anyone outside of here, outside of the house that you feel you can have that kind of conversation with and have those discussions with?
00:38:18:06 – 00:38:44:23
Madison
Yeah, Thing is, I don’t really know. Even some of my good friends, I some of the stuff I say, like I can occasionally have those conversations with one of my friends at lunch, but other than that, I still have a lot of stuff I don’t tell people and I have the time. I don’t really know how to tell people, even you guys or any of my friends.
00:38:44:23 – 00:38:50:04
Madison
I don’t really know how to say some of the things to other people.
00:38:50:11 – 00:38:54:02
Joseph
About telling it to yourself. Do you ever tell yourself these things?
00:38:55:02 – 00:39:01:04
Madison
Yeah. Well, through my brand, through my head, yeah. I tell myself my kind of stuff.
00:39:01:08 – 00:39:32:12
Joseph
And I think that’s the first step. The first step is being able to vocalize it. And if you can vocalize to yourself, then you may take the next step in finding someone that you can trust. Mommy, myself, you know, a friend and sort of test the waters, try it out, see what you get. The most important thing is being able to say to yourself, because there are times when I get overly agitated with technology, for instance, which we talk about quite often.
00:39:32:20 – 00:39:33:00
Madison
Yeah.
00:39:33:17 – 00:39:55:06
Joseph
I can’t vocalize it. And if I did vocalize it, it would be words that I can’t say on this podcast. But that’s just how I deal with it. And sometimes I have to step away from it. I have to calm down and then I go back and I realize, all right, I was just being an idiot. And and this is a simple fix and I’ll go and fix it.
00:39:56:26 – 00:40:28:23
Joseph
The point is, is that when you pass that threshold that controls threshold we talked about, you don’t think rationally and you need some. And these are all meditative techniques really is what they are. And that’s we can call them different things. But these are forms of meditation. There are things that help you focus, change your perspective, shut out distractions, you know, whether you’re writing it, you’re saying it, you’re cursing it, whatever it is.
00:40:28:23 – 00:40:49:28
Joseph
These are all meditative techniques to help you to deal with these things, and you have to find the one that works best for you. And there’s lots of different techniques out there. One of them will work for you, but really, that’s what it is. It has to. It’s that self-regulation where you’re trying to get yourself back down from that over excited point.
00:40:49:28 – 00:41:08:15
Joseph
So the first step is talking to yourself. If you can do that, then you can certainly tone it down with the next person that you talk to and tone it down with the next person. Every you vocalize it, you’re getting a little bit more control of it, and that’s the important thing. So that was all we had today.
00:41:08:15 – 00:41:18:23
Joseph
We’re actually going to take a quick break, come back and we’ll get your closing thoughts.
00:41:18:23 – 00:42:01:15
Madison
All right. So to everybody out there, I just wanted to say that learning to understand your emotions and gaining the knowledge, to understand your emotions is something like everything, where it’s something that you’re going to always be learning, no matter how old you get or how much experience you gain, there’s always going to be new things for you to learn and it’s also important to know that if you can’t completely understand your emotions, then that’s fine To know that you are able to understand your emotions and kind of like, along with what you said, the idea of telling yourself first and vocalizing, it’s the first step.
00:42:01:15 – 00:42:06:21
Madison
If you’re not able to talk to people about it, at least be able to put it to words.
00:42:07:07 – 00:42:10:15
Joseph
Okay, sage advice, as always.
00:42:10:16 – 00:42:13:03
Madison
Thank you.
00:42:13:03 – 00:42:40:04
Joseph
That was all we had today. Before we go, once again, I would like to invite our listening and viewing audience who probably already subscribe. If you’re listening to this now, to continue to subscribe to the podcast, you can find audio versions of this podcast. Listen has insights into teens. You can find video and audio of all the network’s podcasts listed as insights and the things anywhere you can get a podcast.
00:42:40:04 – 00:43:02:11
Joseph
Pandora, Castro, Stitcher, Pod B, etc. I would also invite you to give us your feedback. Tell us how we’re doing. Give us your show suggestions. Tell us what you want us to talk about. Tell us what you don’t want us to talk about. You can email us at comments and insights into things dot com. You can find us on Twitter at insights underscore things.
00:43:02:11 – 00:43:24:27
Joseph
You can find high res versions on our YouTube channel. We also stream five days a week on our YouTube channel at YouTube.com, slash insights into things. We also stream five days a week on Twitter, Twitch dot, TV slash insights into things. If you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber, you do get a free monthly Twitch prime subscription. We appreciate you throwing that our way.
00:43:25:15 – 00:43:44:24
Joseph
Helps to keep the lights on here. You can find audio versions of this podcast. Podcast and insights into teens and you can find links to all of our other social media on our official website at WW w dot Insights into things dot com and you.
00:43:45:02 – 00:43:56:17
Madison
And don’t forget to check out our other two podcast insights and entertainment hosted normally by you and Mommy and I’ve said tonight tomorrow are not really a monthly podcast anymore hosted by you and Norman and my brother.
00:43:56:17 – 00:43:57:23
Joseph
Sam eventually.
00:43:57:26 – 00:43:58:18
Madison
Eventually.
00:43:59:02 – 00:44:00:13
Joseph
That’s it. And one of the books.
00:44:00:15 – 00:44:01:04
Madison
By everyone.
00:44:01:05 – 00:44:25:19
Joseph
By.
