2. Understanding our
Emotions
• Emotions: Signals that tell your mind and body how to
react.
• Referred to as feelings—responses to certain thoughts
and events
• Emotions affect all sides of your healthy triangle
3. Identifying Your Emotions
• Hormone: Chemical secreted by your glands that
regulates the activities of different body cells
• Hormones may cause a swing between extreme
emotions
• Being able to identify your feelings is the first
step in knowing how to respond in a healthy way
5. Sadness
• Normal, healthy reaction to difficult events
• It can range from being disappointed or rejected to
experiencing the loss of a loved one
• You may feel easily discouraged and have less energy
6. Love
• Strong affection, deep concern, and respect
• Supporting the growth and individual needs of another
person and respecting that person’s boundaries and values
• Can be expressed through words or actions
7. Empathy
• Ability to imagine and understand how someone else
feels
• You feel connected to another person’s emotions
8. Fear
• When you are startled by someone or something
• Feelings of fear can increase your alertness and help you
escape from potentially harmful situations
9. Guilt
• Acting against one’s values or from failing to act when
action might have brought about a better outcome
• Guilt can eat at you, or your conscience can motivate you
to make positive changes in your behavior
10. Anger
• Common reaction to being emotionally hurt or physically
harmed
• When not handled in a constructive way it can result in
violence
11. Responding to Your
Emotions
• Pick an emotion that you have had to deal with in the past.
• Use the following strategies for interpreting and responding to
this emotion
• 1. Look below the surface of your emotion. Ask yourself:
What am I really reacting to?
• 2. Consider whether or not the situation to which you are
reacting with matter?
• 3. Don’t take action on a strong feeling until you have
considered the consequences. What could the consequences
entail?
12. Managing Difficult
Emotions
• Defense Mechanisms: Mental processes that protect
individuals from strong or stressful emotions and
situations
• Common Defense Mechanisms
• Suppression: Holding back or restraining
• Repression: involuntary pushing
• Rationalization: making excuses
13. Common Defense
Mechanisms
• Regression: Reverting to behaviors that are more early
stage of development instead of being mature
• Denial: Unconscious lack of acknowledgment
• Compensation: Gift-giving
• Projection: Own feelings or faults to another person
• Idealization: Seeing someone else as perfect
