The Half-Life of Emotions

Every day we are at the mercy of a whole myriad of emotions that arise within us. The emotions that arise are often unpleasant to experience such as anger, anxiety, sadness. These can all serve a purpose, but they often outstay their welcomes. These emotions trigger negative self talk- that pestering voice in your mind that constantly wants to problem solve, to tell you that you’re not enough, and to think of all the reasons someone is wrong and you are right. These all occur through our recycling of an emotion by single pointedly focussing on thoughts that arrive after the initial emotion arises.

Let’s say you had an argument with your sister. The initial disagreement is what causes feelings of anger to arise- this is to be expected. However, this anger stays for the whole day- there is a voice in your head coming up with reasons why she is wrong, it's replaying the argument, it's telling you what you should have said, and it doesn’t stop talking.

This voice is something we indulge all too often. We commit our full attention to listening to it, and because of this, we stay in these emotional states for much longer than is necessary. What you’ll realize if you decide to stop and direct your attention to something else, is that your emotions have an incredibly short half-life.

Next time you experience something like anger, anxiety or sadness, first notice that you’re experiencing the emotion, then point your attention toward its raw physical sensations (tension in your facial muscles/ tightness in your chest). Don’t judge it, don’t pay attention to the voice jabbering away, just bring the physical sensations to the forefront of your awareness. You’ll notice that without feeding the voice with your attention and allowing it to go on its tirade, the emotion doesn’t last very long at all. Your emotions are like a fire and when you identify them and allow them to go unchecked, you are adding fuel to the fire that could actually have been put out fairly quickly. You can’t stop your emotions arising, but you can decide how long they stay.

A good way to not identify with strong overwhelming emotions is to change your framing when you notice them. Rather than “I am angry,” try seeing it as “I am experiencing anger.” By acknowledging this is merely a sensation you are experiencing it allows you to detach from the power of the emotion by becoming interested in the raw energy of it.

This is all made a lot easier with a meditation practice which I highly recommend. What I’ve detailed isn’t always easy to implement but with a consistent practise its possible for it to become second nature.