Episode Details

Coronavirus Crisis: Carpe Diem

Title:  The Flip Side of the Huge Mistake We Make with our Emotions in a Crisis

Episode 9:  April 17, 2020

Welcome to the podcast Coronavirus Crisis:  Carpe Diem, where you and I rise up and embrace the possibilities and opportunities for spiritual and psychological growth in this time of crisis, all grounded in a Catholic worldview. I’m clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski with Souls and Hearts at soulsandhearts.com.  Thank you for being here with me. 

This is Episode 9 and its April 17, 2020, entitled The Flip Side of the Huge Mistake We Make with our Emotions in a Crisis.  In Episode 7, last week, we discussed how some of us make the huge mistake of neglecting our emotions, disregarding them, disconnecting from them.  We discussed the costs of that neglect.  

Today, we discuss the flip side of that mistake – the mistake of being dominated by our emotions.  Heartset is the dispositions or the orientation of our heart, the emotional and intuitive ways of our heart.  Heartset is essential our emotional state and the positions we take because of our feelings.  One of the four pillars of psychological resilience,  Episode 4  -- introduced all of them.

Emotions are not morally right or wrong.  We often believe they are – we don’t always say it that way.  My sadness is sinful.  

We have an innate sense of right and wrong.  But we also learn what is right and wrong by what our parents reward and punish.  And frankly, parent like pleasant feelings in their children and the don’t like unpleasant feelings.  

So anger, disappointment, sadness, fear – parents sometimes don’t tolerate these emotions well in their children.  Anger as an example.  A lot of parents do not allow their children to express anger in any way.  No expression of anger is well tolerated.  IF you’re a kid an every time you are angry, you get punished no matter what you do, it’s very easy to assume that the anger is wrong.  

Let’s face it:  Kids are not very nuanced.   I hate you mommy you’re a bad mommy.  

So the child learns not to express anger in any way.  Anger is dangerous.  Keep it inside.  Deal with it silently.  So it wells up and explodes.

Some parents can’t handle children’s anger well – they fear their own anger coming up.  So it’s somewhat protective.  You parents know this.  Sometimes it feels like you just can’t take the kids’ fighting any more, the arguing and bickering in anger, and you drop the hammer.  There are no people on earth better able to confront parents with their inadequacies than their children. So kids bury them.  And they ping pong back and forth.  Beach ball under water.  Emotions can come rushing back.  That’s why we want our emotions integrated.   

Banning words like hate.  Because we don’t like the thought that hate is there.  Such a strong word.  But there are strong emotions.  Burning the map doesn’t destroy the territory.  How I learned not to ban words. Telling a story Big brown eyes.  Banning the word Stupid.  

Children have a way of really getting under parents’ skin in ways no one else ever can.  I have seven children.  Oldest was about 8.  Calling each other stupid.  Like kids do.  

Another way.  Or parents may simply allow all kinds of emotional expression.  In this very laid back acceptance of all emotions, the child learns to accept all his emotions, all the emotions are validated, so they all must reflect truth. 

Temperaments of children matter, too.  This stuff is really complex.  

Two ways to be dominated by our emotions:

1.       To be overwhelmed by them, to be driven by our passions, to lash out in anger or to flee in fear when we shouldn’t  

2.      To give them too much weight in our thinking – for example consider how you might hold a grudge against someone – harboring resentment.  Interpret that person’s behavior through that lens of bitt