When You’re Wounded by an Emotional “Second Arrow”….
Hi There,
Have you ever found yourself feeling irritated, impatient, frustrated, and ultimately judgmental of a person or situation, only to feel guilty when you acknowledged your feelings? Welcome to humanity!
May I formally introduce to you the “second arrow” of emotional duplicity? You see, emotions are sneaky buggers; they affect us before we notice them.
One reason: We behave in reaction to the emotions we’re experiencing. This often translates to being less kind than our aspirational self would like to admit. You know, like when you realize you were impatient with a co-worker or a child because you were feeling vulnerable and thus irritated about work piling up. Or you found yourself judgmental of someone and then felt embarrassed to be proven wrong.
The reactive behavior triggered by the initial emotion is the second arrow that can puncture our emotional and spiritual energy tanks without warning. We beat ourselves up for acting “under the influence” of a cortisol-producing emotion. Not only that, but we also don’t realize in real time how we’re affected by that emotion, thanks to brain fog— a side effect of cortisol.
If you are startled and disturbed right now, convinced you’re a terrible person, take a breath. First recognize that the most courageous part of change is when the invisible becomes visible and you face, with grace, the fact that in the past, you’d acted out of unconscious ignorance.
Then, take another breath, because I’d like to offer the antidote to rush you back to emotional equilibrium. The gateway here is to employ the practice of self-compassion. In other words, giving yourself a break for being a mere mortal is the shortcut to recovering from the disorienting emotional hit.
As a matter of fact, when you can be self-compassionate and apply the growth mindset, you’re setting yourself up for future success. Try this on for size: When I recognize that I may not be doing my best, but I’m doing the best I can in this moment, I can consider how to do better in the future. With this attitude, I can actually feel grateful and thankful to my current self, which is another state of being that releases healthy hormones into my body.
So, during this season of giving thanks, give yourself and others compassion. Then, go ahead and feel the two-fer of healthy hormones pulsing through your body!
Cheers!
-Deborah
Deborah Goldstein
DRIVEN Professionals / Forbes / Linkedin
info@drivenpros.com | LinkedIn
DRIVEN Professionals, 35 Adrienne Lane, Garrison, NY 10524