How do you feel right now? Can you give your emotional state a name? A phrase?
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being abject despair and 10 being orgasmic joy) about how well do you feel?
It's easy enough to answer these kinds of questions and it's the basis for what are called emotional scales. I prefer to think of them as emotional ladders though.
It's easy to climb up one or two rungs on a ladder at a time, but it's really hard to jump from the bottom rung to the top rung, right? Well, it's the same with our emotions. Rung is a funny sounding word by the way. It's hard to go from depression or guilt straight to optimism or love. You have to get a grip on anger or frustration on your way up.
Here's a simple depiction of the rungs on the emotional ladder:
- Joy, Love, Passion, Empowerment, Freedom, Appreciation
- Enthusiasm, Eagerness, Happiness, Positive Expectation, Belief
- Trust, Optimism, Hopefulness, Contentment
- Boredom, Pessimism, Frustration, Irritation, Impatience
- Disappointment, Doubt, Worry, Blame, Discouragement, Sadness
- Anger, Rage, Revenge, Hatred
- Jealousy, Insecurity, Guilt, Unworthiness
- Fear, Grief, Depression, Despair, Powerlessness
So, why should you care about your emotional ladder? Because without it, it's easy to get stuck on certain emotions even though we want to get to the higher emotions.
If you feel depressed and someone says, "Just think positive thoughts!" you will probably start feeling guilty or unworthy because positive thoughts seem so far out of reach.
But hey! That's a step up the emotional ladder. All too often though, we'll stay with that unworthiness and then drift back down into depression.
That is, unless we can tap into our anger and rage. Our society has placed a great many judgments on the so-called negative emotion of anger and it is this very reason that so many people stay trapped in depression.
The only way to rise above feelings like grief, fear, guilt, or jealousy is to get really angry at what your behavior in those states has done to affect you and your loved ones.
Anger and hatred cut like a knife and can be used in a positive way to cut ourselves off from the thoughts that lead to the even lower emotions of fear and despair.
Of course anger can also be used negatively, but emotions are merely tools to be used to guide our thoughts, words, and actions. Emotions are not inherently negative or positive, they are useful messengers.
So, once you've used anger to climb out of despair, you can then move into disappointment. This is an emotion for reflection on the consequences of actions taken in states like hatred, insecurity, or powerlessness.
This is an important point. Whenever possible, refrain from taking action while in a lower emotional state. This does NOT mean repress or deny your emotions. It also does not mean that you should hide your feelings from those who would be willing to help you. When you're depressed, you will usually assume no one will want to help you, but that's never the case.
Anyway, lets say we've climbed up to disappointment. After learning from what we said or did even lower on the ladder, we can climb up to frustration or impatience.
Now we really want to change but we don't see how. This is normal, but not natural. From here we can look to examples of others who've overcome similar situations or we can remember when we've prevailed in the past.
With these thoughts, we've climbed up to trust and optimism. Finally we're in a place that genuinely feels good. We can keep climbing into joy.
If we had tried to reach for optimistic thoughts in the middle of our anger, we would only have gotten more angry. If we had tried to trust that everything would be okay when we were feeling unworthy, we might intensify the feeling or slip into the fear that things really might not be okay.
The worst thing we can do to someone who is two or more rungs below us on the emotional ladder is to assume that they need to feel what we're feeling. We all too easily forget what it's like where they're at and we act out of ignorance instead of compassion.
If you've ever wondered why people who are depressed tend to stay away from their happy friends, IT'S BECAUSE IT DOES NOT FEEL GOOD! Happiness is too much of a stretch and it hurts. There's too big of a gap between where they want to be and where they are and being reminded of that does not help.
Now, this does not mean that you should climb DOWN the ladder to try and save someone else. No, no, no. A sick doctor heals no one. Be empathetic, not sympathetic.
You can guide someone to start thinking one rung up on the ladder. Gently break their negative thought patterns and guide the conversation to a place that makes them feel a little better. Humor is the best way to break someone out of habitual negative thought. Laughing is like getting an instant dose of joy; it creates the opportunity to see things from a fresh perspective. Here's an example:
"Hey! I heard that you got laid off, how are you taking it?"
Well I'm pretty pissed to be honest, but I was the new guy so I suppose I should've seen it coming.
"Have you started making a cardboard box yet? A homeless boy scout is always prepared."
Haha, well it's not that bad. I'm not sure what to do now though.
"Yea, I can see that you feel frustrated. But you're a resourceful guy, you can find something you'll really enjoy and they won't take you for granted like those other idiots."
Thanks, yea I'll find something.
The laid off person started out in anger and disappointment, had that pattern broken by the joke, then moved into frustration with a hint of optimism. Notice that if the first person had started off by saying, "Don't worry, think how exciting it's going to be to go job hunting again!" the second person would probably not have been receptive to the idea.
You can use this technique on yourself too. Find something to laugh at, then reach for a thought that is slightly higher up the emotional scale. Don't reach too far and don't beat yourself up because supposedly positive thoughts make you feel bad. It's all relative to where you are on your emotional ladder.
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