Feelings are temporary. All of them. Sometimes this feels like a blessing and sometimes it feels like a curse. We don’t want the feelings of despair, devastation, and helplessness to linger for long yet want to hold onto joy, peacefulness, and happiness as long as possible. Regardless of our circumstances, we all have emotions and they are all temporary.
Feelings are defined as “an emotional state or reaction ‘a feeling of joy'” and a “belief, especially a vague or irrational one. ‘he had the feeling that he was being watched'” Synonyms include love, affection, fondness, tenderness,warmth, warmness, emotion, sentiment, suspicion, sneaking suspicion, notion,inkling, hunch, funny feeling, feeling in one’s bones, and fancy.
So, under what emotional circumstances should we make important, long term decisions? It’s important to be as calm and emotionally stable as possible when making lasting decisions. Anger or any other elevated state can compromise one’s ability to reason and think logically. The ability to think critically can also be impaired. Making decisions while “under the influence” of intense negative emotions only causes us to make irrational choices. This breeds regret and a whole other set of problems.
We can all remember a time when we made a poor decision based on temporary feelings. In all likelihood, the decision in a scenario such as this ends up being problematic. A few techniques to reinstitute calm in the midst of difficult negative emotions such as anger include deep breathing, squeezing a stress ball, thought journaling (a CBT approach), prayer, and meditation. There are many other ways to increase calmness not listed but available through the web, books, audiobooks, utube videos, and apps.
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