Men and Emotions

Disclaimer: This is not about women and their emotions, and is not about my wife who is 8 months pregnant whose hormones can make her overwhelmingly emotional at times. This is about men, emotions, and how to properly and effectively process and use them. (This information can be very helpful for everyone as well and not just for men).

As men we have a tuff guy image to maintain, at least this is what the world around us tells us. We are told that being emotional is weak. Therefore we ignore all and most emotional feelings that we have. Women are good at addressing and sharing their feelings, and most men are not. Not only are we not good at sharing them, but we are not good at recognizing them and processing them as well.

How emotions are created.

Everything that we see or experience has an emotional reaction. Some emotions that are experienced are big, and some are small. There are many times that we do not realize that we have an emotional response. These things we do and experience everyday for most of our lives and we have developed a pattern or habit of how we process them. When we see or experience something, that information enters the brain though the Spinal Cord. This information then passes through the Limbic System where emotions are created. The functions of the Limbic System are: emotion, behavior, motivation, long term memory, and olfaction (sense of smell). This is a really cool and complex part of the brain. This allows us to experience and remember things. This can create good and/or bad memories.

When we experience something in life in our past this memory can be re experienced to say in our brain. I say re experienced and not to say that we just remember it. Here is an example, Lets say as a child growing up every time you went to your grandparents to visit one weekend a month. Your grandmother always made home made Cinnamon rolls. Over the coarse of the 14 years you did this once a month and every time you had Cinnamon rolls. When walking down a street there can be many triggers that bring this memory back to light. We can here the word Cinnamon rolls, see a picture of one, or simply just smell them. This then makes you think of your grandma. Not just the amazing Cinnamon rolls that she used to make, but all the times you spent with her. As we think of these past experiences that we had with grandma we remember all the good times, the laughter, the love, and even if she has passed away we can experience sadness. This is why I say that we don't just remember it, by we re experience it. This is what I would call a "Good" memory, and re experiencing it is a good and healthy thing.

Now lets look at how this can effect us negatively (Bad memory). Let say when you were younger your father was very negative. If this was experienced in your life. I am truly sorry and pray that God, would heal those wounds. This is an example and is not intended to offend or hurt anyone. Lets say every time that you tried to accomplish something whether is school, sports, or in life and every time you did these things they never seemed to be good enough for him. Lets say that one of the words that he used a lot was failure. "I don't think you are a good runner, and you will fail at cross country" You heard this over and over again growing up and even as an adult. Every time you hear the word fail, or failure it brings back the memory of your father letting you that you were not good enough and will fail, or are a failure. Then you re experience it. You remember the how it made you feel (Sad, Angry). You most likely will remember maybe the smell that your father had. Say he smoked a certain kind of cigarette all his life. Maybe even smelling the scent of a cigarette brings back this memory and you experience it. This is the bad that can come from this complex way we are created, and can lead to depression if not dealt with in a healthy way. I am not saying that God messed up, it is Sin in the world and in us that has affected us negatively. If you are or have experienced these things now or in the past that healing through counseling and the amazing healing that comes from Jesus Christ. So that we are able to over come these negative experiences, and free us from depression. God doesn't want us to be depressed or burdened by things that happened in the past. He is a loving and caring Father who wants to heal us, and remove us from these burdens and memories.

The thing that men are not good at it recognizing what emotions that we are feeling, and why or what made us feel that emotion. As a man I know that we do not have any knowledge of our emotions, but we are very poor at it. We can sometime recognize the core emotions (Sad, Mad, Scared, Joyful, Powerful, and Peaceful) but don't recognized the smaller emotions that make us feel that core emotion. Here is the Feeling Wheel.

At the core of the wheel we see these six core emotions. As men we can sometimes recognize these six, but we cannot process or recognize any of the other emotions and feelings that make us feel one or more of these core emotions. For example lets say we are mad (Not that any of us men ever get mad at any point in our lives), we know that we are mad, and maybe we know the action or thing that made us mad, but we do not know the emotional feeling or feelings that lead us to be mad. Lets use the feeling wheel here as a tool and example. When we are mad and not sure how we ended up mad. We can use the feel to help narrow down what the emotional feeling or feelings that led us to feel mad, and therefore dealing the route cause of the feeling. Let's say since we are mad in this example that we can look deeper into recognizing the emotional feeling that we are having. We then find that we are hurt. Now we are starting to get somewhere. They we can look into am I just hurt, or is there more (sometimes there is more and sometimes not). We then recognize that we are distant. Look at this on the feeling wheel. Do you see how the wheel works. When we feel distant it can lead to hurt, which can lead to us feeling mad.

So the first thing that we need to do it to recognize the feelings that we have. Understanding what emotions you are having can help you think and act rationally (as we see in the brain diagram above), but we will get to that later. This skill takes time and as I can now better recognize my emotional feelings I still have a long way to go, but I am working on it. It takes sitting down or taking a moment when we start to feel something and evaluating what we are emotions we are having and what is making us feel this way. This is and can be a powerful tool in life and especially in your relationships, and even more powerful and effective is creating and building intimacy in your marriage. When I can sit down with my wife and while we are talking about our days. I can simple answer to the question how are you, "oh I am relaxed" or even more vague then that, "good". Or I can truly and more clearly communicate with her by letting her know truly and honestly how I am knowing and recognizing how I am feeling emotionally. I can answer the same thing, but know what emotions I am having or experienced I can say, "I feel relaxed, I am very content with how God, has and is providing for us financially, and it is giving me a peace of mind". See the depth, and it is not that it took 20 more minutes out of my day. it probably took 20 extra seconds. This is what are wives are wanting to know when they ask how we are doing. This is the intimacy that she craves and it needed in a healthy relationship. Intimacy is more then Sex. It is emotional, physical and spiritual. This is how God Created it to be. Hint Hint If you work all all three of these in your marriage as God intended us to have present in our marriages. You will find that you will have a closeness and a friendship with your spouse like nothing you have experienced before. That God will bless and use your relationship in incredible ways, and just being honest you want "mind blowing sex" This is the recipe to true God honoring, and God created intimacy.

Having any of these feelings is not bad, or a sin. It is what we do with these emotions (how we deal with them or try to mask them) that can cause us to sin. As we experience these emotions and can recognize them this will help us use the part of the brain in which God created us to use to think and act rationally, or I like to think of it as God honoring thoughts and actions. The Cerebrum part of our brain is divided up in four sections, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. This part of the brain allows us to associated with reasoning, planning, parts of speech, movement, emotions, problem solving, movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli, visual processing, perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory, and speech. The healthy and natural process of emotions is to recognize them them we can them process and use them in a healthy way.

What an unhealthy way looks like. When we ignore our emotions or do not know what they are we then keep them trapped in the Limbic System part of our brain. We then let these emotions build up and then we explode. Which has happened in my life a lot. As recognizing my emotions it is getting better, but still at times I can blow up. This is why I am working on this area in my life. We then can also by not recognizing or ignoring them we can react in an unhealthy way. Example: You feel overwhelmed, not recognizing it or ignoring this feeling. You then yell at one of my associates for being one minute late to work. Yes, he/she was late, but this is a very unhealthy and destructive way to handle it. Approaching the same scenario, but with recognizing and processing the emotions that we are feeling. Feeling overwhelmed, why because your boss came up to you and said that your teams performance was not acceptable. That their productivity and attendance was not acceptable, and you boss is questioning whether or not your skills and ability to be over this team. When the associate show up late it creates an emotional response. Since you are and have recognize your emotions you then handle things differently.You recognize that you are overwhelmed, stressed and even scarred that you might loose you job. You then pull the associate as side and address that they were late and that they need to be there on time and what expectation you have for them. This is much healthier way of handling the situation. If you would have just yelled at them, do you think the problem would be fixed or that the individuals productivity would improve, probably not. It would probably get worse over time. This is an example in the work place, but the principle can be and is applicable to all areas of our lives.

As Men (and women), this is something that we struggle with. This is not one of our strengths. If you ask your wife, she would agree, I know my wife agrees that I am not good at it. Like all weaknesses and faults there is always room for strengthening and correction. This is not to bash of anyone or even my fellow brothers in Christ. This is to help encourage and share the knowledge and tools to be better men, husbands, fathers, friends, and any other hat that we wear in life. I want to succeed in becoming the person that God has called me to be. In order for this to happen I have to allow and continue to allow God to point out my sin and my weaknesses for that He can cleanse them and build up the strength so that I can better Love God, and Love those around me. I hope that is made sense, and is helpful. I know that usually I share more what God has been teaching me Spiritually and through reading books, and the Scripture, but as I could not sleep this was on my mind, and was led to share it.