Understanding Emotional Reactions: An Exercise in Self-Reflection
- Apr 20
- 5 min read
How to Analyze and Understand Your Emotional Responses
Many people treat sports as therapy and others say, "It's my therapy" when they talk about baking, gardening, or other activities that put them in the mental state known as flow. Flow is the state in which we feel fully present in an activity, filled with alert focus and joy.
However, as beneficial as it may be, a state of flow does not resemble the result of emotional therapy. The result of mental therapy is achieving a state where our emotional processing is normal and allows us to feel emotions appropriate to different situations in our lives: sadness when something bad happens, happiness when something positive occurs, and fear when something threatens us. When our emotional processing is stuck, we fail to do this. We might get angry instead of expressing sadness, feel sad instead of expressing anger, or fail to enjoy the happy moments in our lives.
Fortunately, thanks to Dr. Ben Shahar, one of Israel's leading researchers in emotion-centered therapy and a student of Lez Greenberg, I recently discovered a wonderful website that offers excellent information about emotions. Since the website is in English, some may have difficulty accessing it, so I’ve adapted one exercise from the database. The exercises on the site are similar to methods used in experiential treatment approaches such as AEDP, schema therapy, and EFT. You can try this exercise at home, before or after baking cookies.
Personal Exercise: Why Did I React That Way?
As a long-time patient, the question "Why did I react this way?" is often what I bring to my therapy sessions. When I feel a gap between my reaction and the objective strength of the trigger, I know there’s something there. Many couples come to therapy with this exact question: "Why do we react this way to each other?" They feel there is a gap between the triggers that activate them and the intensity of the pain they experience in the relationship.
In other words, if someone accidentally stepped on my toe and I saw stars in pain, there’s no point in telling myself that my pain doesn’t make sense. It won’t make the pain go away and may even worsen it. Kicking the person who stepped on me by mistake doesn’t help either; it only makes me look aggressive and doesn’t address the source of the pain.
I know my pain is not imaginary, so I conclude that my toe was broken even before that person stepped on it. To reduce the pain in the present and avoid feeling this way in the future, I need to recognize my fracture and start treating it.
Steps for the Exercise:
Understanding the Emotional Context: Before the event happened and triggered my emotional response, what did I feel? What was my emotional state earlier that day? Did something significant happen before this trigger set me off?
Identifying the Exact Trigger: What was the specific context in which the trigger was expressed? Try to replay the event in slow motion until you recognize the moment you experienced the emotional change.
Analysis: Imagine yourself in the situation, in the moment of truth, and identify the most prominent stress factors. For example, if the event is a conversation with a spouse, is the disturbing aspect their tone of voice? The way they furrowed their brows? The moment they ignored you and turned to their phone?
Processing the Physical Reactions: Using your imagination, try to notice the physical reactions that arise in you. What happens to your breathing? What happens in your throat? In your stomach? Are your fists clenched in anger? Does your heart hurt? Does the blood rush to your head? Physical reactions contain a lot of information about our emotional state.
Hypothesis: Check if it becomes clear what was particularly painful, important, or hurtful in the situation. Be patient; the answer doesn’t have to make sense to you, and you don’t have to be sure of it
Identifying the Historical Sensitivity: Knowing yourself, what historical sensitivity do you have around this issue? What in your childhood, for example, made you particularly sensitive to such triggers? Have you gone through certain traumatic experiences that made you alert to the possibility of being hurt in this way?
This is your broken toe. Finding this fracture will help you understand why you reacted the way you did and allow you to see the other person’s role in the situation differently, and also begin to give yourself appropriate treatment.
Identifying the Unmet Need: What do you need when you feel this way? What did you need in your childhood? And accordingly, what would you need in the situation you are currently investigating? If you felt fear, you might need reassurance. If you felt humiliated, you might need recognition. If you felt loneliness, you might need closeness.
Connecting the Past to the Present and Finding the Answer: Now connect the dots and tell yourself specifically how you felt in the situation and why this feeling is valid.
Example of the Exercise:
The Question: Why did I secretly cry when my husband didn’t listen to the story about my success at work?
The Answer After the Exercise: "I had a good day at work and was very proud of myself. I came home excited and wanted to share my achievements with my husband, but he was completely focused on family drama. When I started telling him about my good day, he wasn’t interested.
"The most painful moment was when he answered the phone from his brother in the middle of our conversation and then drifted into discussing their family drama. When he returned to the living room, I really wanted him to be interested in me, but he had completely forgotten what I had started to tell him and was immersed in his own affairs, not emotionally available.
"I tried to hold back the tears, feeling as if I’d been punched in the stomach. It burned and hurt, and I felt lonely and insignificant. I guess this has to do with growing up with a self-centered and hysterical father who always experienced the dramas of his life in a way that left no room for me, seeing every success of mine as proof that I didn’t need attention.
"I think that as a child, I needed my father to be interested in me and my inner world, to celebrate my achievements, and for him to be less overwhelmed and able to contain himself to do that. I’ve developed a special sensitivity to such situations, and it would help if my partner knew about this and was more sensitive when I try to share good experiences with him."
By following this exercise, you can gain insights into your emotional reactions and understand how past experiences influence your present behavior, leading to healthier and more meaningful interactions.
Recommendations by Amalia Rosenblum
Website: Emotion Compass
This excellent site gathers a lot of quality information about emotions and offers exercises to help you understand and process them better. It’s a great resource for those who want to delve deeper into their emotional world.
App: Plum Village
The free meditation app Plum Village, founded by monk Thich Nhat Hanh, offers a mindfulness bell that sounds like a Tibetan bowl. You can set it to ring at specific times as a reminder to stop, breathe, and return to the present moment. This feature can help you stay grounded throughout the day.
Book: On the Bones of the Dead
This book by Nobel Prize-winning Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk is both entertaining and profound. Reading it brought me back to the joy of reading as a child. For three evenings, put your phone aside and follow the detective stories of a misanthropic, animal-loving heroine in a remote, snowy village on the Polish-Czech border. It’s a
proper literary trip and a great conversation starter for your next social gathering.
By understanding and addressing your emotional reactions, you can improve your emotional well-being and create healthier relationships.