Emotional Intake
Your emotions are yours, it’s up to you to keep them that way.
What is Emotional Intake?
Breaking down the term: “emotional” what does “emotional” mean? By the Oxford dictionary definition, it is: “relating to a person’s emotions” okay, fair enough.
Now, what are emotions? Emotions, as complex as they are, could have many definitions if you stay on this question longer. To the first searched definition;
“Emotions are psychological states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition.”
Emotions are so complex, the dictionary doesn’t even know what to say. Nonetheless; we all knew what emotions were, we all have them (for the most part). What about the second portion of our phrase?
What does “intake” mean? “Intake” is defined as “an amount of food, air, or another substance taken into the body.” Which was pretty self-explanatory, see, you knew what these words meant by themselves, so putting them together shouldn’t be too hard.
Emotional intake — as I am going to put it — is
“the flow of emotions that one takes into their own life.”
This could imply that the emotions being taken in are not your own, which would be called ‘empathicalism’. While this definition could relate to empathy — and it’s easy — it doesn’t. It’s rather vague.
We’ve heard surrounding phrases that sound along the lines of “That’s not for you to handle”, “That’s not for you to feel”, “That’s not your business” or just anything that has basically been telling you that
“Your feelings right now are not your own and you need to differentiate that.”
Which is a hard pill to swallow because “What do you mean they’re not my feelings? I’m the one feeling them?” And yes, you’re right, it’s coming from your body, your body is what created these reactions and your expression is your own; but were these feelings given to you? Were they projected? Was it guilt-tripping? Do you just not know how to sympathize rather than empathize?
It’s questions like these that will allow you to realize that maybe you are feeling something for someone else, and maybe for yourself at the same time.
Second-Hand Personal Attacks
Now, the possibility of feeling for yourself and everyone at once isn’t a hard one to come by. You could very well be present and aware of your feelings and still empathize to the point where you behave and feel as if this event was personal when really it wasn’t.
Let’s call this the “second-hand personal attack” (we’ll work on the name later). Second-Hand Personal Attacks sounds like a more brutal way to say “empathy”, but they’re completely different in the sense of how this empathy is carried out and delivered.
A good example of positive Second-Hand Personal Attacks would be
a fellow minority group advocating and protesting with the actually affected minority group.
It’s mutual support. Two groups of people under the suggestion of being the minority come together and support each other’s group based on their own community’s problems.
A negative and common example of Second-Hand Personal Attacks would be
feeling betrayed, mistreated, and lied to on the behalf of your friend who was just cheated on in their recent relationship.
Your friend is your friend, you love and support them, and you’d do anything for them because you’re so loyal, but you can’t feel for them. Their now ex-partner did nothing to betray you because they did not have a romantic relationship with you. In the voice of pop-star rapper, Doja Cat, you were “a friend of a friend” in this situation.
While it’s a normal reaction for you to be upset for your friend, feel sorry for your friend, and want to comfort them,
it’s not your responsibility to feel as if you were the one being cheated on.
Because now what this creates is the confusion between sympathy, empathy, and boundaries. In a negative Second-Hand Personal Attack, you may not know where to draw the line between sympathy and empathy.
You may immediately feel angry and upset that your friend is hurt, and then the more they vent to you about the situation, you begin to take things personally — there is a distinction within this very sudden situation.
The distinction is when you turn off your personal feelings. This is not to confuse your sympathy with your empathy, you are turning on your feelings for the environment, you are turning off your personal feelings because this did not happen to you personally.
Situations like these in general can create a blind spot that completely allows boundaries to be thrown out of the conversation. Imagine you not drawing that line between sympathy and empathy for your friend’s break-up, and now you’re texting this ex anonymously and telling them how terrible of a person they are (people actually do this).
Imagine you show up to their locations just to yell at them — you probably have been in a surrounding situation like this before, and it’s embarrassing. Stand up for your friend without inserting yourself into the relationship. Accept that your role is emotional and moral support, not to be present in a destructive matter — and this dynamic goes for all Bad Second-Hand Personal Attacks.
Emotional Intake
Emotional intake aside from Second-Hand Personal Attacks is a very important matter in your life. Just like the food your body intakes, and the quality of water and air, your body also needs to be fed mindfully with how your emotions are going to be allowed to be felt today and tomorrow and after that.
A common phrase pertaining to emotional intake is “protect your energy” which I love. Your feelings, your mindset, your mental health, and all things dealing with it are just as crucial as what things your body needs to survive. It may be something hard to accept,
but you cannot take non-personal things…personal.
How to Work on your Emotional Intake:
A good practice to balance your emotional intake would be to draw a “T” chart with “Sympathy” on one side and “Empathy” on the other.
This “T” chart will allow you to write down whatever you’re currently feeling, what you were feeling before, what’s been in the back of your mind, or just any feelings that pop up. Sort them between
“Is this feeling mine or not?”
Another exercise would be to color coordinate. Journal, write out, speak into your voice recording app, vlog, or just mentally converse with yourself about any feelings you have and vent about them. In the end, you could choose two colors, one for empathy and one for sympathy, and at the end of your venting, you’ll with either or of your colors.
A good tip to tell whether a problem may be labeled ‘empathy’ is if your problem mainly concerns another person or an outside event.
This next example is a more prominent shadow-work styled method: Write about, journal, voice record, video record, mentally converse — however you do shadow work — reflect upon a past event in your life and decide whether these events were driven by positive or negative Second-Hand Personal Attacks. Try not to be biased about these decisions.
Think about whether you inserted yourself where you shouldn’t had. If you noticed that the person you’re feeling for on their behalf had noticed that you were feeling for them. Reflect upon times that you know you overstepped, or that you unintentionally made something about yourself when your role was just to support.
Moments like these will likely correlate to the negative Second-Hand Personal Attacks. Within this exercise, don’t try to give yourself justice if you know you had a negative Second-Hand Personal Attack experience.
You won’t learn by trying to be the victim.
Whichever way that you execute your organizing, just know that it’s for your emotional health. These methods listed, and the ones you create your own will help you clean up the way you allow things to affect you. It lets you see whether you were directly involved or if you were just in a supportive role — and it’s a lot safer when you’re on the supportive end.
Conclusion
Separating yourself from things that don’t involve you does not mean you’re uncaring, ignorant, arrogant, selfish, or anything related to that; it just means that you prioritize yourself emotionally and in the same ways that you prioritize others.
Recognizing your emotional intake and taking it seriously will strengthen your emotional intelligence as well as your emotional awareness. You won’t internalize so much when you recognize that not everything to be felt is meant to be felt by you and at this time.
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