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Building Emotional Capacity: From Awareness to Acceptance
We are witnessing a time when small towns like Chimney Rock in North Carolina are wiped out in less than a day. Missiles are being launched and dropped in the Middle East, while the ports of our nation are on the brink of shutdown.
It’s a lot to handle for anyone, as many people are feeling emotionally drained or overwhelmed by the rising prices of our bare necessities. Even if someone says phrases like “build emotional resilience” or “expand your emotional capacity,” these concepts feel like distant dreams as reality bombards us with disaster after disaster — biblical in scale (a phrase I just read in another article).
The truth is, emotional capacity — our ability to cope with emotional challenges and navigate them effectively — is something many people struggle with. I’ve been thinking about this as I settle into a new city. As someone who observes more than partakes, I’ve been meeting people who are consciously or unconsciously choosing not to process or learn how to manage their emotions. This often results in emotional reactions, and sometimes emotional overload, which further dysregulates their nervous systems.