Building Emotional Awareness

In this podcast episode, the speaker discusses the importance of emotional awareness and being able to regulate one's feelings. They share a personal experience of feeling bored and tired while volunteering. The speaker suggests listening to facts over feelings and turning to prayer and scriptures for support. They also mention engaging in healthy distractions such as spending time with family and friends, exercising, and getting outside. The speaker encourages listeners to do things even when they don't feel like it, as it can be better than giving up. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the I Have a Question podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about building emotional awareness. So essentially, emotional awareness, in my words, is being able to regulate your feelings. Another way I like to put it is being in control of what you're feeling and thinking before you speak. And I'd like to share an experience of emotional awareness, I guess. So I volunteer probably at least once a week at a children's after school program, because one of my classes requires me to get 35 hours in per semester. So in my most recent experience, my emotional state was kind of bored and tired, you know, kind of feeling in a low kind of mood without energy, you know, a little apathetic and a little weary. And so, you know, to a friend, I'd kind of, you know, say, Hey, I'm feeling a lack of interest, lack of excitement, kind of deal. But like, if I was talking to like a supervisor, I'd say something more like, Hey, I'm not feeling too, too sharp today. And I don't think I can do something demanding. And I'd say that because honestly, whenever I'm feeling bored and tired, I, my cognitive skills aren't, aren't very, aren't very attentive. So I don't think it'd be a good idea to have me doing something super demanding whenever I'm not feeling kind of sharp, I guess. That's not how I would put it. But say I am feeling like that kind of way. One thing I try to live by is, you know, to listen to the facts over the feelings. So for me, whenever, or like what I do to kind of manage and regulate my emotions, is usually first thing I'll do is I'll go to scriptures or I'll go to prayer. Because I know deep in my heart that God is good and that he has a plan for me. And you know, we all live in different seasons at different times. And maybe this season right now is not the brightest one, we'll say that. And so I do everything in my power to just remember all the blessings I have, you know, to replace my bad and kind of downward thoughts with something good or something positive. Some things I'll also do is kind of have my healthy distractions, right? For me, there's no instant gratification that just makes me feel super duper duper excited, you know, out there, but gradually kind of spending time with family and friends and again, prayer and scriptures, as well as just going outside and doing some exercise or just kind of just, just getting out of the house. For me, those are those are very, very good ways for me personally. Again, this isn't advice or me telling you what to do. But these are just my personal experiences that I'm sharing with y'all. And honestly, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about emotional awareness and regulating emotions. But one thing I do want to encourage everyone listening to the podcast is to always remember to do things even if you don't feel like doing them. You know, obviously, we don't always have to force ourselves to do things. But I'd say it's definitely better to force ourselves to do things you don't want to do, rather than just to give up kind of thing. So I'll leave you all with that thought and then you guys for listening and I'll see y'all next episode. Peace