Everybody agrees that emotions are powerful. That’s pretty much the end of what everybody agrees on about emotions. There is no scientific consensus or definition of what emotions are. That leads us to the first paradox of emotions: “Everybody knows exactly what emotions are and nobody agrees on exactly what emotions are.” But a close second idea that everyone almost agrees on is that we often get too emotional discussing emotions and their impact in our lives. When trying to avoid an emotion discussion, often the focus is on awareness or the impact of emotions without actually defining what emotions are. Discussing emotions is emotional. 

How do we get past this conundrum, if we can’t comfortably delve deeply into exploring emotions? 

An enlightening exploration towards defining emotions might start with a close look at understanding your learned beliefs about emotions, with an addition of some well researched neurology, a splash of historical context, insightful metaphorical pictures and re-washing some dirty laundry on the concepts of function. Just kidding about the laundry, but it’s important to be mindful that discussing and dealing with emotions requires patience and perspective. 

BCA embraces a basic belief that emotions are not thoughts or actions. BCA defines emotions as power. This belief and definition are not used by all approaches to mental health. In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman states, “I take emotion to refer to a feeling and its distinctive thoughts, psychological and biological states, and range of propensities to act.”  Merriam-Webster defines emotions as, “a conscious mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioural changes in the body.” The Cambridge Dictionary simply defines emotions as, “A strong feeling.” Most mental health theories incorporate variations of these definitions, which combine emotions as feelings, thoughts and actions. There really is no clear definition of emotions.

AI combines the different emotion definitions and states: “Emotions are complex psychological states that involve three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioural or expressive response. Emotions can be influenced by our thoughts, feelings, and external circumstances. Emotions play a significant role in our decision-making and social interactions.” This AI definition says that emotions are influenced by thoughts but doesn’t really define what emotions are. The AI definition even works if you define emotions as power.

I encourage you to consider your own beliefs as you seek out your favourite definition of emotions. Then, look closer. The more you look, the more you will find that most mental health models essentially co-mingle the definition of emotions as feelings, thoughts, biological changes, energy or actions. BCA looked closely at the process of mental health and the various distinct functions to discover and define 1) Behavior as movements, 2) Cognition or thoughts as directions, and 3) Affect or emotions as power. Holistically looking at the process helps clarify the basic functions.

Here’s a car analogy to explore brain functions and the role of Emotions, Thoughts, and Actions. In doing so, let me first say that the BCA Holistic approach for understanding the process of mental health believes that thoughts, emotions, behaviours and more are distinctly different neurologically, psychologically and socially functional aspects of your brain and life. 

The approaches to define emotions and their roles can be visually differentiated using this car analogy. Basic neurologically brain research reveals that the Amygdala is the emotional centre; the Cortex is the thinking centre; and the Brain Stem controls body functions. 

Using these basic brain functions of power, direction, and movement, we begin to see dynamically different ways that emotions can be and often are embraced, understood and expressed. The power of emotions can be harnessed in four distinct styles, based upon an individual’s skills, situation, resources and/or experiences.

• Emotional drunk is like floating in the gas tank. No skills or responsibility is required of you. Your emotions overwhelm your ability to manage them to the point that you don’t care about or think about anything outside of just floating in your own isolated emotional space.
• Emotional reasoning is a cognitive distortion of believing that your emotions define the road you are driving on. You have developed an unrealistic and distorted thinking habit that how you feel about the world defines how the world is. If you are scared, then the road feels scary, treacherous, overwhelming and deadly, even on a sunny day and with passengers enjoying the same car ride.
• Emotional intelligence embraces beliefs that you can and should teach the emotional gasoline to steer the car. A belief that if you work hard and smart enough, you can change the gas into insightful, passionate guides that will provide you insightful and useful help to steer the car. Then you can blame the gas for any poor driving that leads to accidents or crashes.
• Emotional power embraces the whole process by validating emotions as power and then focusing on learning effective driving skills to manage the road conditions. You accept that the gas is power, steering provides direction, and the road doesn’t change to suit your beliefs or thinking. You use your life experiences to develop your best driving skills to face life’s road conditions.  

Everyone has used each of these approaches at different times in their lives. There is no judgment or shame for using any emotion style, because your life is unique.  One style is not better than the other, but the resulting consequences are substantially different and situational. Your chosen beliefs are the best you can do. For example, toddlers, teenagers, or individuals struggling with abuse or trauma can get emotionally overwhelmed and just want a break from dealing with life. Babies or toddlers don’t have the skills to effectively manage their emotions. Out of control temper tantrums are the best they can do, until they gain experience and learn skills. Puberty is an emotional game changer. PTSD, trauma, or abuse seem like emotional bombs that can blow you up. When you feel emotionally overwhelmed, sometimes you just want to mindlessly float for a while. Sometimes that choice is the best and most effective one. Sometimes it is the only one.

Each belief has its own strengths and weakness, benefits and consequences. There is no “one size fits all” for any situations. However, while you make the best choices you are capable of, you can do better. To quote the DBT guru Marsh Linehan’s sage advice, “Clients are doing the best they can, and they need to do better.” Doing better means gaining knowledge, learning skills and acquiring experiences to improve the quality of your emotional life. Each intertwining aspect is a complex and challenging process that constantly changes as you grow, develop, and interact.

For example, regarding communications, how you understand and embrace emotions can make a big difference in how a situation is approached, experienced and the resulting consequences. These differences can be visually expressed by thinking of an “emotional train wreck.” Where a train metaphorically represents the powerful emotions that they are feeling. 

I hope you are beginning to recognise that how emotions are defined, used and expressed impacts how you see, engage, experience and create your life. Especially for self-image and relationships. And double especially for internal and external conflicts. For example, if you are trying to reason with someone who is emotionally drunk … well, that would suck, because drunks can’t reason. They just aren’t mentally engaged with life and will not remember what happens. Likewise, if you are experiencing very strong emotions in a conflict with someone believing in emotional intelligence, they will tell you to calm down and that your emotions are wrong and destructive. They might say strong emotions are “Red light emotions.” In focusing on reducing the strong emotions, they might ignore that you may have very valid reasons and experiences for feeling as strongly as you do. Blaming emotions can distract from focusing on any thinking, experiences or behavioral issues.

So, how can you deal effectively with the different emotional styles? Very carefully, because there is a lot of power in emotions. Remember, we all agree that emotions are powerful. And of course, it helps to use validation to mindfully connect with yourself and the situation.

A useful and practice way to understand the different emotional approaches is to think about specific situations, such as abusive conflicts or making mistakes.

Imagine an abusive conflict between a bully and a victim. For the emotional drunk, it doesn’t matter what’s happening because they are overwhelmed, unaware and just don’t care. They will face the consequences later. The emotional reasoning individual would distort the situation and deny that there was any real abuse. They would use how they feel to re-define the reality of the situation to their comfort level. The emotional intelligence perspective would acknowledge that there is an abusive conflict and blame it on emotions, as they express that both sides have good points, because that allows them to feel better in accepting the situation. The emotional power perspective would validate that it is okay to feel any emotion, but challenge the abusive behavior as hurtful and explore the possible thinking that is leading to the abusive conflicts. 

When it comes to owning mistakes, the emotional drunk doesn’t, because they are not thinking or involved in their own lives at the moment. The emotional reasoning approach will use cognitive distortions to re-define reality in an unreal, alternative facts, kind-of-way to avoid facing the real situation and needing to admit to themselves that they may be wrong and need to make changes in their life. Emotional reasoning short-circuits the self-reflection process. The emotional intelligence approach blames emotions for the mistake. They express an “I did it because I was angry,”  kind of excuse. Any and all emotions can be blamed for any and all kinds of actions. Emotional power validates the emotions and then looks beyond them to mindfully consider the hurtful or unintended impact of their learned thoughts and chosen actions.    

If you watch the news, especially in these turbulent times, take a moment to discover what emotional style is being used or expressed for how someone sees and reacts to current events or situations. Do they sound reasonable or emotional? Are they actively not engaging with stressful questions or situations. Do they re-define conflicts to suit their point of view? Do they validate and acknowledge the difficult, complex and often conflicting point of views? Who own any mistakes? How do others react to their emotional style? 

Here is a quick summary to generalise and help remember and distinguish between the different approaches: Emotional drunks are out of their mind, not dealing with reality and unaware of consequences. Emotional Reasoners use distorted thinking habits to ignore and re-define reality. They are irrational as they disconnect from actual consequences. Emotional Intelligence blames emotions for the actions and re-frames the consequences to feel more emotionally comfortable. Emotional power validates and accepts emotions as they are felt when facing reality and evaluates the various mental, physical and relationship consequences.  

While everyone agrees that emotions are powerful. And most agree that discussing emotions can be emotional. Perhaps, considering the current events, there is a third thing we might be able to mostly agree on. While all four emotional styles have an appropriate time and place, not all times and places are appropriate for all four emotional styles.

Dane Jorento, MSW, LICSW is a speaker offering keynotes, seminars, and workshops on mental health, trauma, ADHD, and relationships. He specialises in BCA Holistic Therapy, EMDR, and DBT approaches.