Emotion as Information has been a theme in several of my recent posts. I read a nice article called Feelings on Steve Pavlina’s personal development blog that describes a very similar idea.

Steve says

“Our feelings are a feedback mechanism.”

and

“Simply put… we feel good when we’re moving towards what we want, and we feel bad when we’re moving away from what we want. And that movement is more about thought and intention than it is about action.”

From there Steve describes how he used the feedback from his emotions [information] to find what he was really looking for. Steve’s article is great for seeing how emotional feedback applies to personal developmental.When I work with people who are experiencing an emotional disturbance, we are doing much the same thing. We use the emotion to help understand what is working and what is not working.

Later in the article he gets to the people I work with, those whose haven’t been able to figure out how they got trapped in their negative emotions.

“Often what traps us in negative emotion is that deep down we know what we want, but we don’t think we can get it. Sometimes we also don’t feel we deserve it. So we tell ourselves maybe we shouldn’t want it. “

Steve is describing specific traps that lead to negative emotions. There are many other traps, as many as there are people. The general version of becoming stuck that I use is that we have become trapped in a pattern that was learned in the past but that does not work in the present. We keep doing the same thing but it doesn’t get the result we want. Steve suggests journaling or talking to a close friend to sort through the problem. I support and have recommended both of these, depending on the situation and person.

At this point we part ways a bit. Steve suggests asking for support in his forum and suggests using a “handle” if anonymity is a concern. If the support needed is more toward the cheer leading or coaching end of the spectrum I would have little concern. However, if someone is so stuck that friends or family cannot help, it might be time to see a professional, e.g. counselor, social worker, marriage and family therapist, psychologist. Meaning, people who are trained to help people with more difficult problems.

In sum, an very insightful article that aligns well enough with “Emotion as Information.” Definitely worth reading.