You know what happens when you learn to listen to your emotions, pay attention to them, take them into account, and act in line with them?
Life starts turning in your favour.
Yep. In your favour.
Could you imagine?
That’s what I told you about in last week’s newsletter. I explained that emotions are like a compass. They tell us when something is going well, when something is going bad, when something feels right, when something feels wrong.
And the most important thing you can do is listen to them.
Don’t chicken out, don’t get overwhelmed, don’t start procrastinating, don’t numb yourself with your activity of choice…
Of course I’m never going to tell you to act like a spoiled child, to let yourself be led by whatever your emotions, or rather, your impulses, and to do whatever you want, tearing through people on your way. Like many individuals and collectives do online and offline… iykyk
God forbid you interpret my words like that, because I don’t want subscribers who do that. Here we use critical thinking. Here we use discernment. There’s no other way.
Just last week I was telling you about that person who had a bad experience going to see a health professional, and how the normal thing for her would’ve been to dismiss what she was feeling, to ignore it, to not pay attention to it, to accept everything the doctor told her, and to keep quiet, because, well…
It’s very wrong to confront an authority figure like a doctor, right?
And here I’m asking you to use whatever example you want. It doesn’t have to be a doctor. It could be a colleague, a boss, a family member, a neighbour.
Today I’m talking about something very important, which is what happens when we stop listening to ourselves to please other people, to avoid causing problems, to fit into the environment, so there’s no conflict.
And I want to make one thing clear: how important it is to listen to your emotions, because the information they give you is so valuable. They serve as a route map, telling you what feels right and what feels wrong, so you can guide your behaviour.
Right.
So, this person said to me: how much she’d learned, how much she’d learned to listen to herself, how important it was.
Because of the courage she’d had (yes, it takes courage to listen to yourself and take yourself into account), she could admit that something about that first appointment didn’t feel right. And she had the freedom to say: right, I’m not going back to this doctor, and that’s that.
She also told me that later on she booked an appointment with a different professional, and the difference in the experience, in the interaction, was huge compared to the previous one. She said she felt good during the appointment, and good afterwards.
She said she felt looked after, listened to, not rushed while she explained what was going on with her health. She said the tools that professional used in the consultation were valuable and genuinely useful, and she got information about her body she hadn’t got from the previous one. And it was explained calmly, not in a rush, in a way she could actually take in.
Because you know how it is when you go to an health appointment like that. Depending on what you’re dealing with, you can feel stressed or anxious, and that makes information harder to digest. When you’re flooded by anxiety or stress, your rational, cognitive side switches off a bit, and you don’t take in details the same way. So because this professional took their time, she could understand everything.
And of course, when she left the consultation, as well as getting the information she needed about her health, she inevitably compared it with the previous consultation she’d had with the other professional. In that first experience she’d felt so bad that her natural tendency was to assume she felt bad because the problem was her. But no. The problem was that it wasn’t a good fit, or that the care simply wasn’t good.
It’s important to pay attention to yourself, and to record it, to write down afterwards how you felt.
Pay attention.
After the second appointment she felt calm, at peace, more connected to her body. She felt informed, but she didn’t feel anxious. She felt good. She even went for a walk afterwards. The wellbeing carried on throughout the day. It wasn’t just a brief high after walking out of the appointment.
But if she compared it with the experience with the previous professional, the rest of the day went to hell. She really needed to regulate herself, because that experience had destabilised her so much she couldn’t even work. She just wanted to numb what she felt using the usual distractions.
And then finally, after that time had passed, and she could steady herself again, she could sit down and reflect on what had happened, reflect on what was best for her, and what her plan of action would be. Little by little, without rushing, she put that experience into perspective and understood that it had left her with a lot of distress and anxiety.
And what a difference, honestly.
How good it feels when you’re in tune with yourself, when you make yourself your priority, and you understand that if your emotions are telling you something doesn’t feel right, you’re going to stop and listen.
Pay attention.
Because that information is valuable. I’m not saying that health professional is a bad professional, but maybe she simply wasn’t a good match, and so they weren’t going to work well together. And like I said, take this example to whatever situation you want: a difficult situation at work, a conflict in the family, a problem at school, whatever.
But if you don’t listen to yourself, and you don’t listen to what your emotions are guiding you towards, you won’t know what’s happening, and you’ll keep adapting yourself to situations that are negative for you.
Could you imagine always neglecting yourself, putting everything and everyone before you?
What would your life look like if you always numbed that inner knowing, that sense of what’s what?
Could you imagine?
The flip side is learning, little by little, even if it’s difficult, even if it’s uncomfortable, to listen to yourself with curiosity, without judgement, so you can hear what you need to tell yourself.
Because if not, you know the alternative.
If you want to train this without overthinking it, don’t rely on memory. Memory will negotiate with you. It’ll tell you it “wasn’t that bad”, and you’ll go back.
So I created a tool for you: a one page mood tracker.
One minute a day, or right after an interaction that leaves a mark. You write what happened, what you felt (one word), and what you did next. You do it for two weeks, then you use the review box at the bottom and the pattern becomes obvious. You just have to pay attention.
And because you’re a subscriber, it’s free. You can fill it in digitally on your phone, or print it and keep it in physical form.
Click here to download.
Love,
Noemi
P.S.1: Next week, don’t miss the newsletter. I’m answering one of the subscriber questions from the Q&A round I opened a while back, and it’s about maximising your social skills so you can keep your cool when someone pushes you right to the edge.
P.S.2: You’re reading a newsletter that was originally sent to Gangatu’s email list. Want future editions in your inbox? Join here.
