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Key points
- Understanding emotions as waves will support you in becoming aware of your emotions in real time.
- Our emotions are closely connected to physical experience.
- During the peak period, emotion takes over; we can’t think clearly and are refractory to new information..
- Mindfulness can help us notice the beginning of an emotion, the refractory period, and the end of the emotion.
My last two articles explored the benefits of befriending your feelings and offered a guided practice to support you in learning this essential life skill. In this article I discuss, what I fondly call "emotional wave theory", and in the next article in this series I share how observing your own emotional waves, and the emotional waves of others, can be extremely helpful in difficult situations in sport, business, and life. The language is geared toward athletes, but whether you're an athlete, business person, performing artist, student, or parent, you can benefit from learning about emotional waves— the physical manifestations and the natural time course of emotions.
In combination with the Befriending Feelings practice, an understanding of emotional waves will support you in becoming more aware of your emotions in real time; in having your feelings without your feelings having you; and, ultimately, in increasing your ability to experience flow in all aspects of your life.
Psychologist Paul Ekman has studied emotional expression all over the world, from very developed countries to areas without Internet access or even TV. His scientific framework of emotion can support us in our efforts to be mindful of our emotions. So far, Ekman has found that there are seven universal emotions that all human beings share: happiness, fear, anger, sadness, surprise, contempt, and disgust. More important, and relevant to mindfulness, his work has revealed that each primary emotion has a very specific facial expression and body presentation, and that emotions have a natural time course. Take a moment now to make each of the following facial expressions. Notice how you feel as you try each one.
Open your eyes wide. Raise your eyebrows, drop your jaw, and open your mouth in an O shape. How do you feel when you make this facial expression? What do you notice in your body? What emotion does this express?
Using your facial muscles, curve the corners of your mouth down toward your shoulders. How do you feel? What do you notice in your body? What emotion does this express?
Again, using your cheek and other facial muscles, gently curve the corners of your mouth up toward the outside corners of your eyes. How do you feel when you make this facial expression? What do you notice in your body? What emotion does this express?
What’s fascinating is that even though you did simple, incomplete versions of the facial expressions that Ekman describes, you probably sensed the emotions in your body. When making the facial expression for surprise, you may have felt a little surprised. When frowning, you may have felt slightly sad, and when smiling, you may have felt a bit happier. As with the previous Befriending Feelings practice, the exercise allows you to experience a basic truth: Your emotions and your physical experience are very closely connected.
Another interesting thing about emotions is that when we don’t suppress or magnify them, they tend to have their own natural time course or rhythm. In your daily life, can you notice when an emotion begins, peaks, and ends?
Ekman presents the natural time course of emotions as a—perhaps oversimplified—wave or bell curve. This representation demonstrates that just as with breath, emotions have a beginning, a middle (or peak, also called the refractory period, when, Ekman finds, is not possible to take in any information unrelated to the emotion being experienced), and an end.
During the refractory period, emotion takes over and we can’t think clearly. In these moments, we’re controlled by an older part of the brain sometimes called the lizard brain or reptilian brain. We’re in fight, flight, or freeze mode. Like lizards, we can only fight, run away, or freeze. We aren’t able to use our full human minds and hearts to choose our behavior, to respond rather than react, to get back in the game.
Take a few minutes to remember a time when you were in the refractory period.
Fortunately, mindfulness can help us notice the beginning of an emotion, the refractory period, and the end of the emotion. When we’re aware that we’re in the grip of an emotion, stuck in the refractory period, we can make only very basic choices—at least some of the time—holding our tongue, walking away, or simply continuing to play.
I like to use the analogy of watching waves when describing how mindfulness can help us deal with intense emotions. Often, strong emotions take us by surprise, like a rogue wave. Mindfulness is our early-warning system. If we’re paying attention, we can feel the very first ripples of an emotion. When we notice an emotional wave building, getting bigger and more powerful, we can choose to move to higher ground so the wave doesn’t come crashing down on us.
Today practice noticing the very first ripples of an emotion, noticing the emotional wave building, getting bigger and more powerful. Then befriend your feelings. And, when you are ready, choose how you want to respond to the situation.
When we observe emotional waves in ourselves and others, we can improve our communication, teamwork, relationships, and find flow in sports, in business, and in daily life.
