sustaining positive emotions

Do you ever feel like you’d rather stay under the duvet some days, want to eat chocolate all day, or just don’t know why you feel down?

Life is all about ups and downs, good times, and challenges. It’s quite usual to have days where we feel less like Tigger and more like Eeyore, but what if that goes on for some time?

Sometimes it’s an indication that our emotional needs are not being met. In this blog I share what these are and how you can begin to feel good about yourself.

What are emotional needs?

We all have three core emotional needs connected to our sense of survival: love and belonging, certainty or safety, and significance. Receptor sites in your body get filled when we experience these emotions and the more we feel them, the less effort it takes to create that feeling.  If fulfilment of these needs starts to reduce, our bodies give a warning signal that our survival is at stake and we feel despair. Put simply, we find it very difficult to cope if these needs are not met.

If you think about these as your emotional needs buckets, they need to be at least 70% full in order for us to feel good. When it drops below this level, our brains response is to try and find things which will fill them back up. This can quite often be through quick fixes, such as video games, crisps or chocolate, or even negative behaviours to get attention – whatever your unconscious mind associates with filling your buckets.

Many people get their sense of love and belonging bucket filled through connection, with family and friends, or team members. If the amount of connection and touch we have with others diminishes, we are likely to fee sad or insignificant; a sign that this bucket is getting low or is even empty.

Our certainty bucket is kept topped up by predictability, financial security, and comfort, whilst our significance bucket can be filled by feeling valuable and worthy, getting praise and recognition. Many of us are in situations where these things are more challenging to achieve, and may be feeling fear, anxiety anger, resentment, or helplessness as a result.

So, what can we do to keep our buckets topped up?

To feel good, we need to do things that meet our emotional needs and it’s important to know how you meet your own needs, as well as helping others to meet theirs.

Start by asking yourself three simple questions: what makes me feel loved? What helps me to feel certain and safe? What makes me feel good about myself? Make a long list of everything that comes to mind (yes, even the crisps and chocolate!) and then, decide which ones you are going to consciously do every day. Ideally, pick ones that are going to give you a lasting feeling of wellbeing, rather than a quick fix, as anything which meets these needs becomes addictive, making us want to do it even more!

Start each day with your list and plan how you can build them into your time. Pay attention to what makes you feel good and measure your improvements day by day, reflecting on how you felt the day before and what it was that either made you feel good, or threatened your emotional needs. Remember, the more you feel love, certainty and significance, the less effort it takes to create these feelings.

Visualisation is another really good way of filling your buckets. Remembering fond memories of when you have felt loved, certain, and great about yourself. Just taking half an hour each day to really go back to those memories, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard and really feeling those feelings, will, over time, have a positive affect on your overall wellbeing.

What if I am still struggling?

Sometimes we need a little extra help to feel better, especially if our buckets have holes in them from past experiences. This leaves us feeling isolated, helpless, or worthless and no amount of topping up of the buckets has a lasting effect. I work with clients to help them repair these holes, enabling them to get their life back on track.

So, what are you doing to keep your buckets topped up?

I offer a complimentary discovery consultation, enabling you to discuss the feelings you are experiencing, define your priorities and decide your next steps.

For information go to https://www.jouff.co.uk/discovery-session

Take care

Jo

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To find out more about 1:1 coaching with me: https://www.jouff.co.uk/1to1coaching

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