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Ask A Pro Live: Emotions
For this month's Ask A Pro we are super lucky to have Dr Joe joining us again to talk about all things emotions. Feelings underpin so much of how we experience life, how we deal with challenges and what we think about ourselves.
That’s why we think it’s a super important topic to chat about! To get everyone thinking about what kinds of questions we can ask, have a look below at the emotion’s wheel. Some of you may have come across this before, if you haven't, it's a great tool that helps people describe and verbalise emotions. It isn't always easy to identify feelings, let alone know what to do with them, so this is a helpful starting point.
Dr Joe joined us earlier this year to chat about Life After Social Isolation - if you want to check that out click through here. For those of you who are just finding out about Dr Joe below is a little introduction:
''Dr Joe is a psychologist who has worked for many years with young people in Australia doing face to face counselling.
He is passionate about the strengths of young people and working with them to get through tough times.
Though he ran with bulls for fun and nearly died in Spain, being European he has a very real and rational fear of sharks''
Please send through your questions using the google doc below
Join us LIVE October 15th 7pm - 9pm AEDT
Hey guys sorry couldn’t make it tonight I wanted to but now we are knee deep in iso haircuts here... 😳
Feeling: scared
haha kidding.... but seriously.
Super keen to chat with you all in half an hour!! Just tagging people who have shown interest and everyone who is online. See you all at 7pm!
@StormySeas17 @ecla34 @xXLexi_Lou122Xx @Lost_Space_Explorer5 @WheresMySquishy @lokifish @Okay82822828 @jamijam @November13 @mol1912 @Clementine75
And we are live! Let's get into this! We've got so many thought provoking questions tonight but to start off I just want to thank you @GuestPsychologist for joining us again, it's a pleasure having you with us live.
First questions first:
What are emotions?
What are emotions?
• emotions arise from activity in distinct regions of the brain. I could be cheeky and say they are EVERYTHING (in a good way) – but yes they are almost everything – it would be near impossible to survive without them. Fear keeps us safe and alive (though too much fear/anxiety is tough to manage). Anger can help us defend ourselves and our rights. The highs and lows of happiness and sadness allows us to feel all that we as human animals can feel. The middle ground of ‘feeling alright’ gets us through the day.
• Hormones affect our emotions.
• Stepping in dog poo affects our emotions
• Talking to rude people or nice people affects them too.
• WE, yes WE can have a big influence on other people’s emotions by deciding how we interact with other people/animals.
Totally agree that all of our feelings have a profound impact on us and how we interact with the world!!
This is basically me but I'm totally cool with it -
@Lost_Space_Explorer5 totally true!! Like right now, my puppy keeps bringing me toys to play with but I can't - so he stormed off and started crying!
Hahaha yes @WheresMySquishy that gif has been me this year!!
I get what you're saying @Lost_Space_Explorer5. When I first started seeing my psychologist, she said that we are in control of our emotions and that other people can't cause me to feel a particular way unless I let them.
Ooo this is a great question! @GuestPsychologist
To what extent do you think people can choose or control their emotions?
We don’t have much power to choose emotions but we have LOTS of power to control them. I get really angry and frustrated at my 6-year-old at times but she hardly ever sees that anger/annoyance. While I feel like swearing out loud and s – I never do – yes never – because I know it is wrong so I choose to control my anger. It takes patience and practise. Emotions are neither good or bad – they just are. How we use them or ignore them is very important though, as is controlling and understanding them.
This question also relates to an interesting talking point: Whether or not we agree that other people can or can not affect our emotions. As I said above people influence each others emotions but I believe nobody has the power to control our emotions. Our emotions are our responsibility, and we should not give anyone the power to control our emotions, you know to make you happy or sad for example. Someone could do or say something that triggers some sadness or anger but we then have the choice to react further. We can CHOOSE whether someone’s actions or words will CONTINUE to affect us or not. “words will never hurt me” springs to mind.
Mmm very true @GuestPsychologist with lots of practice and patience with ourselves, I agree that we can learn healthy ways of dealing with our emotions - and as you said they are neither "good" or "bad" - it's really what we chose to do with them.
@Lost_Space_Explorer5 sounds like you've worked out a way to not let your emotions out, but as you said I think it's finding out healthy outlets. It's okay that you haven't mastered the art of handling emotions, I think it takes time as Joe said.
Haha kids can make you so frustrated @GuestPsychologist. I used to get so annoyed at the family members I care for.
You're so right that we can choose how to react to other people.