The stressors we are facing as a society are more than intense. As we consider the realities of COVID-19 and its impact on our nation and our lives and then add other issues like political polarization, racial issues, the rampant mental health crisis and all the news updates that are so disturbing, we all could be feeling emotionally unbalanced and dysregulated.
It is probably good to take a breath, pause and consider the need to provide some self-care and emotional regulation to our lives. It is appropriate to reflect on our emotional state and spend some time thinking about our emotional health.
In a recent blog of the CPTSD Foundation, Shirley Davis writes about National Emotional Awareness Month. Here is a quote from the blog:
As the title suggests, October is the month in the United States when American citizens are challenged to consider their mental health. It is not a month to point fingers or experience self-loathing over seeming loss of control but rather to celebrate humanity’s ability to gain and keep control of themselves.
This article will focus on what emotional intelligence and loss of control are and how they affect one’s emotional awareness.
The term emotional awareness refers to the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions and others’ emotions. Increased levels of emotional awareness mean you learn from your emotions quickly by reflecting on why you are feeling them and decide what action you will take.
Emotional awareness also means you can detect and understand how other people feel so you can also choose appropriate actions on your part. For example, someone you encounter is feeling sad, and you decide to speak with them to empathize with what they are going through as a form of support.
With all that we are experiencing, feeling and anticipating over the next few weeks and months, the month of October is a great time to do some self-reflection and assessment on our emotional health and find ways that we can become more aware, attuned and proactive. Perhaps this can be a catalyst to help us all get through the emotional “allostatic load” that we are facing as individuals, families and as a society. We all need to be reminded that we must take care of our emotional beings in order to bring balance, stability and calm to our lives.
Gerry Vassar
President/CEO
