Tell me if this experience is relatable to you. Your spouse comes home from work irritated and before long you are irritated too. Or at my house I’m frustrated with kids when he walks in the door and then I wonder why he doesn’t have patience with them either. Does that ever happen at your house? Well I have a tool to help you stop some of those arguments with your husband.
Mirroring Emotions
My coach, Jody Moore, taught me a tool that explains this. It’s called mirroring emotions. It is simply the fact that humans tend to pick up on emotions that people around them have. Hence why when you are short with the kids, your husband will shortly be too. Or the kids start getting impatient with each other also. It also works in the reverse. Ever went to lunch with a girlfriend who was in a fantastic mood and it lifted your mood? That is also mirroring emotions.
Now what I’m not saying is it’s all your fault for how everyone else feels. Or that its someone else’s fault you feel a certain way. We all feel the way we do because our thoughts create our emotions. But knowing that its human nature to copy other people’s emotions, you can take control of your emotions again.
An Example:
This morning I woke up unsure how I wanted to feel. I went to bed mad and wasn’t sure if my husband was still mad too. So I was looking to him to see if we were okay or not. Because we hadn’t discussed it, he was unsure what I was even upset over. His thoughts left him feeling offish. I immediately went to I can be offish too. We were both irritated with each other.
It’s the brain’s job to keep us safe. Part of being safe back in the cave days is fitting in with the pack, so we can survive. My brain was simply trying to fit in with my husband. But this isn’t helpful in modern days. I am not going to die if my husband is a little grouchy. In fact, it pushed us towards talking about something minor that was irritating me. Now we have resolved the problem.
Just understanding that we mirror emotions, we have a choice to take control of our lives again. When we mirror emotions, we are expecting someone else to control your emotions. They can’t do it, and they aren’t going to do it “right” even if they could. If I had realized I was mirroring his emotions this morning in the moment, I could have made a conscious decision about how I wanted to feel. Maybe I would have chosen to be irritated still, or I could have chosen to find it humorous that we were fighting over something so silly.
But in all honesty, I didn’t realize it until after the fact. Which is the first step to making change. The more we start to recognize it after the fact, the more awareness we have. Eventually our brains will start to recognize it while we are doing it. And eventually we will know we are doing it in time to change it. The path of progression isn’t linear. It tends to get better over time, but we bounce back and forth between stages as we progress. So please don’t beat yourself up for “regressing.”
Want to discuss with me how mirroring emotions is affecting your life, book a free discovery call with me. Let’s explore it together. I can’t wait to visit with you!
Until Next Time
-Keira
