Student Wellbeing

What about your emotions?

What pictures come to mind when you think about how emotions feel?

Is it a volcano filled with lava, is it rumbling, waiting to erupt? Is feeling like you might explode with happiness and excitement? Is it the feeling of holding your breath and not being able to take another step? Is it the feeling of being lighter than air?

Sometimes these emotions can make us feel unsure and nervous, but it’s important to understand that:

• Allowing emotions to be expressed gives these special messengers a chance to tell us about our needs, such as connection, protection, or information. It’s so important we welcome emotions to be expressed, acknowledged and validated. 

• The word ‘regulation’ is often used and speaks to being aware of our emotions, rather than shutting down or reacting on impulse. Creating a space for our children or us to express these emotions helps emotions to be named, rather than avoiding or suppressing them. 

• Suppression can look like being snappy with our family, getting trapped and stuck in anxious thoughts or withdrawing from relationships. It can also make us turn towards numbing or avoidance to cope. 

The good news

The good news is that learning skills to regulate our emotions and putting these into practice helps us to understand what our needs are. Emotions slow down when we open up, so our needs can be heard. That way, the wave of emotion can be ridden rather than consuming or dumping us into the surf!

And like any skill we are learning, being given grace and space to practice these skills goes a long way! The bonus of this skill is that it helps us to bounce back when different situations create stress and trauma, creating emotional resilience. One way this can happen is to 'zoom out' our perspective. Having empathy, respect for others and being kind, fair and honest is on display when we care and are concerned for others who need support, accept people’s differences and take responsibility for our actions. Doing good helps us to feel good about who we are!

“Worry can rob you of happiness, but kind words will cheer you up.” (Prov 12:25)

Mel Batchelor

Student Counsellor