Emotional Inf lexibility 123
To experience life at all requires a certain amount of vul-
nerability to your emotions. Emotions play a crucial role in
everyday life, whether they entail reveling in time spent with
family, grieving when you lose someone from your life, or
feeling scared or intimidated in an unfamiliar situation.
Emotions not only provide you with context about your
experiences but also help you appropriately respond to the
demands of a particular situation. In essence, emotions
serve a specific function, or purpose, in terms of the meaning
they give to your life and the responses they elicit. For
example, your emotions can help you make decisions quickly
(or help you know when you should take your time), prepare
your body’s physiological processes for immediate action,
inf luence your thoughts and secondary emotions, motivate
your future behavior, and help you communicate.
Imagine negotiating with a salesperson the price of a car
you want to buy. If during the negotiation you suddenly feel
uneasy about the deal being offered, an emotion is likely
motivating you to further evaluate the situation. For
example, perhaps you have a notion that the salesperson is
trying to take advantage of you, or maybe you are worried
that the price of the car exceeds your budget. Regardless of
your interpretation, your emotion serves as a cue for you to
take action and provides relevance to your concerns. It
essentially prompts you to modify the relationship you have
to your environment (in this scenario, you could impulsively
take the deal, hastily walk away, or cautiously ask for some
time to fully consider the offer).
Emotions can be quite powerful, and it’s easy to feel as if
you have no control over them. The good news is that emo-
tions can be managed, but managing them correctly and
f lexibly requires a considerable deal of effort and practice.