Acceptance

To experience and remain in a state of primary emotions requires ACCEPTANCE. Wow, I don’t know about you, but that’s hard. Why would this be important? Because by accepting the primary emotion it does the following:

• Gives validation to the emotion

• Reduces avoidance/repression/denial that delays the onset of pain

• Reduces the risk of escalated emotions

• Increases usefulness of emotion

• Leads to effective problem solving

When we start to dip into our secondary emotions then that’s when stress becomes intolerable, we have poorer problem solving, there is impulsivity and an increase of urgency. Sometimes the secondary emotion becomes too intense that it becomes difficult to access primary emotions. Usually, secondary emotions do not lead to resolution and are most often about the self. 

Have you learned how to accept your emotions? Accepting means that you practice allowing your emotions to be what they are without judging them or trying to change them. Accepting our primary emotions cannot happen overnight. By practicing being aware of the initial emotion, labeling, and accepting it even if it is unpleasant, then we start to learn how to emotionally regulate in a healthy way, which then our children will mirror.