I am Fine
I am a daughter hiding my depression.
I'm your sister making a good impression.
I'm a friend acting like I am fine.
I'm a teenager pushing her tears aside.
I'm the person sitting next to you.
I'm the one asking you to care.
I'm your best friend hoping you will be there.
How do we get our loved ones, and even ourselves to go beyond "I am fine"?
I have been reading Marc Brackett's book: Permission to Feel
Marc notes that we have such limited emotional vocabulary that we do not know how to describe how we are feeling.
Sad, Mad, Happy, Fine is about all we can muster.
But social interaction depends on our ability to recognise emotion - in ourselves and those around us.
Some emotions demand more response from us than others. It is vital to be able to identify why we behave the way we do. Is your child acting out because they are angry, or because they are feeling alienated and excluded? Digging deeper into and going beyond "fine" is the key to being able to support ourselves and others in a way that is meaningful to the situation.
Sometimes people have difficulty identifying emotions in others. They have difficulty reading the tone of voice, facial expression and body language. They take "I'm fine" literally and then leave people feeling let down and emotionally neglected. On QEEG analysis we are likely to see dysregulation in the temporal lobes:
The temporal lobes are responsible for our emotional understanding and memory formation. They also start the decoding of visual information for identifying body language and facial expression. Auditory processing is also housed here and dysregulation will impact one's ability to interpret the tone of voice. If we cannot identify emotion in others, we cannot identify it in ourselves and we, therefore, cannot build lasting, strong relationships because those around us feel misunderstood after interacting with us. Neurofeedback will help reconnect the temporal lobes and aid in the processing and understanding of emotion, paving the way for social development!
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