Emotions. Behaviour. Health. They’re all related!

When your emotional health is lacking — or lagging — it can begin to influence your behaviour negatively. And when it does, your health starts to take a toll. I’ve seen it countless of times with my clients (and with myself).

When I got diagnosed with endometriosis, I went through different stages. From being empowered by getting a label to the condition that was bringing me the huge amount of pain I was experiencing, to discovering that surgery, hormonal treatments and painkillers weren’t helping, to feeling hopeless, to feeling hopeful, to feeling hopeless again, lonely, supported, etc. As I went through the different stages of my journey that would bring me to find solutions to help myself heal from endometriosis and getting pregnant thanks to ICSI, I discovered how important emotional health is about. If you don’t have the tools to notice when you’re starting to fail yourself, then you can very easily lose it. That’s why I wanted to give you some tools to notice how your emotional health is affecting your physical health. In short…

Your emotions affect your behaviours. And the behaviours you adopt affect your health, from the inside out.

So, the sooner you realise when your emotional health is failing you, the sooner you can go back to being empowered with greater health.

Now, are you unsure if your behaviours are being influenced by a negative attitude or an inability to manage your emotions?

Here are some things you can watch out for.

 

How Do Your Emotions Affect Your Behaviour?

#1. Lack Of Understanding For Other People’s Emotions

I see it often. As you’re focusing on healing yourself, you might feel the need to cut yourself off from what you’re feeling. Or perhaps you’ve been cutting yourself off from these feelings for a while. It allows you to take a break from the emotional roller-coaster that is associated with the physical and emotional pain associated with specific conditions like endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids, burnout, infertility, etc.

To avoid having to feel your own pain, you get to a point when it’s difficult to be in touch with your own emotions.

But, when you’re not in touch with your own emotions, it makes it even more difficult for you to really get how others are feeling.

#2. Isolation

Perhaps you choose to separate yourself from others rather than try to understand or deal with their feelings, or you hide your own emotions from them.

I’ve worked with women who were rejected because of their illnesses, who were told that it was in their head, and isolation became a coping mechanism. It is sad, when you don’t have the right people around you, to understand you and support you.

Isolation is a common symptom of emotional distress.

When you feel bad about yourself and are struggling emotionally, you may think that you do not deserve to be loved or cared for, and that therefore no one wants to be with you. 

Other reasons you may withdraw from loved ones include regret, shame, embarrassment, insecurity, or being overwhelmed by your own emotional needs.

#3. Blaming

When you lack emotional awareness and regulation, a typical behaviour is to blame others for your own problems or situation. You might struggle with personal awareness and may not see how your own choices or emotions are influencing the adverse outcomes in your life. If you find yourself consistently blaming other people for the ills in your life, then it may be time to focus more on boosting your emotional well-being.

#4. Arguing

Anger is an emotion that is often used to cover up other feelings. If you find yourself lashing out in anger, arguing, or otherwise feeling mad a lot, then your emotional stability and health are lacking. Emotional health means being able to process and deal with your emotions effectively, not allowing them to control your actions.

Anger is a good coverup for other negative feelings that you may not want to examine too carefully, including disappointment, fear, shame, and self-loathing. Ask yourself: what are you really angry about? And does this person you are arguing with play a role in that anger?

#5. Losing Important Relationships

Emotional health is crucial for maintaining healthy relationships. If you find that you have difficulty keeping friends or partners in your life, then your emotional health could use some attention. Emotional health means that you understand how others feel and can respond in appropriate ways, and when you can’t do these things, people will often leave.

#6. Lacking Respect Or Desire To Listen To Other People’s Ideas Or Perspectives

When you find yourself being absolutely not interested in other people’s ideas or perspectives, or cutting them off when they speak (i.e. lacking respect) that is a sign that your emotional health is not at its best and could use some help.

#7. Living In Denial About The Circumstances Or State Of Your Life

This is a big one!

It’s often easier to hide and not bear witness to what’s bothering us in our life. So living in denial is a fact of life that often reveals that there are things in our life that need changing. Not addressing them often means that our emotional health needs some supporting as, with the right tools, we would be addressing these facts of life already…

#8. Being Overly Critical Of Other People Regularly

The people around you are mirrors to what ails you. What you might be overly critical of from other people is usually something that bothers you personally. So as you’re noticing your reactions to the people around you, ask yourself if they don’t hit close to home. If they do, there’s again the fact that your emotional health needs some support.

#9. You Try To Intimidate Or Threaten Other People To Get What You Want

When your emotions become something too much to handle, you might also try to intimidate or threaten other to get what you want. Because you cannot do it on your own, and your emotions are so strong, you get to stage where that strong pain is used to fuel your wants and asks.

#10. You Harm Yourself By Cutting, Starving, Or Binging

It’s a coping mechanism. When you are feeling emotionally upset, and you don’t have the tools to handle your emotions, they come to the physical realm. That is when the “emotional pain” you’re feeling “needs” to become physical. This is when you harm yourself physically, either by cutting yourself, starving yourself or binging. These are conscious decisions to hurt yourself physically, as the physical pain is more easily handled than the emotional pain.

This is the opposite path in a way to you intimidating or threatening other people. The energy is focused towards yourself vs. somebody else.

I’ve personally gone through several of these when I was moving from the “there’s no solution to get you out of this intense daily physical pain” to figuring out a solution to get out of pain. It’s not something I speak about easily (in fact I think that’s the only time I’ve ever mentioned it anywhere). Figuring out how to handle your emotions will help to figure out a way to stop the self-hurt.

#11. You Cannot Handle When Other People Are Emotionally Upset

I see it with my kids. In order to handle your own emotions, you need to have the right tools. In order to handle other people’s emotions, you also need to be aware of how to handle yours. When you get to a stage when other people’s emotions are affecting you and you cannot handle when they’re emotionally upset, there is some emotional turmoil within you that needs to be looked at.

#12. You Have A Substance Abuse Problem Or Feel The Need To Use Substances To Escape Your Emotions

When you find yourself using substances to escape your emotions, it is also a sign that your emotional health needs some taking care of. While it has become common to binge drink or binge eat when you’re feeling sad or depressed, as some kind of social convention, when it becomes more than something you do once in a while, it is a problem for both your physical health and your emotional health.

Final Thoughts

These are just a few of the ways that your emotions can influence your decisions and behaviours. Any time you find yourself acting in a certain way and then later regretting it, there is a high probability that you allowed your emotions to make that decision for you, and your emotional health needs support. Paying attention to these types of red flags is essential for monitoring your emotional health and cultivating your personal well-being.

Claim Your FREE Access To Our eBook: The Mind Body Connection: How Your Emotions Affect Your Health!

Click on the picture to get to the subscribe page!