Many patients have found it helpful to use our emotional management paradigm to identify their specific treatment needs regarding emotional eating. Remember please that most emotional eating is a response to a belief "I shouldn't feel this way." or "I shouldn't feel so much of this." or "I shouldn't be thinking or wanting this." The eating serves to somehow adjust or temper your psyche so that you no longer violate what you think you shouldn't... Unpacking the emotional management paradigm, we see that emotional management can be seen to have three components: emotion recognition; emotion modulation; and emotion processing. So as we now move into consideration of several of the specific emotions that are most frequently at issue in emotional eating, I want you to consider your own case in terms of these three components. In the case of anger, I want you to consider how do you do with the recognition you are angry. Are you aware most of the time? Are you aware just some of the time? Are you aware when others are angry with you? All of the time? Some of the time? This is your work with anger recognition. I want you to study this with great specificity. Learn about this about you. It will help us see where your work is. I appreciate the complexity of this task. It is hard to be aware of what you are not aware of... right? So this can be a little tricky. So here are a few suggestions. 1. Remember that a key is to catch yourself telling yourself "I shouldn't feel this" etc.... Look for that. Write it down when you find that. 2. Remember that we are at work on emotional eating and that means that sometimes when you don't know what you aren't feeling, the fact of the eruption of an eating impulse may signal something at play emotionally. Hence, please be curious about eating impulses. Look at them as a potential treasure map helping you see where to probe to see what you are feeling. 3. Sometimes an element in recognition problems is that you don't know what iterations of anger qualify as being regarded as anger. With that in mind, it may be helpful to read Parrot's categories of primary, secondary and tertiary anger states.
(W. Gerrod Parrot, 2001) Read through and consider these sub-sets of anger in trying to improve your recognition of when you are angry. All of these apply. 4. As I mentioned in class, passive-aggression is a likely thing with people who do not recognize their own anger. To track passive aggression, look for times where you recognize feeling some sort of "gotcha" or "passive glee" or where you notice a kind of grin or muffled laugh you have when you are pleased at someone getting their due... 5. Further, if you do recognize you are passive aggressive and in fact have a loved one who claims that is true of you, then ask them to point it out. Open up to the possibility that this person can help you identify you are angry by helping you become aware of passive aggressive actions or interactions. Below you will find a set of readings that can help you with this. Some of them are more generally about emotional management - about emotion regulation. Some of them are specifically about recognizing anger. It is all good stuff!! |
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