Emotional First Aid

Last night I dragged my friend Aimee to the first lecture in a speakers series hosted by the Ben's Bells Project. As a TED Talk addict, I'd heard Guy Winch's presentation before and was really impressed by his insight into how humans are often so good about taking care of our bodies yet not very well trained in taking care of our minds. Five year olds can brush their teeth and put Band Aids on their cuts, however parents don't always do a good job of teaching them how to appropriately deal with rejection and failures and all the emotions that come with those societal inevitabilities.

It's really enlightening when you stop to consider how you react when your child is sad and disappointed because he or she isn't invited to a party or is in some way made to feel excluded from a group. We tell them, "Oh who cares what they think? You don't need them. They're not nice people anyway." But that doesn't make the child any less sad. Emotions and feelings are something you have to move through, sit with, process, and understand. Guy Winch's solution to that parenting problem is acknowledging the sadness and then inviting another friend over as soon as possible. The sooner the child realizes that they do have peers who like to spend time in their company and value their friendship, the better the child will be able to move through those feelings of rejection and, emotionally, feel better.

The talk last night wasn't all about helping your child, though. He gave some good lessons on protecting our own self-esteem, reducing our self-criticisms, and shared ideas on how to better connect with others even when we feel like or are an emotional mess. Incidentally, there's nothing wrong with showing emotion. Crying when you're sad doesn't make you a weak person. If you keep crying without rebounding, then maybe you do need to work on strengthening your resolve; but I realized that even though I probably do cry more than the average person, it's okay because I move through it and then move on. Sometimes it might take awhile, but as long as we are taking steps towards moving on, we're moving in the right direction. An important point he made last night is that crying is not breaking down. "If your car breaks down, you can't go anywhere. If you cry then rebound and keep going, you're not 'breaking down.'"

It was really a thought-provoking lecture, and I'm grateful that I went. It's inspired me to read his book and explore these methods of healing whenever I do feel rejected, like a failure, invisible, or lonely. As he's proven, taking care of our minds really is as important as taking care of our bodies. These emotional exercises should be just as necessary to me as running, working out, and riding my bike.