Emotional Maturity: Feel it to Heal it.

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― Oscar Wilde

Feel it.

First responders typically do not like expressing emotions which can be due to a multitude of reasons. One of the first things you will most likely work on in therapy is healthy emotional identification and expression. Sometimes as children first responders may be subjected to emotionally unhealthy individuals which impacts their ability to correctly identify their own emotions or the emotions of others. Once these connections are rewired to appropriately identify a variety of different emotions it becomes important to learn how to express them in a healthy way.

Do you compartmentalize your emotions or completely shut them down? That’s not always a bad thing and can be a valuable tool. Where the problem comes in is when your brain fails to go back to the situation and feel the emotions it felt during the event you compartmentalized. Why is this a bad thing? Your brain needs to simultaneously think and feel in order to process an event in to long term memory. That’s important because it allows the brain to realize that event happened in the past so your brain does not continue to react as if it’s reliving the event.

One of the most effective tools at helping first responders accomplish this is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). This therapeutic approach trains the brain to process emotion while thinking of a specific target. After a few sessions the brain is typically able to learn how to process emotions outside of a therapists office.

So while you may not want to feel the emotion, your brain needs to in order to heal in a healthy way.