Are You Emotionally Available?

Do you really want to know?
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Funny story, I got asked this question, and it got me thinking what it means to be emotionally available. Emotionally unavailable is a term that the Sub-Reddit "Dating Over 30" thread has plenty to say about. We often hear about emotionally unavailable people, but what does it mean to be emotionally available?

Emotions remain a long-standing hot topic in self-help world. Common terms include emotional intelligence, emotional maturity, and emotional regulation. Hence best selling books include titles such as Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and The Emotionally Intelligent Manager. Emotions center the conversations around relationships of all types. With all of the discussion around the importance of emotions, how do we begin to understand this complex topic? How do they influence our relationships?

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Affective Realism. Emotions give us information about ourselves in the world around us. In the book How Emotions Are Made, Lisa Feldman Barrett writes:

"Emotions are not reactions to the world. You are not a passive receiver of sensory input but an active constructor of your emotions. From sensory input and past experience, your brain constructs meaning and prescribes action. If you didn't have concepts that represent your past experience, all your sensory inputs would be noise. You wouldn't know what the sensations are, what caused them, nor how to behave to deal with them."

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Affective realism describes how our emotions influence how we perceive the world around us. Like colored glasses, we see the world through the filter of our emotional states. Past experiences dictate current behavior, and we may repeat maladaptive patterns without carefully examining our filters. However, with increased awareness, we can engage in empathic responses, get curious about others, and (to be blunt) put our shit aside to be there for the people around us.

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Any understanding of empathy debunks the myth that "no one can make you feel a certain way." However, there is a limit to how responsible we are for how others feel. Accumulation of life experiences sway how we view a situation. The following five tendencies are common ways we respond to our emotional state, and how they influence the relationships around us:

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• Emotional Delegators: "I need you to make me feel better." These are the people who feel like they're drowning in their disappointment, anxiety, or guilt and need others to make them feel better. Often, they'll spiral and maybe become angry with others when they don't feel better. Shame, guilt, and anxiety are common emotions that feel like a rough undercurrent. Emotional delegators become lost in their own stories and have difficulty shifting perspectives. Anything that feels disagreeable threatens them, and others may feel responsible.

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• Emotional Caretakers: "I'm responsible for how you feel." Emotional caretakers will blame themselves for how others feel and want to make everyone else happy. If someone feels sad, disappointed, anxious, angry, or pleased, emotional caretakers take it on as their responsibility. They're perceptive to the feelings of others, and are unsure of their own emotional states or wellbeing. "If everyone else is happy, then I'm happy" is the motto. They may sometimes become passive-aggressive due to feeling resentful and emotionally in charge. Passive-aggressiveness occurs when there is no room or practice in expressing emotions, vulnerability, or ability to receive from others.

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• Emotional Blamers: Emotional blamers will blame everyone around them for their emotions and actions responding to those emotions. You can think of a parent who blames children for how they're behaving. "Look what you made me do" is the motto for emotional blamers. The emotional bandwidth may appear rather extreme because they look to everyone else to bring them along in the tornado of anger or the pool of happy-go-lucky. They differ from emotional delegators as they don't always look to feel better since their emotional states give them power in relational dynamics.

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• Emotional Avoiders: "Don't give into emotions" is the motto for emotional avoiders. Emotional avoiders tend to stay in a narrow window of emotions. They often feel overwhelmed by other people's strong emotions and aim to feel steady and in control. Avoiders are very logical, intellectualize, and value thinking over feeling. People in their lives may experience avoiders to be dismissive, and difficult to get to know.

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• Emotionally Responsible: "You can feel, and I can be." Those who are emotionally responsible use emotional boundaries for where one ends and another begins. Understanding is not the same as agreeing or condoning. Emotionally responsible individuals see relationships as the space between two (or more) people. The space between represents varying perspectives and can withstand hard conversations with compassion at the center. Emotionally responsible people apologize for their part and lean into curiosity for the other person. They own their emotional wellbeing and empathize with those around them.

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You can't control how you feel, but you can control your perception of the emotion, how you respond, and gain awareness around your capacity to be emotionally responsible. Mindfulness—rooted in awareness, openness, and nonjudgment—lays the groundwork for emotional growth. Practice with kindness- your relational life depends on it.

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Emotionally Available (although the jury is out on that one),

Brittani