Emotions - part 3

While I was studying the 5 Prism model (at 5Prism Academy) and we were going through the Emotions module, the trainer mentioned a very interesting concept: emotion is how your body reflects your thoughts. This is based on the Lazarus theory of emotion, where the author states that when an event happens, it first triggers cognitive thought processes, which then triggers emotional reactions, and then that leads to certain actions.

This is very relevant for coaching. Basically, often our emotions and body will show inner thought processes and actual deep cognitive settings better than what we can actually be saying out loud. Why? Because sometimes we are trying to convince ourselves in what is “right” based on society, environment etc, however we don’t genuinely believe in this. For example, this can be very visible in situations with procrastination: we think that we “must” do something, but this “must” does not come from inside, and receives a ton of internal resistance, and there are always excuses regarding why this cannot be done or is not done yet. And when we manage to dig deeper and understand what the true driver is or what the stop-signal is, the level of energy changes noticeably, and this connection between the different parts of the brain creates peace of mind and the new action plan appears almost out of the blue.

Sometimes it is very difficult to notice that link between actual emotions and thoughts independently, and that’s where a coach can help.