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UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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UNDERSTANDING
LOVE & EMOTIONS
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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UNDERSTANDING
LOVE & EMOTIONS
BY ADENIKE ADEKUNLE
ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form
without the prior written permission of the copyright owner
COPYRIGHT (C) 2018
ISBN: 978-978-957-826-9
Published in Nigeria by:
Swim Concepts Publications
tel: +234-7036288244
Email: [email protected]
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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QUICK GUIDE
UNDERSTANDING YOUR EMOTIONS ............................................................................................................ 4
EMOTIONS BY NATURE ................................................................................................................................. 6
HANDLING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS ................................................................................................................. 9
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS .................................................................................................................... 12
WHO IS NIKE ADEKUNLE? ........................................................................................................................... 13
NIKE ADEKUNLE’S BOOKS ........................................................................................................................... 14
NEVER MISS AN UPDATE FROM SWIM ....................................................................................................... 17
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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UNDERSTANDING YOUR EMOTIONS
Expressing your emotions aptly in relationship determine to what extent you are
likely to enjoy your relationship. Without doubt, we are all emotional beings, no
matter how much we claim our decisions are logical and emotions free, the truth is
most of our decisions are predicated on past experiences and the corresponding
emotion that was derived.
Can you safely categorize your feelings? Do you know how to truthfully and
respectfully communicate your feelings? We all have learned to hide, deny or
package our emotions, some people even believe that only weaklings discuss their
feelings but let me emphatically state that, you are unlikely to fully enjoy your
relationship or bond deeply with your spouse or partner if you don’t understand or
can’t adequately communicate your emotions.
Everyone, whether consciously or subconsciously wants, to be understood on a deep
level. To know someone beyond the peripheral means you are both willing to divulge
sensitive information about yourselves without the fear of judgment.
Being able to trust your partner with your feelings is a huge part of having a great
relationship. When you share something intimately personal, how does your partner
react to your disclosure? Are they supportive or make you feel weird? The way
they handle the information determines whether trust is built or broken. If well-
handled, it could even give you more strength to deal with whatever the issues are
which in turn builds more trust and dependency. On the contrary, if the
information is not well handled, it could meet with a resolve not to be that
vulnerable again in future.
Before you can communicate at this level, you must be able to read your emotional
cues, understand them and then interpret them. You should also understand the
timing, triggers and the underlying thoughts behind certain emotions. Do you
understand how you feel when you are excited, nervous, afraid, worried, relieved,
angry, violated, sad, ashamed, indifferent, happy, expectant, threatened, insecure,
happy etc. You need to be able to adequately label how you feel per time. No one
can understand you if you don’t understand yourself.
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We all bond with people we are able to establish similarities and common-grounds
with, I call it “me-too moments”.
Shallow relationships remain on the ‘me-too’ levels but deeper and stronger bonds
are formed when you seek to understand people’s unfamiliar moments and
understand them.
This catapults your relationship to a whole new level and as a result, you will be
comfortable to talk about your fears and struggles without shame or blame.
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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EMOTIONS BY NATURE
We all go through millions of emotions in our relationship, and those emotions
create brain chemicals that change the way we feel. Sometimes these emotions are
positive or neutral and at other times they are negative towards our partners or
even ourselves.
Understanding the nature and reason for your emotions will help unravel why we
feel what we feel and what to do with the feelings. To fully understand your
emotions, you’ll have to realize that:
1. Emotions are primitive. It is unstable and cannot be trusted. Facts are not
always as it presents itself and sometimes facts are untrue. The story always is
broader than our emotions care to capture. The next time you feel a particular
way, question the feeling so as to ascertain its authenticity.
2. Emotions provide information about one’s core goals and needs. It
communicates information about a person’s needs and how the person should
respond. It’s like an alarm that is set off each time a person is expected to
react.
3. Emotions prepare an individual for action. If our emotions aren’t there, we
would all probably walk into danger repeatedly.
4. Emotions can be stored in our memories. Past pain or pleasure ensures we
are protected from further or future pain. Once you have an experience, that
particular emotion is stored in the subconscious and it is triggered whenever
such experience is about to be repeated.
5. There are two broad systems of emotions, negative and positive. Negative
emotions signal threat and energize avoidance. Positive emotions signal
opportunity to meet needs and goals and energize approach.
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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TRIGGERS OF EMOTIONS
Emotion triggers are sets of behavior, stimuli or experiences that produce certain
feelings in a person. The brain perceives such stimulus and responds accordingly. It
also means that each time you a confronted with those sets of behavior your
emotions are triggered to either protect you from the threat or prep you to
explore the opportunity. Some emotion triggers include:
1. Past Experience: Past experiences leave their tastes in our buds. You either
have positive or negative experience and its associated feelings. If you had a
positive emotion after an experience, it is associated with pleasure. Our brains
interpret it as an opportunity to meet needs and goals which makes us want to
repeat the same experience. On the other hand if the experience is negative,
then it is interpreted as a threat and usually, you avoid such experience.
2. Background/Upbringing: The way a child is brought up determines the kind
of adult he becomes. A parents’ style of parenting, temperament and the
temperament of caregivers determine the perspective a child picks, which hardly
chances into adulthood. An over-pampered child, for instance, may continue to
seek overindulgence in people and interprets it as love. Such an individual even in
adulthood may be unable to respond to tough love and may interpret it as
wickedness.
3. Judgment of emotions: The way the people a person surrounds himself
with judge expression of emotions will determine the perceptive the individual
will adopt.
For instance, if a 4-year-old boy and girl get into a fight and the boy goes to his
parents crying to report the incidence. If they shut him up and say to him a girl
beat you and you are crying, then you must be a weakling and disgrace to the
male folk. What it does is that it releases a desire in him to always subdue girls.
He has a valid reason and drive henceforth.
We all need to be able to deal with our negative feelings. Inability to deal with
generated negative feelings is responsible for most of the problem we have in
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relationships and marriages today. There’s astronomical increase in communication
breakdown, bottling of pain and emotional detachment from partners and spouses.
The problem with not being upfront with the exact way you feel, after cross-
checking its authenticity, is that it creates new sets of problems which would be
addressed next week.
Know that to interpret your emotions correctly, you’ll need to step out of the
intensity of the feeling and ask yourself if the emotions are real or imagined. What
is influencing the feeling? Emotions are meant to be a guide, not a grave, they
provide information. Make better judgment by listening to your emotions. Release
negative feelings by handling your emotions more intelligently.
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HANDLING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
As human beings, negative feelings are created when there is a clash between what
you feel and the general/acceptable way you are expected to feel or react to a
situation.
For instance, some people believe that a man should not cry, so if a person unused
to such belief finds himself in such company, he tries to conform. It, therefore,
means that human beings have the complicated tendency of feeling one way and
acting out in other ways. The problem with not being upfront with the exact way
you feel, after cross-checking its authenticity, is that it creates new sets of
problems.
The inhibition of feelings comes with a cost. Let’s consider what happens as
individuals try to repress, distract, avoid or suppress their feelings. Such
suppressed feeling does not just vanish, they go into the subconscious while still
carrying its full potential.
As discussed earlier the function of the emotion is to communicate information
about needs and goals, which means that emotions (especially negative ones) are
directional. It is meant to be directed at ‘injustice’ done to you. If this emotion is
however suppressed, the negative emotion has not accomplished why it was
generated and so is still potent.
This is therefore what happens when you try to block negative emotions all the
time. The more you try to suppress the emotion, the more mental energy will be
needed to push that reality to the background.
And because the emotion being felt is real to you but have to be hidden because
you have to conform to acceptable standards, there is a clash within. This clash
causes you be harder on yourself which makes you increasingly develop harsher and
critical language to inhibit the feelings.
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In essence, it means instead of directing the negative emotion towards the object
of frustration, you are directing it at yourself! That is, your core feelings are
wounded and judged by the self-consciousness system, which creates a bad
intrapsychic cycle, a cycle where an individual turns against themselves, which can
easily lead to depression.
Hopefully, this brings into view how the maladaptive processing of emotions might
result into clinically significant problems. Let me add two more pieces. First, as
noted in the description of basic emotions, people differ in terms of the sensitivity
of their negative emotion system. This is called “trait neuroticism”.
Individuals high in trait neuroticism are thus particularly likely to struggle with
these issues because they are regularly having stronger negative feelings than
those around them, which can create complicated interpersonal dynamics,
especially if folks don’t have a good frame for understanding this (and often they
do not).
The result of this is that there is an increasing vulnerability that they will be
triggered and released uncontrollably. This often is what is going on when someone
unexpectedly flies off the handle with rage or has an anxiety attack or a
depressive crash or a profound experience of self-loathing that results in
a suicide attempt. They have been trying to hold back these feelings, but
eventually, enough triggers build and is filled to the brim, and all those stuffed
feelings come rushing out.
In such a moment, an individual becomes all of the feelings and often cannot help
but to act on the powerful negative emotional impulses. Of course, such raw,
painful, impulsive displays tend to cause more problems than they solve, it only
engrains such outburst (character), because, after such an episode, many
individuals will want to lock down their emotions, even more, setting the whole thing
up to repeat.
In conclusion, speak as truthfully as possible about how you feel. It is better to
confront negative emotions and resolve them. Don’t always be afraid of
confrontations. You can confront situations without being quarrelsome. But never
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hide your emotions especially in a relationship because it creates more problems
than it solves.
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
Send your questions and inquiries to [email protected] or call our helpline
number on +234-7036288244
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UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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WHO IS NIKE ADEKUNLE?
Nike Adekunle is the president of SWiM (Sisters, Wives
and Mothers) Forum.
At SWiM, Nike and her team equip men, women, married
and singles with all the information and strategies needed
to make relationships and marriage work.
In collaboration with members of SWiM, She hosts
REALationship Unfeigned (an initiative that promotes healthy relationships) and
Roaring Lioness (a prayer focus group).
She is a certified Marriage Instructor with the Family Wellness Associates
(North Carolina, USA) and has appeared on numerous radio and television
shows, teaching and helping both singles and married on how to enjoy bliss in
marriage.
Nike has written numerous articles on Family relationships, marriage and faith
and currently, has three published books, RELATIONSHIP UNFEIGNED, MY
VERSION AND BEHIND THESCENES.
She is married to her heartthrob, Olufemi Adekunle, a solicitor and together
they are blessed with three lovely kids
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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NIKE ADEKUNLE’S BOOKS
1. RELATIONSHIP UNFEIGNED
Is it possible to have a blissful, stress
free and a successful marriage?
It is estimated that over 50% of most
marriages end up in divorce with most
couples enduring instead of enjoying their
marriage.
However, in this book, “RELATIONSHIP UNFEIGNED”, I examine
problems bedeviling most marriage relationships and proffer practical and
easy to understand solutions on how to solve these problems in order to
build a lasting and a blissful marital relationship.
You need to a copy.
You can get your copy HERE or call +234-7036288244 to get it
delivered to you anywhere in Nigeria.
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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2. OLUWAMADEWA
This book details the rich romantic story of
Olumadewa, as she travels through life’s
uncertainties trying to make meaning of life
until she finally discovered that the big
hands of God was working behind the scene
to make everything beautiful for her.
Through this book, you will gain clarity
about LOVE, PAIN, PATIENCE and how rejection can be turned into
opportunities for greatness.
You can get your copy HERE or call +234-7036288244 to get it
delivered to you anywhere in Nigeria.
3. MY VERSION
Have you ever wondered what Judas was thinking
when he betrayed Jesus? Or why Esau could be so
stupid enough to sell his birthright for a meal that
is lesser than a #2000 meal at KFC….?
Well, that is what I seeks to uncover in this book.
Written in contemporary setting and simple
narrative, this book will give you a fresh view point
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about these biblical characters with a view of helping us to identify with
their humanity and frailty while taking a cue from their errors in order
to avoid their mistake.
This book is available for purchase both online and offline. To get it
online, click HERE
To get it offline, please call us on +234-7036288244 to place your
order.
UNDERSTANDING LOVE & EMOTIONS | BY NIKE ADEKUNLE
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NEVER MISS AN UPDATE FROM SWIM
Every week, we send out actionable insight on how to build a beautiful,
romance filled and a thriving relationship to people.
We would love you to enjoy this freebie, to sign up, just click HERE and
we will take it up from there.
Do have a LOVE- FILLED marriage
………………………………………………….
Love always (Nike Adekunle)
