THE IMPORTANCE OF EMOTIONAL WELLNESS (FAMILY CONTEXT)

Practicing emotional wellness and approaching emotions in a healthy manner is always a challenge no matter the stage in our life, such as aging out of a foster care agency or, more specifically, Riverside foster care or San Diego foster agencies–but it’s a journey that is always worth the fight. 

As human beings, it’s natural to experience emotions and be afraid of them sometimes. Yet, despite them not being tangible, they still deeply affect and impact our quality of life. Everything we do, after all, is initially driven by emotion and hopefully met with objectivity to make the best decisions. 

But what is emotional wellness? 

Emotional wellness is the state of accepting, validating, and remaining aware of one’s emotions, but understanding that acting with maturity and objectivity is the healthiest way to manage them–regardless of what they may be. For example, you can be angry but not project your frustrations on others, or you can be sad but intentionally make an effort not to bring others down. 

In addition, emotional wellness does not only impact you: it affects those around you and the relationship you have with yourself, and even the ability to have relationships at all–both personal and professional. Investing time into practicing emotional wellness leads to like-minded people gravitating towards you, opens the doors for developing deeper connections and with others, and better opportunities–such as working in fostering agency jobs, and enables you to recognize your own emotional needs. 

However, it’s vital to remember that emotional wellness is not about remaining in a permanent state of happiness-. Instead, it is a constant practice to face emotions across the whole spectrum, and we must care to develop and improve upon it for the rest of our lives.

Furthermore, emotional wellness also impacts your physical health.

Our physical and emotional well-being go hand-in-hand with one another; we need both to function normally and at our best. Neglecting one and hoping it compensates the other can never be a solution. In other words, managing your emotions translates into the state of your health. Physiologically speaking, poor emotional management weakens your immune system thanks to increased cortisol, the stress hormone pumping throughout your body, and leaves you more susceptible to general fatigue, high blood pressure, aches, and insomnia.

In celebration of National Emotional Wellness Month this October, we’re exploring the importance of emotional wellness and why it’s imperative to implement it into both your life and that of your family. 

This is why teaching the importance of emotional wellness to your child is essential:

Emotional wellness creates a foundation for grounded, logical, and rational thinking in the face of difficult circumstances.

In the face of obstacles or moments where another person has hurt you, being level-headed is the last action you want to take–but it is vital to not only calm down but also remain calm. Acting impulsively from a place of emotion can make a situation worse or even unnecessarily heighten tension with others. 

While situations will be different for everyone, one thing to keep in mind is asking yourself the question: “Is this worth my time, energy, and the fight?”. Partly, yes, because your emotions are valid–but separating your emotions from the truth serves to give you a moment to take a step back to assess the situation or person properly. There is always a better way to cope with either, and what matters most is making decisions based on what is truly best for everyone involved. 

What’s more, there will be instances where circumstances are out of your control. Despite the fact that emotional wellness enables you to stay resilient regardless of what has happened, thus giving you the room to physically and mentally breathe before determining how to move forward. 

Self-reflecting in a proper headspace becomes a habit.

You cannot self-reflect without creating the proper headspace for yourself. Otherwise, as mentioned before, it becomes easy to make subjective judgments rather than objective ones. In addition, emotions tend to cause tunnel vision, thus preventing us from seeing the entirety of any situation because we hyperfocus on how we alone were affected by it. Emotional wellness enables us to separate ourselves from the small details of a situation to instead see the bigger picture and the impact of our actions.

Self-reflection itself is also the practice of self-honesty, meaning if you were in the wrong or were the cause of a difficult circumstance itself, you must be able to admit your faults. Being honest with oneself without reserve or desire to embellish the truth is an act of strength. Only when you can look at yourself with genuine transparency are you able to find answers and solutions that otherwise would not have been possible without emotional wellness supporting the action. 

The future becomes less intimidating, and you begin to look forward to everything it has to offer. 

Last but not least, emotional wellness helps you envision the future more clearly. If you know yourself, then you know what you want. If you manage emotions well, then coping with life with resilience and tenacity will come second nature. Although life and emotions are more complicated than we like them to be sometimes, we can overcome them. In the long run, practicing emotional wellness equips us with the right mental tools and coping mechanisms to best approach challenges, unfortunate circumstances, and pain. 

At the same time, however, because we have the emotional wellness to deal with the tough stuff, we can experience happiness, joy, and fulfillment with not only awareness but appreciation.