Jenna Wasvick

COMM 212
Professor Folden
02/19/2023
Video Reflection – Emotional Courage

It is easy to try hide how we are feeling to fit how we think society wants us to act and feel. The

expression of negative emotions is not something that is accepted graciously. Due to this

unwritten rule, people have a challenging time knowing how to identify and express the

emotions they are feeling in a constructive way. We need to unlearn some of these old ways of

thinking about our feelings to figure out how to manage and express ourselves in a way that

provides us with the tools to feel more positively about ourselves and our lives.

It is important to note that believing our emotions are controlled by outside forces is an overly

irrational way to think. As Susan David pointed out in her Ted Talk, our emotions do not control

us, we control our emotions and to think otherwise is not taking accountability for the way we

are responding to external factors. This way of thinking relates to the concept of the fallacy of

causation, which is believing that emotions are not caused by our own self talk. We are in control

fully of the way we feel whether we believe that fact or not. How we respond is how we are

going to end up feeling about an occurrence.

Addressing the importance of identifying our emotions in a way that is effective to understanding

them, David encourages us to use “I” statements. However, she does not want us to do this in a

way that puts a label on ourselves, such as “I am angry,” because we are not our emotions, we

just have them. David wants us to use “I am noticing” statements to better understand and
identify our emotions as we are feeling them, such as “I am noticing I am angry.” By monitoring

and putting a name to the feelings, we can also identify what is causing these emotions to arise.

Once we realize that we are in control of our emotions and can put a name to them to help us

understand how and why we are feeling a certain way, we can figure out why we feel a certain

way about different situations. If we conclude that the way we think about situations is irrational

and makes us feel unnecessary negative emotions, then we can reappraise the way we think to

feel better about ourselves and lives. When we switch the way we are thinking and expressing

our emotions, we can start thinking more positively, which will cause positive emotions in place

of debilitating ones.