The start of the university journey and every term and class on out initiates a whirlwind of emotions. From homesickness to isolation, and from stress to full-blown depression, navigating the college scene can be emotionally challenging.
There are real pressing demands and responsibilities that must be attended to, often at the expense of putting one’s emotional health on the back burner. Some students become masters at ignoring what comes up for them during conversations or incidents. Others acknowledge the feelings but address them via unhealthy (often self-destructive) habits.
Over two years in university, I have lived with 25 other people in total (roommates and apartment mates over many school quarters). I came to love each one of those individuals who were once strangers to me by the end of our time together.
My time living with that many human beings who are also college students gave me a superlative insight into human nature and the nature of the college experience. Not to be reductive of individuals, but I think my experience can serve as a social ethnography. This blog post will be a less messy version of my field notes.
There are observations that I noticed and recorded throughout the entire experience (which is in some ways ongoing) in many personal journals, and which I will analyze and summarize for you today. Although there are more nuances than what meets the eye, I think there were some incredible insights and general trends regarding emotional health management that I think are invaluable and that I will share with you.
As always, my favorite books on this topic are: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz, The Garden Within by Anita Phillips, and Be Water, My Friend by Shanon Lee.
1. Emotional Awareness
As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), an awareness of a problem is a problem half-solved. Many people go through life without any thoughts regarding their thoughts (meta-cognition). Many people aren’t aware of what they are feeling.
The problem with this is that there’s no going forward if you don’t know where you are right now. If you aren’t clear, then you will be confused or ignorant of your emotional state.
Emotional health, like many other things, can only be improved when it is measured. How do you feel right now? What do you think is causing or triggering this emotion(s)? Is this what you ideally would like to feel in this circumstance or situation? Answering these questions is how you become emotionally aware.
Emotionally healthy people aren’t necessarily the ones who experience “positive” emotions all the time (or experience minimal “negative” ones), but those who can recognize and describe what they are experiencing emotionally, regardless of what it is.
2. Emotion Management
Once the emotional experience is identified and acknowledged, an emotionally healthy person seeks to address it. This step is heavily situation-dependent.
Emotion management involves protecting, directing, and aligning your emotions and their physical displays to match what your higher self desires, which most likely is not the naturally occurring emotion. In social psychology, this is referred to as “emotion work.”
The reason why it is termed such is because it is most definitely work to do this. It takes a lot of practice and discipline to 1) be aware of your emotions and 2) address them appropriately for the circumstance. It is important to note that addressing your emotions does not mean suppressing them, it is simply guiding them.
Emotionally healthy people manage their emotions by taking the time to guide and adjust their actions in alignment with their pre-decided ideals during rising emotions.
This leaves the possibility that the emotion may not be resolved immediately. And that is okay. Emotionally healthy people keep tabs on things that come up for them throughout their day and circle back to address them deeply at more appropriate times.
3. Emotional Relief
By being aware of your emotions and managing them wisely when they arise, you can shield yourself from any of their unwanted consequences. However, as mentioned above, this does not permanently resolve the emotion or address its root cause. For this, we need emotional relief.
Emotionally healthy people carve out time in their day to be quiet and sit with their thoughts. They make it a point to reflect on events, not obsessively, but to derive lessons with which to make adjustments to their behavior or lifestyle. More importantly, they let themselves re-experience certain emotions that they may have controlled at their primary arousal.
This is important to do because it validates your experience, individuality, and humanity. It also strengthens your ability to do emotional work when times call for it, as you will know that you will give yourself time to come back to it later and process it.
Emotional relief also entails taking appropriate measures to process your emotions. This can come in many forms, including writing about your experiences, communicating them to another person, finding resources to remedy their causes, or placing yourself in communities and environments where your experiences are shared and understood by others. By so doing, you free yourself from the weight of unprocessed and suppressed emotions.
Conclusion
This has been your starter’s guide to emotional health as a college student. In this conversation, it is important to remember that these tools are only a small fraction of the many tools that are available on this topic, including seeking guidance from specialized professionals, which may be the most effective action step for certain experiences and their associated emotions.
Overall, understanding that emotional health begins with awareness is key to unlocking your internal wisdom on how you can best manage your emotions. Moreover, managing emotions is independent of processing them. Managing emotions is more or less for the sake of consequences and other people while relieving or processing them is for your emotional health. I hope this was helpful, my friend.