What is your Emotional Temperature and Why it Matters
Emotional temperature is a tool you can use to help you understand your feelings and more easily identify the need to implement skills to prevent yourself from reaching an extreme emotion. Your emotional temperature can be assessed using a typical thermometer and can look different from person to person. The colors and numbers can be used to indicate the level or intensity of your emotions. Ideally you would get in the habit of checking your emotional temperature several times a day. Your goal is to stay in the lower half of the thermometer as often as possible to effectively manage and be able to reach your goals.
Taking your emotional temperature throughout the day will help you to:
Listen to your body and its needs before you make poor choices. Experiencing an increase of negative emotions (or being in the orange or yellow zone of the thermometer) may mean that it's time to start to intentionally implement a strategy, skill, or intervention to prevent getting to the red zone. This could look like feeling increased stress and being in the orange zone so you decide to take a time out to go for a walk and get back into the yellow zone.
Understand your triggers. If you were in the green zone all day long and suddenly feel your emotional temperature rising this could indicate you’ve encountered a trigger. This may be something that in that past you would not have identified otherwise because the change was so slight. Ask yourself, “What about my situation or interaction is affecting me? What are my emotions trying to tell me?”
Increase awareness of your emotions. Emotions are messages and an essential part of our being. They help us communicate and connect with others, while also understanding what's important to us. Being in tune with our emotions can help us have more effective and connected relationships with ourselves and others.