Psychologist Cecil Neuville reveals all the signals sent by your body and your environment that prove it’s time to get your emotions back on track.
Sometimes, without realizing it, you end up being a spectator of your life rather than a protagonist. Disconnecting from oneself, we adopt an automatic mode, we no longer pay attention to the environment, our sensations, our emotions. Settling can lead us to make bad decisions, such as getting into relationships that aren’t right for us. Only if you float too high on yourself do you risk “running your own life” and becoming dangerously prone to burnout or depression, warns psychologist Cecil Newville, who specializes in positive psychology. To avoid the effects of a pressure cooker, here are the warning signs:
In the video, these signs that prove you are intellectually fatigued
“That your back is full”
The first red flag is the one waved by the body, says the psychologist, also the author of the book Skip 5 minutes a day (1). According to the expert, the state of fatigue, pains such as headache, back or stomach are valuable clues to our disconnection and are caused by emotional exhaustion. “The phrase ‘my back is full’ takes on its full meaning here and tells us that it may be time to delegate, to let go of our responsibilities if they become too overwhelming,” she points out.
Blurred senses
Hearing, tasting, touching, seeing, smelling… The sensory organs allow us to connect to the outside world to better understand it. A change in this level indicates a potential phase shift. “When disconnection is important, we find ourselves disoriented. We see, we hear, we feel, but we no longer pay attention to what our senses perceive,” explains Cecil Neuville. This inattention will be felt in everyday life, when, for example, we miss information that has already been explained and repeated several times by a loved one.
An emotional tsunami
The psychologist also invites you to examine your emotional state, more specifically, to identify intense negative emotions on a daily basis. According to him, anger, fear or even jealousy are expressions of “emotional disorder”. “These negative emotions do not come from outside, but from us,” emphasizes Cecil Neuville. The more intense and repeated these are, the more they show us that we are moving towards a situation that does not suit us, even that we are going against our beliefs.
Very often this emotional tsunami is also accompanied by a form of self-flagellation. We feel useless, invisible, misunderstood, out of place without really knowing why.
Skipped activities
The results of our actions also give a signal. If we constantly encounter an obstacle with every project we start, then it is possible that it does not correspond to our real desire, the psychologist observes. And it can also sometimes lead to unintentional injuries. “If we’re getting injured every workout, or signing up for the gym but never going, it may reflect a lack of desire on our part. Realizing that you need to change direction. In the case of physical activity, for example, you can think of another way of doing sports.
What others tell us
How we interact with another also says a lot about our shift. “When you’re disconnected, you feel lost in a great void. So in order to find meaning in your life, you either isolate yourself or seek frequent conflicts,” says Cecil Neuville. In a couple, for example, a lost and out of phase person will no longer know how to communicate with their partner and sometimes they will understand and reject them, sometimes they will be aggressive towards their loved one, summarizes the specialist.
If a partner or friend is concerned about our health or our morale, we should also ask questions, especially if this observation is repeated. “When a few people point out how tired we look and inquire about the date of our next vacation, maybe it’s time to take those holidays we’ve been slow to ask,” he comments.
To take inventory
To avoid waiting until things go wrong to get better, Cecil Neville recommends listening carefully and regularly to your feelings. And for that you need to know yourself better. That’s why a professional recommends a monthly “appliance inventory.” This simple exercise consists of a written inventory of the “9 pillars of one’s life”: love life, family life, social life, health and body, pleasures, daily management (administrative, domestic), actions for the world (altruism and generosity). ), and personal well-being.
For each of these categories, the psychologist invites you to write a list of positive and negative emotions associated with them. Once this is done, we use our resources to find ways to bypass said negative emotions.
(1) Skip 5 minutes a dayCécile Neuville, Éditions Leduc, 192 p., €6.90.
Source: Le Figaro
