Understanding Emotional DNA: What Is It?

The nature vs. nurture debate, which aims to solve the source of your responses to your environment, has gained mixed reactions from scientists and psychologists through the years. Some believe that genetics has a more significant impact on your physical, emotional, and mental predisposition, while others say that your upbringing has a substantial influence on your maturity levels.

Inherent Inheritance

Emotional DNA falls to the side of the nature argument since the science pertains to understanding your inherited emotional responses. It leads to patterns and outcomes in your life that can be traced within your ancestry.

The study believes that your ancestors created a blueprint of decisions made during the events they encountered in their lives. This blueprint is then passed on to their descendants, which serves as pre-programmed responses when faced with similar situations.

It’s been widely known that disorders like depression, bipolarity, and anxiety have physical implications, and you also model the behavior of your parents as you grow up. However, emotional DNA goes deeper than that since you inherit inherent traits that may hinder your psychological growth, especially if you aren’t aware of unhelpful habits passed on to you by your ancestors.
Unawareness of this psychological aspect of life may be the reason why some families see past sins haunting the present generation. Extreme examples could be patterns of falling into the trap of an abusive marriage, the continuous cycle of teenage pregnancies, or vulnerability to alcoholism.

Reprogram Your Mindset

As much as you may want to create objective decisions for your personal relationships or career, emotions have a significant influence in this process. Fortunately, you can rewire your emotional DNA through therapies and rehabilitation programs.

Awareness is key to this aspect of your being since you should understand what compels your action or inaction. This way, you’ll be able to take full control of your future.

Here are some tips to help you master your emotional, genetic predisposition:

1. Find a Trustworthy Psychologist or Life Coach

It’s tempting to think that you can come to the point of full honesty and awareness of yourself. However, you’ll have emotional blind spots where you’re in denial that you have an issue with an aspect of your personality or you don’t feel that it’s a problem at all.

Sometimes, family and friends want to protect you from yourself by sugarcoating your unpleasant traits and habits. Enlisting the help of a psychologist or life coach can ensure that someone is willing to tell you the truth about your negative characteristics. Plus, they can teach you meditative techniques to deal with different emotions and situations.

2. Learn the Language of Emotions

Study the language of emotion so that you can give a proper descriptor to your feelings. Understand the nuances between sadness, grief, and misery. These sentiments may seem similar to each other, but they have subtle differences that are applicable to varied, specific situations.

Start with learning the proper term to use when you’re feeling down or angry. This factor can lead to a deeper awareness of the different emotions you encounter daily.

3. Accept Both Happy and Sad Feelings

There’s a categorization of feelings where some are perceived as positive, such as elation and pride, while others are seen as negative, like anger and sadness. However, these emotions are universal and experienced by most people.

You mustn’t deny yourself in feeling these things. You must accept them as they come. In this acceptance and awareness, you’ll become more adept at managing these emotions and deal with them better next time.
For instance, if you find that you punch walls when you get angry, being aware that you’re already in a livid state can help you rein in your temper. Getting into the habit of accepting your anger can help you master this knee-jerk physical reaction and pour that energy into more productive actions like making music or art.

4. Be Aware of Your Triggers

You should also accept your trigger points. Everyone has varied responses to different situations. One person may not be susceptible to alcoholism but is vulnerable to drug addiction. It’s vital that you come to the point of ultimate awareness of your weak spots so you can steer clear of them as much as possible.

Conclusion

Emotional DNA has a significant influence in your life. Awareness of the patterns that you inherited from your ancestors can help you and your family break repressive cycles of behaviors that are unproductive or, worse, harmful to you and society. Speak with a psychologist or life coach who can help you identify your positive and negative traits and become a better person.