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We're all born to express emotions. Whether we choose to do it in a healthy way is another story. When we feel emotions, there are three options – either we allow ourselves to express them and let them pass, we suppress them, or we focus heavily on them, leaving them to fester inside us and cause all sorts of problems.

What is Emotional Expression?

Our bodies are hardwired to feel emotions – whether we express them or not is our choice. Feeling sadness, anger or joy are natural responses to all the events our brains process every day. Throughout history, emotions have played a big role in human evolution. Going back millions of years, our brains developed emotions to pass along responses to certain events to help preserve the species. It's why seeing a predator naturally makes us feel fear – so we know we need to run to save our lives. Emotional expression is simply the acknowledgement of these emotions we are built to feel. Healthy expression allows us to understand the emotions, truly feel them and move on.

There are six basic emotions humans are born with that we should all be able to recognize:

Anger
Sadness
Fear
Disgust
Surprise
Joy

We need to have awareness of these emotions as they happen. Awareness starts with understanding how they make us feel. It is also important to recognize situations that make them happen. This helps process emotions and let them go in a healthy and productive way. For example, venting or dumping strong feelings isn't always helpful. It can actually cause more harm than we intend.

Why is Emotional Expression Important?

Our brains process and assign an emotion to every experience we have. From breakfast in the morning to the TV show we watch at night. It's one of the brain's main functions. It's why certain smells can make our hearts flutter, or why an old song can make us sad. But in order for the process to work and to feel healthy emotions, we need to express feelings in the right ways. We need to recognize which one we're feeling, express it and move on. When feeling emotions, we often respond in two ways:

Focus on the reason for the emotion – "I'm so angry because he said that."
Talk ourselves out of it and stuff it – "I'm not going to think about this and let it ruin my day."

Neither of these are productive ways of expressing emotion. We need to feel the feelings and let them go to deal with them in a healthy way.

Expressing an emotion doesn't have to be something outward like slamming a door, yelling into a pillow or even telling someone about it. It can happen entirely in our minds, too. Instead of getting enraged at someone, we have to forget who we're angry at, forget the story behind it and allow ourselves to truly feel the emotion inside. We can say to ourselves, "I'm really mad, and that's OK."

Just by doing that, we loosen the emotion's grip over our well-being. Expressing our emotions brings about a lot more benefits, too.

Helps see problems in a new light
Makes decision making and problem solving easier
Gets rid of the power of the feeling
Reduces anxiety
Eases depression

When we fail to express our emotions, our brain can often go into the fight-or-flight state. This is a physical reaction to stress that sets off a chain of events throughout our bodies. It increases our heart rate, slows digestive functions and makes us feel anxious or depressed.

How Do I Use Emotional Expression to Overcome Stress?

Emotional expression is key to a healthy life. It gets bad feelings out of our system. It prevents the fight-or-flight state that leads to so many health problems. And if we express our emotions, we can take back control of our minds from the stress that can often overwhelm it.

Here is a way to move uncomfortable emotions quickly:

Identify the emotion you are feeling. Is it anger, sadness, fear, disgust?
Focus on the emotion without the reason you are feeling that way. This is going to be difficult because we usually think about the reason we are feeling a certain way or we try to stuff it.

Focus on where you feel this emotion in your body and what it feels like. It might help to give it a shape or color and focus on that. If you start thinking about why you are feeling it, stop yourself and go back to just focusing on the basic emotion.

Take deep breaths and as you exhale, imagine the emotion melting away.
Continue to do this until you feel relief. If you leave the story out of it, the relief should come quickly – five minutes or less.

When we take control from stress, we can put our minds at ease and focus on more important things that bring us joy and happiness. Here are some more emotional expression exercises and activities to help overcome stress.

Exercises
1. RELAXATION EXERCISES
2. JOURNALING
3. SITUATION. OPTIONS. CONSEQUENCES * (Details Below)
4. SELF-TALK
5. SOFT HEART TOOL
6. FACIAL EXPRESSIONS EXERCISE

3. SITUATION. OPTIONS. CONSEQUENCES.

This is a problem solving technique that helps you understand what emotions you're feeling and encourages you to think things through before you act. When you find yourself having to deal with a strong emotion or a stressful situation, remember this technique and take a few seconds to consider each step.

Assess the situation – What exactly is happening and what emotion is it making you feel? Is it anger, fear or something else?
List your options – Think about the choices you have to problem solve. If you're angry, you could yell and stomp around, you could suppress it or you could acknowledge it, feel it and move on.
Think about the consequences – If you've chosen to yell and stomp, there's a good chance you're not going to solve the problem. You could, however, ruin relationships with the people around you or cause someone harm.

Try working through an example situation using this technique with our sample worksheet.

5. SOFT HEART TOOL

The institute of HeartMath developed this effective and popular tool to help recuperate and re-energize from the emotional stresses of everyday life. Your "soft heart" is an easygoing, warm place of compassion. Think of it like a comforting blanket or a warm bath. Utilize this technique when you're disturbed, overwhelmed, depressed or feeling some type of negative emotion. Download the instructions, print them out and put them on your office desk or your bedroom mirror to remember the steps.

Soft Heart Tool

When our bodies are hurting, we take care of them. We take a warm bath, we rest, we take medicine. But what about when we hurt emotionally? It’s just as important to take care of your emotional health as you would your physical health. Practicing HeartMath’s Soft Heart Tool two or three times a week can help you relax and re-energize from the emotional stress of daily life.

Give the exercise a try the next time you have long day at work or a stressful experience like a final exam.

Step 1:

Recognize that you are feeling disturbed, overwhelmed, depressed or some other depleting or negative emotion.

Step 2:

Acknowledge that it is not these or other emotions that cause you to feel drained or out of sorts as much as it is the significance you give them.

Step 3:

Find your Soft Heart attitude by intentionally feeling love, care or appreciation for a person, pet or something you truly care about. This helps take you to a soft place in your heart and increases your ability to feel care and compassion for yourself.

Step 4:

Soak and relax any unwanted feelings in the compassion of your heart, letting the significance dissolve a little at a time. Take your time.Type your paragraph here.

Whether you just want to improve the sound of your voice in general or you want to improve your voice for a play or musical performance, there are several things you can try. You can use a variety of different exercises to improve the sound of your voice, alter your speaking voice to make it more impressive, or adjust the way you sing to hit more powerful notes. By exercising your voice on a regular basis and making some minor adjustments, you may notice some drastic improvements in your voice.

1. Analyze your current speaking voice. 
Record yourself speaking or ask a friend to listen and evaluate your speaking voice. Assess your volume, pitch, articulation, vocal quality and rate to determine the main areas where you need improvement.[1]

Is your volume too high or too low?
Is your pitch more shrill or full, monotonous or varied?
Is your vocal quality more nasal or full, breathy or clear, lifeless or enthusiastic?
Is your articulation hard to understand or crisp and articulated?
Do you speak too slow or too quickly? Do you sound hesitant or deliberate?

2. Adjust the volume of your voice. 
You should always speak loudly enough so that everyone in the room can hear you. However, adjusting the volume of your voice up or down can add emphasis or intimacy to different parts of your speech. 

• Get louder as you are about to make an important point.
• Lower your voice when you are making an aside.

• Get louder as you are about to make an important point.
• Lower your voice when you are making an aside

4. Use pitch to your advantage. 
People might tune out your voice if it sounds monotonous. Varying your pitch will eliminate a monotonous sound and make it more likely that they will keep listening to you. Continue to vary your pitch throughout your speech. Some common ways to use pitch include: 
Ending questions on a higher pitch.
Affirming a statement by ending on a lower pitch.

​5. Change your tempo. 
The tempo is the pace of your speech. Slowing the tempo of your speech will help you to place more emphasis on certain words and phrases. It may also make it easier for people to understand you if you are prone to speaking rapidly.

• Try pausing after making an important point to give the listener a chance to absorb it.

6.  Show your emotions when appropriate. 
Have you ever heard someone’s voice quiver when they are experiencing strong emotions during a speech? This can be an effective technique in some situations, such as when you are giving a speech or acting in a play. Allow the timber, or emotional quality of your voice, to show when you are expressing strong feelings. 

For example, if you are saying something that makes you feel sad, then you might allow your voice to tremble if it comes naturally. However, do not try to force it. 

• Practice the speech several times with different variations. Record each attempt and compare them.
• Many people are uncomfortable hearing themselves on tape. This sounds different that the voice that resonates in your head, but is closer to the voice other people hear.

“Executive presence!” It’s a term that’s often shrouded in mystique, whispered as if it’s something magical, and many people struggle to understand it. Executive presence is critical, but it doesn’t need to be mysterious. Most importantly, executive presence is a skill, not a trait — that means it’s something you can cultivate and build.

Here’s a straightforward demystification of executive presence — what it is, why you need it and how to get it.

What Is Executive Presence?

In its simplest terms, executive presence is about your ability to inspire confidence — inspiring confidence in your subordinates that you’re the leader they want to follow, inspiring confidence among peers that you’re capable and reliable and, most importantly, inspiring confidence among senior leaders that you have the potential for great achievements.Type your paragraph here.

Why You Need Executive Presence

Your executive presence determines whether you gain access to opportunity. There’s a saying in leadership, “All the important decisions about you will be made when you’re not in the room.” It’s true. Whether it’s a decision about an important opportunity, a promotion to a critical role or an assignment to a high-visibility project, you won’t be in the room. The opportunities you gain access to depend on the confidence you’ve inspired in the decision makers. And, the more significant the opportunity, the more important executive presence becomes.

How To Build Your Executive Presence: Seven Key Steps

As with any other skill, some people are naturally more gifted at executive presence than others. However, everyone can improve their executive presence with focus and practice. And, perhaps most importantly, the more senior you become, the more executive presence is required, so everyone needs to continually focus on improving his or her executive presence.

Here are seven key steps to build and enhance your own:

1. Have a vision, and articulate it well. One of the most important parts of inspiring confidence is having a compelling vision— a well-conceived notion of what you’re working to accomplish. It should be appropriate in scale for your level of seniority, and you should be able to communicate your vision flawlessly in any circumstance, whether it’s a three-minute elevator ride with a senior executive, an offsite with your team or a dinner with important stakeholders. A robust, well-articulated vision is ultimately how you make your mark -- it sets you apart, and it’s a powerful tool for inspiring confidence.

2. Understand how others experience you. People with excellent executive presence have a keen understanding of how they’re perceived by others. That’s important because, as you ascend to more senior levels and your span of control expands, you become increasingly reliant on others for your effectiveness. And, before you’ll get access to the most senior opportunities, decision makers need confidence that you can handle yourself well in all settings. Gain an understanding of how others perceive you. Consult with mentors, and get feedback from supervisors, peers and subordinates. Make sure to include people who see you in a variety of situations.

3. Build your communication skills. Good leadership is ultimately about communication, and people with great executive presence are excellent communicators. Get feedback on your communication, and invest the time in building communication skills. You need to be an excellent communicator across every medium — in-person, written or virtually — and in every situation.

4. Become an excellent listener. Here’s something a lot of people forget: One of the most important communication skills is your ability to listen. People with great executive presence are exceptional listeners. They engage with their full attention, they ask great questions, and they use listening as a way to engage others and explore important ideas. And there’s another benefit: The ability to listen effectively demonstrates self-confidence, another critical part of executive presence.

5. Cultivate your network and build political savvy.People with exceptional executive presence recognize that organizational politics are neither a good thing nor bad. They understand that companies are composed of complex relationships and that there will sometimes be a diversity of opinions and competing agendas. Organizational politics are simply the natural dynamic that arises when people work together. People with strong executive presence are good at cultivating a network of relationships and developing the political savvy to influence challenging situations in a productive direction.

6. Learn to operate effectively under stress. How do you behave when the stakes are high? Do you ever appear rushed, flustered or overwhelmed? Do you lose your patience, or do you have a reputation for being temperamental? Many people make the mistake of believing that looking frantically busy indicates their value to the organization. It doesn’t -- it just indicates that they’re frantically busy, and perhaps that they can’t be trusted with any more responsibility. No one wants to see a leader who’s overwhelmed. People with good executive presence present themselves as calm, even-keeled, composed, well-prepared and in control at all times. That inspires the confidence that they’re ready to take on even more.

7. Make sure your appearance isn’t a distraction. Your kindergarten teacher may have told you that neatness counts. It’s true. Visual appearance makes a first impression, and first impressions, whether conscious or subconscious, are powerful. You want to ensure that your first impression inspires confidence. That doesn’t mean trying to look like a fashion model. Rather, make sure your appearance is appropriate for the setting and the company culture, and that it is consistent with others at the level you aspire to. Pay attention to your clothing choices, tailoring and grooming, and make sure there’s nothing about your appearance that will distract from the impression you want to leave.

EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION

How to Improve Your Voice

Executive Presence