RECOGNIZE & COMMUNICATE YOUR FEELINGS!

Recognizing your feelings is not an easy task. Often, we do not like to share our feelings or talk about them because of the idea that it will make us vulnerable. The iconic part is that being vulnerable is an emotional feeling. So why don’t we rather talk about our feelings with people who care about us and try to feel better rather than being vulnerable irrespective of the fact we express or talk our feelings. Most of time, we are not able to recognize our own emotions and how they make us feel.

Communication is an important factor when it comes to identifying and expressing your emotions. It is a two-stage process. Firstly, you need to identify how you feel, accept your emotions, do not hide them. While experiencing any situation, pick any emotion that you might be feeling like happy, sad, angry, excited, joyful, etc. Now think about the words relative to that emotion, accept your emotions, reframe the situation, and try to find what the situation is, what was the outcome of it and how did it make you feel. Using a ‘feel wheel’ can be helpful when it comes to identifying your emotions. You begin with choosing an emotion from centre of circle and make your way towards the periphery of circle.

After you identify how you feel, you need to identify where you feel it. Some emotions can be difficult to experience, thus identifying where in your body you feel it can be a helpful starting point and provides an opportunity to connect with your feelings further. Trying to identify the reason or cause for your feelings is necessary. Sometimes it can be your thoughts, a present situation or even a trigger from the past. Finding the cause of feelings will determine what you need at the given moment to help you go through it.

Second stage involves being able to express, validate and communicate your feelings without fear. Feelings works like a pressure cooker. The pressure needs to be released continuously. If you do not release your feelings, they will burst out just like the pressure in the pressure cooker. Feelings never disappear or diminish. They are like having pain in a part of your body. Until you treat the pain with medication or ointment, it would not go away. Talking about feelings and admitting them to ourselves and with our loved ones will help to reduce its intensity. Th other important thing is giving reassurance. If someone is expressing their feelings or emotions with you, make sure to reassure them, make them feel heard, acknowledge their thoughts and emotions, be empathetic, try to give a response and be understanding.

At last, all feelings whether good or bad are temporary and will pass with time. Avoidance is not the solution. We all need to learn how to deal with our feelings. It cannot be easy to go through these waves of emotions but being self-compassionate and having a good support system can prove helpful to ride these up and down waves.