How naming your emotions can help you understand yourself
We all experience different emotions at different times, whether they may be good, not so good, or something else. Understanding your emotions allows you to better understand yourself – and naming the emotion is a great starting point.
One day, upon returning home from my office, I realized suddenly that something was bothering me. I couldn’t place my finger on it. All I knew was that it originated from a discussion I had with my manager where he told me, “You are not able to meet my expectations, this is difficult to work. I expect you to work 2-3 hours more than office hours.”
This was unexpected, as I thought I was doing more than my best to meet his expectations. For a few minutes, my mind drew a blank. My confused state left me unable to respond, which made me frustrated and sad.
When I went to bed, I found that I was still feeling the same way, and these emotions were really affecting my mood and thoughts. I even had an internal conversation with myself:
“Why am I feeling this way?” I asked myself.
“Because you are working hard,” I answered myself.
“That’s it? I need to find out what and how deeply I am feeling,” I told myself.
“What am I feeling?” I asked myself again, with tears in my eyes.
“It is the pain of not meeting the expectations.”
“What else? What else are you feeling?”
“I am unhappy about being disappointed. I am feeling sad and discouraged.”
“And?”
“I am scared of all the what if’s!”
“Okay! So, disappointment, frustration, anger, fear, sadness, discouragement, low confidence!” I listed out all the competing feelings, and found that it gave me clarity: if you don’t understand how you feel, it becomes difficult to know how to feel better!
Feelings are also a form of energy. The way you feel is the way the body will act. The way you act is the way you behave.
When we have a deeper understanding of our thoughts and feelings, we enable ourselves to identify gaps or origins, and work on processing them. Naming our emotions gives us clarity. Naming our emotions lessens the burden they create. Naming our emotions means we can take a step back and empower ourselves to decide what to do next.
We are not defined as the emotions we feel, emotions are just part of us.
Once you name the feelings, take three deep breaths to ground yourself. Say to yourself, “Hey! I am feeling ‘xxx’. Let’s process and explore it more.”
The more you process and explore, the more clarity you find. Here, you can remind yourself what you are feeling, what you want to feel, and how you can get to the latter state. It’s important to remember that we are not our emotions, they are just a part of who we are.
Here is the picture of wheel of emotions and feeling you might experience:
There are a number of emotions that we can feel, but they’re all parts of being human beings. By naming and acknowledging them, we gain a better understanding of our mental, emotional, and even physical states, so that we may work on ourselves and gain more self-awareness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/business/dealbook/the-importance-of-naming-your-emotions.html