“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.”
~ Vincent Van Gogh

As much as we think our emotions exist in our minds, or our psyches, they actually originate in our bodies. At least this is where we initially sense them. When we feel sad or anxious or scared or angry, physical reactions take place that alert us in some way: we cry, we sweat, our hearts pound, our pupils dilate. Then our minds try to interpret the sensations based on what’s going on in our lives.

When these emotions reach our awareness, and we subscribe meaning to them, they become feelings. The two terms are closely related and are often used interchangeably.

Potentially, most people have the ability to discern their emotions, but may not have the skill. We may never have learned to put words to those bodily sensations, or we may have stopped paying attention to our feelings at some point. Perhaps our parents weren’t comfortable with the expression of them so they shut us down. (Having watched some coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II this week, the British phrase “stiff upper lip,” which is often associated with her, comes to mind.) Or perhaps childhood trauma or bullying caused us to lock down our feelings so hard, we can’t “get to” them anymore. We’ve stopped reacting, as a protective measure, and now our emotions are so deeply buried, it’s as if they don’t exist.

The truth is that they are not gone—we are simply out of practice engaging with them.

Popular author Brené Brown has spent over two decades studying how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions. Her latest book, Atlas of the Heart, draws on that extensive research. In it, she explains that “naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.”

This is important, because if we believe paying attention to our feelings makes them grow stronger, we’re more likely to avoid them.

The trouble is that doing so deprives us of a certain richness of life. “When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences, and disconnected from each other,” says Brené.

Ever since I started therapy when I was 21, and began to expand my own limited range of emotions, I’ve wished that more people had access to a process for understanding themselves better. It’s why I changed my major to psychology and why I created this blog. I’m amazed that the tide is finally turning, and we are making significant progress in emotional and social learning. It’s now incorporated into school curricula across the country, even more so since the pandemic with so many kids and teens experiencing depression and anxiety due to social isolation and stress.

Adults, too, are learning about the importance of emotional and mental health, both for themselves and their kids.

If these concepts are new to you, or others have encouraged you to “open up” more, here are some first steps to help you expand your emotional awareness:

1. Set an intention to learn about the topic. You may be surprised at how many different emotions there actually are, and how limited most of us are in our understanding of them. Increasing our emotional range can help us deal with them, and can help create more intimacy in our relationships.

2. Spend some time looking over and thinking about words that describe feelings. (In her new book Brené Brown has listed 87!) How many of them do you identify with or use regularly? Think of it as learning a new subject, where using the relevant jargon is a part of the process.

3. Experiment with your newly acquired vocabulary. Start with what you typically tell yourself when you get upset. Say a co-worker lets you down, and it’s something that happens often. You might tell yourself, “I’m so sick of this!” What else might you be feeling? Frustrated/irritated/annoyed/resentful/livid?

4. When we feel physical sensations in response to something that’s happened, good or bad, our minds try to decipher what we’re feeling. The problem is, we’re not always right, and sometimes that can cause us to act in ways that are not helpful. But we can get better at the deciphering part. As Alice Boyes says in this Psychology Today article, “Research shows that merely identifying your emotions helps defuse them.”

5. When emotions first arise, especially those we perceive to be negative ones like jealousy or anger, it’s important to allow them to surface without judging ourselves. If you judge yourself, you will tend to push down what you’re feeling, or try to distract yourself with behaviors that are likely to cause you problems. Try letting them rise to the surface and see how quickly they can dissipate.

6. Sitting with your strong feelings may be uncomfortable, but it is temporary. Psychologists suggest we view them as like waves in the ocean, clouds in the sky, or even bubbles in a fizzy drink. They come and then they go. Once you get comfortable with them ebbing and flowing, you’ll be able to move on from them without having another layer of problems to deal with. Many troublesome behaviors and addictions come from our ineffective efforts to distract ourselves from our emotions. 

7. Recognize that we often have more than one feeling at a time, and that’s okay, although it may take a bit more effort to decipher them. The words “bittersweet” and “torn” and “conflicted” all imply that we are capable of having several feelings at one time.

Here’s an online toolkit to help you learn more about your feelings and why they matter. I like the steps the author outlines for improving your self-awareness, social awareness, and ability to effectively manage your emotions.

Once you become more familiar with the range of emotions you typically experience, and put names to them, you will be in a better position to work through what you are feeling in a particular situation, and how to use that information to make effective decisions. If you have the desire to learn to be more present with your feelings but are finding it difficult to do on your own, consider seeing a therapist. Why go it alone when you can have a skilled professional to guide you? One of the conclusions in Alice Boyes’s article is that “investing in your capacity to identify your full range of human emotions can benefit your psychological health, relationships, and productivity.”

In other words, it’s well worth the effort!

Affectionately,

Elaine

P.S. There are also many good resources online for helping kids to understand and articulate their feelings. You may want to investigate and share them with the youngsters in your life, as emotional intelligence is just as helpful to them for navigating their relationships and life in general.