How can we identify our emotions?

Tue Mar 03, 2015

(Continued from last week)

Emotions are reliable indicators of what is really going on inside of us. There are many ways to identify emotions and you will have to choose the manner that is most suitable to your personality. Some people need to do this in solitude, whereas others need to do this with others.{{more}} Some will want to write, while others will use a much more casual approach. Sometimes itâs best to combine a number of approaches for a deeper identification of emotions. The following are a few methods you can use to identify what you are really feeling about a person, place, situation or thing. Identifying your emotions is the first step to a rich and healthy emotional life.

Listen To Your Thoughts and Daydreams: We become so accustomed to thinking in certain patterns that we are no longer aware or conscious about our thoughts and daydreams. Catch those daydreams, hold the thoughts, and bring them up into your conscious mind. This will tell you a great deal about yourself, what you love and hate, and about your relationships.

Identify Your “Little and Unimportant Hurts:â More people walk around saying itâs not important or it doesnât matter, when it is very important and a big piece of hurting emotion is buried within them. They will describe this hurt and being small and unimportant. Men tend to do this rather frequently, the âmacho-manâ approach, of not allowing anyone to see just how affected they are by different things. Many times we say â I am not bothered,â but within an hour, we may have brought up the issue in conversation repeatedly; this says then that you are more bothered than you may be willing to acknowledge.

Memories That Wonât Go Away: If you keep remembering situations, hurts that happened some time ago, you are guaranteed to have repressed emotions around this person or situation. You will need to pull this situation out and re-feel the hurt around it. Forgiveness is something that occurs as a result of owning and releasing your emotions. We often reach for forgiveness without doing the work required to release emotions of hurt and anger. Forgiveness is a result of an emotional process. There are no short cuts.

Be Specific About The Emotions You Are Experiencing: Confusion occurs when people are trying to get to know their emotions because they speak in general terms rather than specific emotions. A good example of this is depression. You may be experiencing loneliness for people, loneliness for God (spiritual loneliness), boredom, and a lack of creativity in your life. You may be feeling abandoned because of a death or divorce. If you just say you are depressed, you will have great difficulty releasing the emotion or finding a solution to the situation causing the emotion. A good example of this is the difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy relates to being resentful of a personâs advantages, be they in social standing, education, profession, or it can relate to resentment of a rival in love or affection. Envy is a discontentment or resentment aroused by anotherâs good fortune or success.

Are You Using Sex To Release Your Emotions? Sex is a normal and healthy part of life. Many people engage in sexual acts, with others, alone, or using pornography on the Internet, to release emotions buried within them that they have been unable to feel and release. These individuals tend to have a very high sex drive, since this is their primary way of releasing emotions that are pent up within. These are people who enjoy sex more than once a day. They tend to be very cerebral or intellectual, highly emotional, but very much out of touch with their emotions. If you identify with this description, keep a record of the thoughts/experiences/ fears that you are having prior to engaging in this type of sex. Sex can be used to stuff down feelings so you wonât feel them and identifying these feelings and releasing them will help you move into a much healthier and more enjoyable sexual life.

When What You Say and Do Is Not In Sync With What You Feel: Men and women go through many situations telling themselves that “it doesnât really matterâ or “itâs not important enough to argue about,â basically buying peace by agreeing to something that deep down they do not agree with. They find themselves feeling unhappy, disgruntled, and angry with the individual involved. This type of situation creates tensions and unhappiness in relationships. Buying peace at any price creates negative feelings within you.

Identify those situations where you have created depressing feelings within yourself by agreeing to something that you donât really agree with.

Write them down. This will be difficult for people who have difficulty saying no, or who are too anxious to please others. But the feelings generated by these situations are very important when dealing with your emotional life. Many times we need to excuse things and just overlook them. Thatâs normal in life. But we apply this to situations that affect us deeply. Itâs these situations we need to identify.

Positive Emotions: It is crucial that you identify your positive emotions during these exercises. You are probably very loving, caring, compassionate, trusting, forgiving, and generous, many times in each day. Be certain to include the wonderful and good things about yourself as you identify your emotional self. This provides a realistic picture. If you record only negative emotions, your picture of yourself will be quite distorted and lacking in reality. Each one of us is born with all emotions and each emotion needs to be seen in its full and loving energy.

The Gentle Whispers of Your Soul: Find a quiet place and time and listen to that inner voice of intuition within you. Each person has it. And listen with your heart rather than your head. Your heart will hear different things from your head.

NB: Donât be afraid of your emotions. Donât fight them, run away from them, blocking them out. Welcome them; be with them, regardless of what they are. We were born with all emotions. They are neither good nor bad, they just are. Emotions dissipate and slowly disappear if you feel them, and are present with them. Just close your eyes and feel them as deeply as you can.

Prepared by

Dr Jozelle Miller

Health Psychologist/Wellness Consultant