Understanding your emotions
The first step to dealing with your emotions effectively is naming your emotions. Many of us struggle to identify what exactly we are feeling, and often times, the most obvious label for the emotion is not the most accurate.
There are a few reasons why naming our emotions is so difficult. We have been trained to believe that strong emotions should be suppressed or we have never learned the language to accurately describe our emotions.
Ways to get an accurate sense of your emotions
1. | Broaden your emotional vocabulary - identify your positive and negative emotions |
2. | Consider the intensity of the emotion - as you name your emotions, rate them on how deeply you are feeling the emotion |
3. | Write it out - people who write about their emotionally charged episodes experience an increase in their physical and mental wellbeing |