Knowing Your Emotions, Feelings Is Important

Many clients are afraid or unsure about how to express their emotions. Most of our conscious and unconscious actions are learned in the first few years of life. It can be challenging and overwhelming to start feeling our emotions as adults if some or all of them weren’t acknowledged when we were younger. Also, we develop preconceived notions about our emotions as a result of observing specific patterns or actions in significant individuals in our lives. Perhaps you were raised to believe that some emotions, like anger or sadness, are “evil,” while other emotions, like joy, are “good.” It is also typical to have grown up in a home where nobody openly spoke their feelings. This may leave you as an adult unsure of how to control and comprehend your own emotional experience.

Regardless of what you were taught, it’s critical to comprehend your sentiments and feelings, especially how they affect you physically. I’ll go through why this is a crucial skill below. I’ll also go over some practical advice on how to connect with your own emotions.

Humans are emotional beings

See emotions as energetic waves that communicate with us by moving through our body. Humans are designed to experience the whole range of fundamental emotions, including rage, fear, joy, sadness, exhilaration, and disgust. These basic emotions support our ability to relate to, comprehend, and communicate with others.

They aid in our ability to communicate with ourselves. Emotions assist us in deciding when to run from danger, defend ourselves, or hug someone. Being able to feel our emotions fully can help us live a more connected and fulfilling life. Experiencing our emotions has been crucial to our species’ growth and survival.

Regrettably, many people have learned over history that emotions are the enemy and that they must be subdued, numbed, or controlled. Instead of recognizing this amazing capacity that each of us possesses, we have even gone so far as to describe someone as “emotional” or “emotionally sensitive” in a derogatory way.

Restraining our emotions can have unfavorable effects in the future

Unfavorable outcomes can occur if you don’t comprehend or are in touch with your emotions. According to studies, persons who repress their emotions become hostile and easily upset. For instance, you are more likely to snap or initiate a quarrel with your partner that evening if you suppress your anger against your boss during the workday.

An emotion can accumulate inside of you while you are either preventing or attempting to control one that is naturally required to be felt. This implies that you can experience it suddenly later, which often causes people to feel even more out of control. It may seem overwhelming to genuinely feel our emotions while we continue to avoid and accumulate them.

This could also result in unhealthy actions like abusing drugs or numbing out with food. However, additional research demonstrate that disregarding emotional cues might result in physical health issues, such as increased risk of IBS, heart disease, and weakened immunity.

How to connect with and comprehend your emotions

You are not alone if you haven’t experienced your emotions in a while, feel overwhelmed by them, or have no idea what they even feel like. The first step is to educate yourself on how to control and feel your emotions in a healthy and nondestructive way because many individuals are just not taught to do so. You may connect with and comprehend your feelings by following the advice given below:

Stop, look around, and note: Taking a break during the day to check in with yourself, both physically and mentally, is one of the simplest ways to start to connect with your emotions. What’s your state of mind? Are you carrying any tension In your body? And if so, where? What is your mind doing right now? While you’re taking a break, consider these simple questions. While you are taking a moment to notice what is happening with your body and mind in the current moment, it’s crucial to remain nonjudgmental. Consider yourself a detective who is interested in your bodily sensations and thoughts and any potential connections between them.
Take a breath: After you start to notice the sensations you’re feeling and have given some of them names, take a few slow, deep breaths. the exhale should be longer than the inhale. This type of deep breathing activates the vagus nerve, a portion of our body that aids in controlling our neurological system and emotions. This type of deep breathing can help you control the intensity of your emotions at any given time.
Develop self-compassion: Remind yourself that you are a human being who experiences a wide range of emotions. Take note of any times you feel embarrassed or uneasy about feeling an emotion. This is probably a result of what you were told as a belief or a narrative. A wonderful way to start accepting ourselves and engaging in self care is by honoring all of our feelings. According to research, oxytocin is released in our body when we practice self-compassion and self-soothing. We become calmer and feel closer to both ourselves and one another as a result.

Starting to experience your emotions can be intimidating and frightening, especially if you haven’t been in touch with them for a while. It’s crucial to remember that emotions are transient and must be felt in order to be let go of. No emotion endures forever. It will be simpler to surf the wave the more at ease you are with how emotions feel.

We would be at peace with ourselves if, in Alan Watts’ words, “we would, for a change, tolerate our feelings and look upon their comings and goings as something as lovely and necessary as variations in the weather, the passing of night and day, and the four seasons.”