How aware are you of your emotions? It sounds like a simple question, but it’s usually more complicated than that. Consider how often, if someone asks you how you feel, you say fine. What does ‘fine’ really mean? And do you really even feel ‘fine’ half the time you claim you do?
Emotions are very powerful, and developing emotional awareness is an invaluable skill when navigating life and coping with stressors. To become aware of our emotions, we must first become aware of our inner dialogue -- our thoughts. We develop this internal dialogue from primary social experiences in life and repeat it like a mental script throughout the years, whether helpful to us or not. The reality is that our thoughts can activate emotions which can greatly influence our actions. Acknowledging our thoughts allows us to regulate and manage how we perceive ourselves, others and situations, ultimately impacting our feelings.
Learning to become emotionally aware can take place only if we allow ourselves to learn. Like a compass, our feelings can tell us if we are on track in relation to where we want to be. Our success in overcoming problems is directly related to our ability to experience a full range of emotions. Pleasant feelings tell us that we are getting some of your inner needs met. However, these can also be misleading, as too much of a good thing, can become a bad thing, as in the overuse of foods, drinks or activities.
Unpleasant feelings, which we often try to avoid, have a critical role in this process. Although they activate stress hormones, they are important in the learning and stretching processes that we need to grow, excel, and be creative. There is a lot of essential information that we receive from the “bad feelings” that we can’t get otherwise. Fear, for example, can show us where we need to be to grow or what we need to stay away from to stay safe!
Learning to lean into your emotions takes some work, but it will transform your life and bring you closer to your True Self. Here are 8 ways you can work on your emotional awareness:
Get to know different names for feelings and learn the distinctions between them (mad vs. rage, sad vs. upset). There are useful tools that can help you with this like The Wheel of Emotion and Feelings Chart that can give you variations and definitions
This can help slow down the powerful current that feelings can become. When you have a reaction to something, Stop, ask yourself what’s happening…
This can allow for some further distance to help us have some time to process, I am frustrated vs. I am feeling frustrated at this time. This is a natural calming mechanism.
After you have named the emotion, just sit with it. Without judgement. We have been socialized to think of feelings as bad, so we tend to push them away quickly. It is important to put a period after naming the emotion instead of a comma, “I am frustrated.” And sit with this. Take a deep breath. Adding the comma can increase the emotion: “I feel frustrated because she did that…”
Different emotions have different bodily sensations. We often feel these: anxiety before an exam can have tightness in our muscles or sweaty palms. Train yourself to notice where you feel emotions in your body. Use this knowledge to notice the build up of triggers, a quick self check-in to reduce misunderstandings or overreactions
Your emotions are neither good or bad. They are sources of information
This is where we get to know ourselves more deeply. What tends to make you angry? Where did you learn that? This information can now help you to choose a different response based on what’s actually happening right now
Check in with yourself several times a day to practice recognizing and labeling our feelings. Use a Feelings Chart if you have to.
Emotions are valuable data that help you see more clearly. When we stop fighting them, ignoring them, or feeling suffocated by them, we gain an amazing resource. Remember what the purpose of emotions are: to focus our attention and motivate us toward a specific course of action. They are simply data, based on our perceptions of the world, about what to do.
