Don't Know What You're Feeling? Try This.

You’re sitting in therapy and your therapist asks the dreaded question: how are you feeling right now?

But there’s a storm of emotions in your head that you can’t decipher so you just say: I don’t know. 

This happens to all of us, and not just in therapy. There are so many moments we find ourselves not knowing what we’re feeling–maybe because we haven’t taken enough time to sit with it, or maybe because we’re feeling something in a context we’ve never felt it before–or maybe because many of us aren’t taught to recognize and have compassion for what we’re feeling when we’re feeling it. This leaves us at a disadvantage later, when it feels like our emotions are controlling instead of informing us. 

What’s the purpose of our emotions? 

Emotions can seem scary because we just aren’t taught a lot about them. When we shy away from understanding them, they become these all powerful entities that can control our lives. But the truth is, emotions (and the experience of having any emotion) is neutral. While it may feel positive or negative, the emotion itself is never a “bad” one to have. 

Emotions serve different purposes, including providing information to us about certain situations, or communicating to others how we feel. They can motivate us to act or help us avoid dangerous situations or potential threats. Emotions give us information about how we process and respond to the world around us. 

But emotions aren’t just felt in our minds, they involve what’s called a mind-body connection as what we experience is processed in our minds and felt in our bodies and physiological responses. These physical responses can be another way of your body trying to get you to pay attention to what your feelings are telling you, and to take appropriate action. Learning these physical responses can help you identify what you’re feeling when you have regular ways your feelings manifest in your body. 

Why is it so hard to figure out what we’re feeling?

The trouble with emotions is that they’re tricky. For example, some people may feel generalized anxiety and tension all day even in the absence of any threat. Others may be prone to feelings of depression and tend to interpret different situations with negative thoughts, thus in turn creating greater feelings of depression.

And, sometimes we just don’t have the vocabulary to decipher what we’re feeling.

Developing a greater awareness of your emotions can help you find ways to cope with difficult emotions that arise, make values-aligned decisions, enhance relationships with others, and develop a greater sense of self esteem. Identifying emotions and how you feel in a given situation is often the first critical step towards figuring out how best to manage them.

So how do we identify what we’re feeling if we don’t have the vocabulary for it?

One option is to browse out list of feelings here. Another method we’ll explore today is the Feelings Wheel! The feelings wheel is a great place to start if you have trouble identifying your feelings. 

The wheel starts with 7 general emotions at the center:

1. Happy 

2. Surprised 

3. Bad 

4. Fearful 

5. Angry 

6. Disgusted 

To start, you pick which of the five emotions feels closest to what you’re feeling. As the rings move outward, the terms get more and more specific. So for example, maybe you can only identify that you feel sad. If you start at sad, and go one ring out, is there a more specific feeling that fits? Maybe your sadness is actually hurt, and that hurt is embarassment. From there, you can take time to think of what it was that made you feel that way and how that feeling manifested for you. 

It may help to keep a feelings journal where you record this process. Note where you started on the feelings wheel and where you ended up. Then you can use the journal to explore how that feeling showed up in your body and what the circumstances around the feeling were. 

What happens when we don’t name our emotions?

This process can seem like a lot of work, and maybe you’re thinking it’s just not worth it! But when we don’t take time to understand our emotions, they don’t just go away. Instead, they can get more intense the longer they’re ignored, and the way they show up as physical symptoms can get more intense too. Your body wil deman you pay attention to what you’re feeling at some point. 

Not naming our emotions impacts other areas of our life as well, not just our physical health. It can also impact our relationships! Our feelings impact our behavior–if you’re feeling anxious, you’ll behave differently than when you’re feeling joy, etc. Without communicating what you’re feeling, your behavior can be interpreted incorrectly by friends and loved ones, and relationships can suffer. Understanding your feelings helps you understand how they impact how you behave with everyone in your life, and also gives you an opportunity to be open with those around about how you’re feeling so they know how to best support you. 

Learning to tune into and understand how we’re feeling is hard work, so don’t be hard on yourself if it take you a while to get to a place where you do it naturally. If you’re looking for support in this, our clinicians can help you.  

Dealing With Negative Emotions: 7 Blogs to read When You’re Feeling Something Uncomfortable

Do you know what to do when you feel a negative or uncomfortable emotion? 

Life would be a lot easier if we were born knowing how to deal with uncomfortable, distressing, or unpleasant emotions, but coping with negative emotions is something we need to learn along the way. 

Dealing with negative emotions is one of the most common topics that we discuss in therapy. Negative emotions feel just like they sound - negative, and as humans we often struggle to balance negative feelings with positive ones. We will often do whatever we can to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions, but sometimes the things we do to avoid or end those painful feelings lead to more problems. 

Avoiding feelings never actually makes them go away, it just pushes them off until a later time (and you often don’t get to choose when they come out). Trying to distract yourself from painful emotions with things like substances or risky behaviors might feel better in the moment, but there’s nothing that you can do to avoid negative emotions forever.

Finding ways to cope with negative emotions can help you reduce your distress level, improve your relationships, and help you feel more confident in dealing with whatever comes your way, because you know you can handle it.  

Dealing with distressing emotions in a healthy way takes practice. Learn where to start with these 7 posts about dealing with negative emotions: 

Shame is often a difficult emotion to cope with. 

“Unlike guilt, which is based on something you did or didn’t do, shame comes from the belief that there is something wrong with you. We aren’t born feeling shame, but we learn it based on our surroundings. Shame can be learned from experiences with others and from the culture we grow up in. Some psychologists believe that we developed shame as an emotion because we’re social animals. Without shame, some people might not follow laws or cultural norms. While sometimes shame is helpful, it can often spiral out of control.”

Here are 3 ways to start working through shame.

Do you know what to do when you feel angry?

“Anger is a normal emotion. We all feel it from time to time. Like all emotions, it comes and it goes, and doesn’t last forever when we allow ourselves to feel it (versus repressing it). When any emotion comes up, we can notice it and find ways to cope with that emotion. Part of the experience of an emotion is sitting through it - there’s really no way around experiencing the emotion if you want to move forward from it. Think of other emotions you feel. When you’re sad, you might cry, or cuddle a pet, or take a nap. Those are all safe ways to cope with sadness. There are options for you to express anger in safe ways too.”

Explore safe ways to express your anger here.

Do you struggle to cope with feeling lonely?

“Remember, you don’t have to actually be socially isolated to feel lonely. You can be surrounded by people and feel lonely. Often, loneliness isn’t actually about not having people in your life, but not having strong connections to the people in your life. We all like to feel seen and like we matter to other people. When you don’t have a lot of people who you can connect with in a real way, it can feel like no one understands you. Loneliness has a serious impact on our lives, but there are things you can do to cope with loneliness and to minimize its effects.”

Read about what you can do when you're feeling lonely.

Sometimes we go through periods where life feels meaningless. 

“When life feels meaningless, it can be scary. You might feel like there is something wrong with you for feeling like you aren’t sure what it all means. You might wish you could go back to how things were before you started questioning everything.

It’s normal to have questions about what your purpose is to wonder about greater meaning. We all go through times where we question if we’re on the right path or where we come to a realization or go through an experience that changes our worldview.”

Here’s what you can do when life feels meaningless. 

Is being disliked something you worry about?

“One thing we don’t talk a lot about as a culture is being okay with being disliked. It often feels painful or shocking to realize that someone doesn’t like you, mostly because the default expectation is that people will like us. When you know that someone doesn’t like you, it can be confusing to deal with them in a way that doesn’t leave you frustrated or questioning your self worth.”

Here are 4 suggestions for ways to deal with being disliked by others.

You might feel uncomfortable when you make a mistake, but it doesn’t make you a bad person.  

“Everyone has done something that they’re not proud of or that they’d do differently if they had a chance. If you feel an intense wave of self loathing when you make mistakes, you might be dealing with some perfectionistic tendencies. While being perfect sounds fine on the surface, in reality it’s impossible, so expecting perfection is just setting yourself up for failure. Instead of setting yourself up to fail, remember that you’re human. You’re going to get it wrong sometimes. Even when that happens, you’re going to be okay. Mistakes don’t need to define you, especially when you use them as a learning opportunity.”

Consider these options next time you make a mistake. 

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about things you regret?

“Regret, when dealt with mindfully, is a sign of growth. If you’re looking back on an old situation and seeing new, better ways to handle your role in it, that means you’ve done some personal growth between then and now. You’ve matured, gotten to know yourself a little better, and now you can see that you had other options you didn’t see when you were in the moment.”

Here's how to cope with regret without letting it take over.

Are you looking for more support in dealing with uncomfortable emotions? Working with a therapist can help you find new ways to deal with distress and regulate your emotions, even when they’re uncomfortable. Contact us today to learn more about getting started.

5 Reasons Why Crying is Good For You

5 Reasons Why Crying is Good For You

When was the last time you had a good cry?

Many of us think of crying as a negative thing, but crying is actually an important function, physically and mentally. Crying is an often cathartic release that can improve mood, sleep, and relationships, and lower stress levels when you’re feeling emotionally triggered. 

Not everyone is a crier. While some folks cry easily and regularly, others rarely cry, if at all. 

There are a few reasons for this. First, everyone is different, and everyone experiences emotions differently. Some people are just wired to be more sensitive to crying than others, and that’s okay. A common reason why people are afraid to cry is because they feel like if they start, they’ll never stop. If you never let yourself have the kind of cathartic release that crying can bring, you’ll start to feel overwhelmed by the emotions you’re pushing down.

Others feel that crying is a sign of weakness. It’s also important to point out the gender roles at play here. Women are far more likely to cry than men, and crying is often seen as feminine or unprofessional. According to the American Psychological Association, the average woman cries 30-64 times a year, compared to men who cry 5-17 times a year on average. These beliefs encourage people who cry easily to not be taken seriously, especially in the workplace or in leadership roles. 

Of course, sometimes crying isn’t a positive experience. Sometimes crying is a result of pain or distress that can’t be relieved by tears alone. Context matters with crying - for a good cry, it helps to be somewhere you feel safe and comfortable, rather than somewhere public or with people you don’t know well. It’s much more preferable to cry at home on the couch with your best friend than to cry in a conference room full of strangers. 

What is it about crying that is good for you? Here are 5 reasons: 

Crying relieves stress 

Not only is a bout of crying a helpful emotional release, but it can also help remove stress hormones from your body through your tears. That’s right! Tears actually have functions other than to communicate distress. Research has shown that cortisol, a stress hormone, is released in tears and that crying in and of itself may lower cortisol levels, which can reduce stress in the body. Crying also releases oxytocin and endorphins, both of which can reduce pain and leave you feeling good. 

Crying improves relationships

Crying serves an important function for infants - it alerts their caregivers that they need something. From the time we’re born, crying helps us build connections with others. Vulnerability is scary but it can bring you closer to your loved ones when you experience it together. Think of a time when a loved one was vulnerable and cried in front of you. This can often trigger empathy and leave you feeling even closer than you did before. 

Tears are good for your vision

When you produce tears, they help keep your eyes lubricated and healthy. One type of tear, called reflex tears, are a direct response to debris in the eye. These tears move whatever the dangerous or uncomfortable thing is out of your eye to keep it from becoming irritated or injured. Some people deal with chronic dry eyes, where their eyes don’t produce enough of the moisture needed to stay comfortable and see correctly. Crying can help moisten up your eyes if you struggle with dry eyes. 

Crying is a way to physically process emotions

Crying is often associated with grief and sadness, because it’s a release from those painful emotions. Crying is itself a physical way to process emotions. Our emotions are not just stored in our minds; our bodies hold onto emotion and trauma. This is why engaging the body when approaching healing work can be so helpful. When you’re emotionally activated and you’re feeling out of control, a crying session might help flush out the uncomfortable emotions so you can approach things with a clear head instead of acting without thinking. 

Crying allows you to calm down

Sometimes it’s hard to calm yourself down when you’re feeling emotionally activated. Crying is a way you can practice self-soothing, because it activates your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). When your PNS is online, your body goes into rest mode, and can help you feel more calm. This can help you feel more clear headed and lower the drive to do something out of urgency or because you’re upset. Activating your parasympathetic nervous system can also help improve sleep because it switches your body from fight or flight mode to relax mode, which can make it easier to settle down for the night. 

So, go ahead and have a good cry. You’ll probably feel better afterwards! 

If you’re struggling with your mental health or experiencing a lot of crying that isn’t normal for you, talking with a therapist can be helpful. Get in touch with our office today to book an appointment. 

6 Safe Ways to Express Anger

How do you react when you feel angry?

For a lot of people, anger is a confusing emotion. Everyone feels anger, of course, but we often aren’t taught how to deal with anger in a healthy way when we are young. It can feel like the only way to respond to anger is through yelling or violence, but that’s a myth that stems from our anger-phobic culture. 

Why are we afraid of anger?

Think about what comes up for you when you think about anger. For a lot of folks, those memories, emotions, and sensations are related to painful or frightening experiences. Feeling painful emotions is uncomfortable, so lots of us do whatever we can to avoid dealing with them, even if we don’t do that consciously. Many of us are in the habit of repressing our anger to the point where we might not think we feel it at all. 

Our culture has one very narrow view of anger: anger can be felt by a man, and he can respond to the anger he feels with violence. Whether that violence is a yelling match, hurting themselves, or hurting others, the typical reaction to anger that we see in the media is one that is out of control and scary. Our culture follows this script and encourages anger in men, and represses anger in women. 

Many women don’t feel that they experience anger at all, because women aren’t socialized to express anger. Women are often forced to hide their anger or ignore it entirely because our society doesn’t give women the option to be angry. Think of stereotypes like calling a woman “crazy” when she’s upset about something in a relationship, or the racist stereotype of the “angry Black woman.” Anger isn’t something women are allowed to feel like any other emotion - either we are forced to repress it, or it becomes our whole identity. 

Why can’t we just ignore anger?

The problem with repressing emotions is that they never stay repressed permanently. They always come up at one point or another, often when you’re least prepared to deal with them. Repressed anger doesn’t feel good. Anger is a powerful emotion, and it can have powerful effects when it’s not properly expressed. Repressing anger can lead to major swings in mood, increased irritability, and even anxiety and depression. 

Anger is a normal emotion. We all feel it from time to time. Like all emotions, it comes and it goes, and doesn’t last forever when we allow ourselves to feel it (versus repressing it). When any emotion comes up, we can notice it and find ways to cope with that emotion. Part of the experience of an emotion is sitting through it - there’s really no way around experiencing the emotion if you want to move forward from it. Think of other emotions you feel. When you’re sad, you might cry, or cuddle a pet, or take a nap. Those are all safe ways to cope with sadness. There are options for you to express anger in safe ways too. 

Here are some suggestions for safe ways to express anger:

Use your voice

This doesn’t mean to get in a yelling match with someone. This just means to use your voice to express the intensity of what you’re feeling. Maybe this means you go for a drive in the car and scream-sing along to a playlist. Maybe it means you scream into your pillow for a bit. It could also mean talking it over with someone if that feels supportive to you. 

Get moving

Anger is an intense emotion, and can often feel like it’s bursting out of you or like it’s causing energy to build up inside of you. A great way to deal with the excess energy that often comes up with anger is to move your body and tire yourself out. Try dancing around to music that makes you feel powerful. Or maybe go for a run or a brisk walk. Any kind of intense movement that gets you moving and your blood pumping can be helpful here to work through the feeling of anger. 

Be destructive (strategically)

The urge to be violent when angry is often a way to get rid of the painful excessive energy that anger can bring. This urge can be met in ways that aren’t unsafe or scary, thankfully! Here are some ideas for how to be destructive in a safe, strategic way to help relieve some anger: 

• Safely throw or squeeze or hit or break something

• Visit a smash room and break some things

• Hit or kick a punching bag

• Squeeze play dough or a stress toy

• Knead dough or pound meat 

• Throw something soft (or maybe throw a toy for a pet to chase)

• Break down cardboard boxes

• Pound on a drum set

Practice progressive muscle relaxation

Anger can cause a lot of tension to spring up in the body. When you’re responding to anger, it can be helpful to notice where the anger is living in your body. This not only helps you identify what anger feels like so you can spot it when it comes up in the future; it also lets you know where to focus your attention for relaxation. To help you find where the anger is living in your body, you can do a body scan and practice mindfulness that engages the body, like progressive muscle relaxation. There are lots of guided body scan meditations available for free on platforms like Spotify, YouTube, and Insight Timer that you can try to get in the habit of scanning your body for signs of anger. Once you’ve spotted the anger in your body, you can focus on relaxing that area. Progressive muscle relaxation can help you slowly shift your body from a state of tension to a state of calm and safety. 

Find your safe place

Anger can feel scary and out of control. When intense emotions like anger come up, it can be helpful to remind yourself that you are safe and in control of yourself. Where is a place you can go mentally to remind yourself that you’re safe? Some people choose a beach or mountains as their safe place, and others prefer a room in their house or a space from their childhood home. 

When you feel an intense emotion, imagine you’re in your safe place. If it helps, carry a reminder of this with you or save a picture on your phone to help you mentally return to your safe place. This can be helpful with lots of distressing emotions, not just anger!

Are you looking for more support in coping with anger? It’s hard to know how to express anger safely when you’ve spent your whole life ignoring it. Our therapists can help you find ways that work for you to safely process and express your anger. Get in touch with our office today to get started!

Learning How to Connect Emotions and Body Sensations

Learning How to Connect Emotions and Body Sensations

Do you know how emotions feel in your body? 

Emotions aren’t only felt in the mind. Our bodies react to our environments just like our brains do, and it can be helpful to connect emotions with body sensations so we can better understand what’s going on within us. 

It’s very common to feel a separation between emotions and body sensations. 

We often don’t receive much education when we’re young about emotional regulation and mental health, so lots of people don’t learn how to tune into the connection between emotions and sensations until adulthood.

Not only that, but in our culture we’re often encouraged to avoid our feelings. Think about how it’s considered a sign of “strength” to appear emotionless, especially in areas of power like politics or medicine. People cheerfully respond “Look on the bright side!” when confronted with the painful emotions of others. We’re taught that uncomfortable emotions like fear, shame, anger, and sadness aren’t as acceptable to express as positive emotions like joy, satisfaction, pride, and hope. 

It can be hard to describe what you’re feeling in your body, particularly if you have a history of using dissociation to cope. 

When you learn how to notice how your body reacts to certain emotions, you’ll be better able to spot difficult emotions when they come up before they cause distress. 

Learning how to connect your emotional experience to what’s going on in your body gives you another resource to turn to when you’re not sure what you’re feeling. If you can’t name it based on what’s going on in your head, turning to the body sensations you’re feeling can help you identify your emotions. 

So, how can you learn how to connect emotions and body sensations for yourself? Here’s a guide on how to approach it: 

Pause

Our bodies use emotions as messengers. They give us information about what’s going on in our environment, and it takes practice to tune into that communication. Give yourself permission to interrupt that communication so you can have more of a say in how you react. Taking a pause before you get carried away with an emotion gives you and your rational self a chance to intervene before things get worse. 

When you notice an uncomfortable feeling, whether it’s in your mind or a sensation in your body, take notice and give yourself space to take a few breaths. Remind yourself of the present moment, and ask yourself what’s actually going on. Taking this time to pause gives you more agency, or control, over the situation. 

Notice and Explore

Once you’ve interrupted your emotional spiral with a pause, it’s time to loop in what’s going on in your body. Do a body scan and try to notice any tension or discomfort that comes up. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Start from the top of your head and work down to your toes (or vice versa) while exploring any sensations you feel. What areas of your body are activated? 

For example, let’s say you’re feeling angry. When some people feel angry, they experience a tightness or pressure in their chest or throat. Some people feel a churning in their stomach or tension in their muscles when they’re angry. Everyone is different, so you’ll have to take the time to get to know your own personal tendencies about how you experience emotions in your body. 

Name

Have you ever heard the phrase “Name it to tame it”? This means that it’s easier to control how we react when we understand what it is that we’re feeling. When naming your emotions, it might be helpful for you to reframe your thoughts from “I am” to “I feel”. 

Why is this change important? Remember, you are not your emotions, you feel your emotions. 

There’s a difference between “I am sad” and “I feel sad,” even if it seems miniscule. The first phrase implies that we are the emotion that we’re feeling, that it is even part of our identity. The other phrase describes what’s actually happening - an emotion, sadness, has come up and you are immersed in it. 

If you’re wondering where to start when naming emotions that you might not be familiar with, using a tool like a feelings wheel (or even an emotions-sensations wheel like this one). This can help give you language to describe what you’re experiencing. Sometimes it will be easier to identify emotions based on the body sensations you feel, and sometimes it will be easier to name an emotion and then connect it to body sensations.The more you practice identifying your emotions and how they show up in your body, the easier it will be in the future. 

Give yourself resources 

Learning how to recognize and name your emotions and body sensations can help you get to the source of your feelings. Once you’ve uncovered that source, it can feel uncomfortable to sit in that emotion fully. How can you give yourself resources to help you cope in the moment? Is there anything you can do  to make things easier for yourself right now? It may also to be helpful to use your newfound emotional identification skills to use and search for any positive sensations that are happening along with what’s going on. Some resources that might help you when you’re in an uncomfortable moment are:

• Grounding practice or mediation

• Mindfulness meditation

• Reminding yourself of where and when you are (you’re safe, you’re in the present moment, not in the past). 

When you have the resources in place to help you cope, it’s easier to sit with an emotion, even if it’s intense. This is because you know that you have the skills and the resources to turn to when you need relief from those intense feelings. 

Express

Now that you understand more about what you’re feeling and where you’re feeling it in your body, you can take action to express that emotion. The way you express your emotion will likely vary from emotion to emotion and even day to day. The key is to tune into both your body and mind and try to meet the needs that they’re expressing to you. 

Are you wondering why it’s necessary to express emotions instead of just ignoring them? When you ignore your emotions or push them down, you can actually do more damage than you think. Suppressing emotions can be linked to poor communication in relationships, resentment, explosions of anger, and even physical symptoms like sleep issues or heart problems. 

People like to express their emotions in all sorts of ways. Here are some ideas to try: 

• Cry

• Scream

• Rapid movement, like running or jumping jacks

• Dance

• Sleep

• Write it out in a journal

• Talk it over with a loved one

• Play a game 

• Make a piece of art that shows your emotional experience

Learning how to connect emotions and body sensations is something that takes practice and lots of compassion. Working with a therapist can give you even more resources to take with you into the world so you can feel confident knowing that you can handle whatever comes your way. Get in touch with our office today to get started with one of our expert clinicians in.