Label Your Feelings

I’ve heard this on several different podcasts over the past few months, and I’ve found it really helpful. Actually, I found it helpful the first time I heard it, and the next times I heard it, I thought, that’s interesting, maybe I should share that. Well, here I am, sharing it.

Sometimes when we’re just kinda out of sorts, we don’t really know where to go with it. Do you know that feeling? It’s a hard-to-describe condition, and that’s the biggest part of the problem. We feel something, but we don’t know what it is. When you get to that point, it’s time to stop and make that concerted effort to name the emotion.

What? We just said we don’t know what the feeling is. That’s right, when you don’t know what it is you’re feeling, it is helpful to stop and identify what it is you’re feeling. This can be very revelatory, because often, when you stop and examine why you’re feeling what you feel, what you thought you were feeling is actually different from what you’re feeling.

Here’s an example. I have a friend who’s very smart and dedicated to her family and to keeping her commitments. She’s had some health challenges, which she’s met with incredible courage. She will cut everyone a lot of slack except herself. She is working on several things at once throughout the week, and she mentioned trying to control her temper. I asked her, “is it really your temper, or is it frustration?” Identifying it as frustration helped her come to terms with its cause, and she was able to work through the events that were frustrating her. Also, because frustration feels like a more acceptable emotion than anger over life in general, she stopped beating herself up so much for feeling it.

Our emotions are what they are. We’re going to get angry. We’re going to feel sad sometimes. We’re going to feel “blah” sometimes. Sometimes what we feel is bored, and that’s the root of a lot of feelings we can’t identify. It’s okay to feel. Just make sure you know what it is you’re really feeling. This isn’t mental health advice — there are some things that require the intervention of a medical professional. And my words here aren’t a form of “if you just do this one thing, your life is fabulous.” You’ll still have challenges, and you’ll have days when you don’t feel wonderful. Try labeling the feeling and see if it helps.