Expand your emotional vocabulary and learn to identify what you feel

Most people are used to walking through life without really wondering what they're feeling.

When someone asks us how we are doing, the automatic response is right or wrong, but... Have you ever stopped to think about the true answer to that question?

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The importance of knowing how to identify emotions

The emotions that we normally know are anger, sadness, joy and afraid; However, although these are extremely important, they often fail to describe what we are feeling and do not allow us to name and understand what is happening to us.

Due to the above it is very common that we confuse some emotions with others and that is why we cannot understand what is really happening to us. For example, a person may feel homesick and think it is simply sadness or a person may be feeling betrayed and attribute it to anger.

Not being clear about what we feel contributes to negative emotions intensify and we cannot give them a way out, and that our relationships are conflictive. That is why it is important to improve our mental health to expand our emotional vocabulary.

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The keys to emotional vocabulary

Strengthening our emotional vocabulary is a key piece for us to be able to maintain good interpersonal relationships, since It implies being assertive, knowing how to express ourselves and having empathy, which helps to create bridges that are based on respect and communication.

That is why being clear about what we feel is one of the most essential competencies for our emotional health.

Many times, when we talk about acquiring this competence, we focus on early childhood education, since it has been seen over time the need for children to have emotional intelligence and recognize what you feel, however many of the adults today did not have those educational opportunities and that is why we must promote it no matter how old we are.

But how can we expand that vocabulary? And more importantly, how can I identify what I am truly feeling?

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Connecting with our emotions

For the first question it is important to understand that there are endless emotions and that they are all valid, to start expanding your vocabulary the next time you wonder how you feel, look for different words to describe what what happens to you, play with different feelings and you will see that when you find the right word and manage to name it you will feel a great relief.

This is achieved through awareness, in which we must connect with our state emotional and bodily, in order to understand that we are feeling something and recognize that our body asks us prove it.

On the other hand also It is very important to know how to recognize their needs in the other and to be able to understand what they are feelingThis is achieved when we are receptive and empathetic.

Another of the most important keys to express what we feel is use so-called "emotional verbs", since these lead us to have openness and to encourage expression. For example, I want, I feel, it makes me excited, it bothers me... among many others that we can use and learn.

As for the second questioning, first of all it is important to be able to identify your emotion to allow yourself feel, since the habit of avoiding or denying emotions is something that can be observed frequently and that hinders the self-knowledge, Thus the first step is to give yourself unconditional permission to feel.

As a second step, we must ask ourselves some questions that help us understand what is happening to us. How do I feel this emotion? Where do I feel it? What triggered it? What causes it to decrease? How far is it for me? By doing this series of questions and reflections we will be able to find the root of the emotion and understand what we are feeling.

Finally, we recommend write or talk about what you are feeling; It can be in a journal or with a friend, listening aloud or rereading your thoughts will help you to have even more clarity of what is happening to you and therefore you will have greater control of your emotions.

We invite you to try it, expand your vocabulary and ask yourself what you are really feeling, you will see that in in a short time your vocabulary will get richer and it will be easier and easier to express what you feel, get to know yourself and understand you.