If you are one of the many adults who have difficulty in recognizing their emotions, this article can help you. There are various sources that teach about emotions, but most of them teach you how to read the emotional picture and judge its intensity but don’t offer much on how to identify emotions. Most of these sources will also tell you how to deal with emotions by adjusting your life and some exercises to help you control your emotions. These are all fine methods to use, but the real solution lies in identifying emotions, a process that will actually teach you to feel how your emotions should be.
In order to identify emotions, you need to develop a real ability to sense emotions. When you are able to feel emotion, then you will know how you are feeling and when you are feeling an emotion in yourself.
The first step to feeling emotions is to develop your capacity to notice things around you. You need to recognize that kind of emotions you are feeling. Some of the common ones are sadness, anger, happiness, sadness, anxiety, fear, surprise, disgust, pleasure, and fear. Note that they can’t all be felt at the same time, so that your perception of what you are feeling is limited. For example, if you are upset, you might be sad, but not happy, because you have been sensing the anger.
It’s important to note that you have a choice when you feel emotions and that you have control over how you interpret emotions as well. The choice is between negative and positive emotions.
Choosing between negative and positive emotions will require some practice. Once you have made this decision, you can start to know what emotions you are feeling and recognize whether it is a negative or positive emotion.
Once you can determine what emotion you are feeling, you can choose what kind of emotional state you would like to stay in. Negative emotions are those that are repressed. They are deep down emotions that are not being expressed through the usual emotional channels, so the usual means of self-expression doesn’t work. Anger is a good example of a negative emotion.
Positive emotions are the opposite of negative emotions. They are those that are going through the normal emotional channels and express themselves through your verbal and physical actions. Joy, happiness, enthusiasm, laughter, affection, appreciation, and admiration are examples of positive emotions.
You can also choose what emotion you are feeling with the others listed above. You might experience fear or sadness, for example, but not love, and still feel sadness, but not fear. You just need to learn how to feel them and that is the challenge.
