Let's Talk About Feelings Today?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Let's talk about feelings today?

The ability to recognize and express in verbal form (words) feelings, to distinguish them from one another is very important. People who are not aware of their feelings, and even more so do not express them in an adequate direct form, are prone to increased anxiety, depression, headaches and many psychosomatic diseases.

There are only seven basic feelings: anger (rage, irritation); sadness (sadness, grief); shame (awkwardness, embarrassment); guilt; joy (delight); fear (horror); interest (surprise).

Normally, a child should, by the age of seven, distinguish what feeling he is experiencing and be able to name it. But when adults come to see me (I’m not even talking about children), they cannot name more than two feelings, and sometimes they don’t understand at all what I’m asking them about. Why is this happening? After all, it is elementary to teach a child from childhood to understand his own and other people's feelings and there will be healthier people, relationships, families. But, unfortunately, we do the same as our parents did with us in childhood: our children come from school and the first question we ask is: "What are the grades today? What behavior?" then you came home sad today, what happened to you with your mood? " Moreover, we teach the child to restrain emotions, hide them, suppress them and thus raise a new generation of unhealthy people.

In many families, there is a ban on the expression of anger, sadness, joy, and so on: "do not cry, do not be angry, do not shout, boys do not cry, be strong, do not show that you feel bad, you feel bad, but you smile …"

In society, mental intelligence is elevated to the highest value, and no one pays attention to emotional intelligence, since we grow up from the cradle with the installation that the manifestation of emotions is a weakness, especially men, who, for this reason, live shorter life expectancies than women. But a person is considered healthy who, in the place where feelings appeared, at the time when they arose, to the person to whom they are addressed, can freely express them. Now you will tell me that you have a picture of a raging psychopath before your eyes, who does what he wants. Unfortunately, there are no other forms of expression of anger before our eyes: violence, cruelty, insults - that's what we see around us. And only with rare exceptions, someone can afford to say directly: "I am angry with you and I do not want you to do this, because it offends me." We express our anger, resentment in the form of various forms of psychological violence against other people: this is devaluation, reproaches, criticism, remarks, claims … And we do not get anything good in return, since the other side begins to defend itself. So the relationship is gradually destroyed. Because we do not know how not to speak the language of feelings, and we do not even know how to recognize them inside ourselves and very quickly unconsciously succumb to affects. But affect is not a healthy expression of feelings - affects make you, your bodies, your families, your children sick. Personally, I learned to express feelings in my own psychotherapy with my psychologist, step by step - awareness and expression in a healthy way - it took me some time. And now at my 52 I am healthier and happier than at 25-30. I suggest you at least try to speak the language of feelings, observe yourself and ask yourself questions at the slightest tension: what am I feeling from the list of these seven senses now? Why am I feeling this? Who do I feel this to? Further, if this chain of questions has been successfully passed, you go and speak to the one to whom the feeling is, avoiding reproaches: I feel anger or fear when they do this to me or speak to me in such a tone.

Try to start communicating with your partner in this way. I must say right away: in those couples in which there will be difficulties with this scheme, first of all, it is necessary to heal the childhood trauma of each partner, otherwise it will not work to speak this language of feelings: the trauma involves in affect, and with affect everything is much more complicated here. Now that you have learned to be aware and to adequately express your feelings in a healthy way, you teach this to your child from the very beginning of the day. When a baby cries, name his feeling: “I see how upset and saddened you are”; when he laughs: "I notice your joy"; when you assume that he was scared: "I understand your fear" And so on … But in order to teach a child like I explained it to you, you first need to practice well the parents themselves. I wish you and your little ones health.

Do you know how to express your feelings? Can you discern how your loved ones feel?

(c) Yulia Latunenko