I was in my 20s when I first time recognized that emotion I feel the pit in the stomach is in fact anxiety. I thought we all have it and it is a normal state of bodily feelings, so I learn to push through the feeling my entire life, without acknowledging, addressing or naming what is happening. Until life circumstances made it to be all a bit too much. That was first time I went to therapy, which led later to my own therapeutic training and towards the career I am in now.
My own personal story is not important though.
The reason I am sharing this is that I did not know how important emotional awareness is. Sometimes we are very self-aware on cognitive level, but we are just not in touch with our own emotions, with our body. Many are just not thought to name and recognize their emotions from very early age.
The whole system our society was built on does not teach children emotional awareness. I correct myself it did not used to…things are changing…thank god. Although another topic would be how ‘emotional’ subjects are being slowly erased to make more space to logical ones, unfortunately.
Where it all started?
Given the complexities of emotions, Robert Plutchik psychologist, who developed the Emotion Wheel to assist people define and name their feelings. He is a founder of theory of emotion, when he first time classified general emotional responses. The awareness itself helps, but he went even farther and proposed that defense mechanisms were in fact manifestations of core emotions.
Nowadays…
Many are still shamed for feeling negative emotions throughout the life and this slowly but steadily builds up our belief system about ourselves and the world. We see the spike in people experiencing depression, anxiety and all sort of others mental health issues. Often those who claim they never experienced these are in fact just not in touch with their own bodies and emotions.
If we learn to listen to our own emotions, when we recognize how we feel in different moments, we might be able to make choices in life which will reflect our values and who we truly are. We might learn to set boundaries if we need to and we might feel less impact of stress in our everyday lives.
We become more authentic and other people can better relate to us, which leads to deeper relationships reflecting our own individual preferences.
I am curious..
Do you remember when you learn naming emotions, if ever?
There is a tool often used by therapists called ‘emotional wheel’ developed by already mentioned Robert Plutchik. I often hear from clients when seeing the wheel for a first time sense of amazement. They did not know there is so many emotions. I often reach for emotional wheel in my personal life as well. After all we all are human and in fact emotions make us so.
I believe that emotional awareness does not belong solely to a therapy room, where people often find themselves when in crises. Recognizing emotions, naming them and being able to address them and communicating them in healthy way, should be a part of our culture, every day life, workplace, in our relationships. It might help us to become a whole human, who might find themselves in crises in different stages of their life, but would be as well more equipped to handle them.
I am including this basic tool here, but can be found anywhere on internet.
In the middle of the wheel you can find basic emotions. The second tire shows a bit deeper emotions behind the basic ones, which language we use sometimes for and the third tire shows even deeper emotions we don’t often recognize they exist or that they are related to the basic ones.
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