When you’re stuck in a painful feeling, try this quick strategy: Name the feeling. Are you feeling anxious? Trapped? Irritated?
As simple as it sounds, you’re doing something big when you put a name to what you’re feeling.
What’s Happening in the Brain
Feeling your feelings happens in a part of your brain called the limbic system. The limbic system is a bunch of structures that, in part, help you make emotional meaning out of what’s going on around and inside of you.
When you’re stuck in a feeling, think of your limbic system like a broken smoke alarm: it keeps making the same sound, over and over and over, regardless of what’s going on. You feel helpless to escape it.
When that happens, the goal is to move your energy out of the limbic system. You do that by naming the feeling. When you name the feeling, you’re moving energy from the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain involved in higher-level cognitive abilities, like using good judgment and making good decisions. The prefrontal cortex is the “smart” part of your brain.
When you put a name to the feeling, you’re shifting out of pure feelings mode and engaging the part of your brain that can think about the feelings. You’re putting yourself in charge, instead of the feelings being in charge. That single, simple act helps to unstick you from the feeling and give you some distance from it. With distance, you can choose to connect with other, more useful feelings and thoughts.
Then try to get more specific about what you’re feeling. For example, you may initially identify your feeling as sadness, but when you think about it, the specific feeling is more like numb, hopeless, burned out, spent, disconnected, or lost. Or you might first identify your feeling as fear, and then get more specific and realize you’re feeling apprehensive, worried, tense, jittery, overwhelmed, or terrified.
Getting specific makes a difference. The more nuanced your understanding of your feeling, the more you are using your prefrontal cortex. We’re not trying to get entirely away from our feelings, by the way. We just want to be able to focus on other things as well.
It’s not always easy to name what you’re feeling. Sometimes even figuring out whether you’re sad or scared is hard. Having a list of feelings to choose from makes this strategy easier to do anytime, anywhere.
The Tools to Help You
There are two free tools that offer really useful lists of feelings. The first is a feelings wheel. This is a handy-dandy tool that you can find a million versions of online. One of my favorites is Feelingswheel.com (it turns!).
Someone just introduced me to another tool, a free app called How We Feel. Like a feelings wheel, it offers lots of feelings to choose from, but it also has a variety of other helpful elements, including breathing strategies, information about how emotions work, and strategies to reframe the way you think. I am loving this tool and recommend it to all of my patients (and I am not getting paid to recommend it and have no connection to it)!
But What Exactly Do I Do?
Now that you have the strategy and some tools, what exactly are you supposed to do? How and when are you supposed to name your feelings?
There are lots of ways to do this; I’m going to suggest two:
Whenever you notice feeling stuck in a big feeling, name it. Pull out a feelings wheel or the How We Feel app and identify what your big feeling is. (Notice I’m not telling you to do anything with it. The whole strategy is simply to name it.)
and/or
At various pre-planned times of day, identify what you’re feeling in that moment. Pull out your feelings wheel or your app and name your feeling, even if it’s not big or upsetting. This will get you familiar with a wider range of feelings. You might decide to name your feeling at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or before and after work, or every time you’re in the car. Or, you could set your alarm to go off at 4 random times each day.
Naming your feeling doesn’t sound like it should be a significant emotion management tool, but it is. How you think about your feelings makes a big difference in how you experience them. Once you understand the neuroscience of it, you can see why!
Please do this for yourself: For the next 3-7 days, get into the habit of naming your feelings. Practice moving energy from your limbic system to your prefrontal cortex.
Notice what happens with your relationship with your emotions once you start to name them!
And if you want to take this a little further, come back for Part 2!