Identify Feelings

To help you identify feelings, this is a list of eight GENERAL emotion words and the sensations that are associated with them...

Feelings List

• Joy - can feel like burbling up energy in the upper chest, a desire to jump, or lots of energy flowing through your body.
• Love - usually feels like warmth or opening in your heart area. It can also feel like a desire to hug or touch whoever it is that you care about.
• Excitement usually feels like increased energy and a desire to take action or do something.
• Anger - can feel like a fire in the belly, tension in the arms, energy flowing up and wanting to flow out, or a desire to punch or kick.
• Fear- can show up as running away with adrenaline flowing through the body, stillness - as in frozen, or shaking. Many people feel tightness in the belly with fear... I experience tightness in my chest.
• Shame - feels like wanting to hide, your face can go red, or you can feel numb and totally disconnected from sensations in your body.
• Sadness - can feel like heaviness in the heart area... or just overall heaviness. You may want to withdraw or be alone when we're sad.
• Surprise - can feel like a sudden jolt. Your eyes can get big and your mouth can drop open.

Feelings don't always show up so clearly. They come in combinations and there are many different words to describe them.

If you'd like to discern the right word for what you're feeling, click here for a web page with a long list of feeling words.

If you want to identify feelings, notice your sensations and let them be a guide to your emotions.

For example, if you experience heaviness in your chest... you might be feeling sad about something.

Some people can easily name their feelings...

...And some people lump their feelings all into a word like - bad or good.

If you often feel bad...

I encourage you to figure out what feeling bad means to you.

For some people, it means feeling self conscious or a sense of wanting to hide and not be a part of the world. This is probably related to shame.

For others, feeling bad might be feeling tense, irritable, annoyed, and wanting to hit somebody. If that's you, you're probably feeling angry.

If you can identify what you're feeling then you can have a better sense of what to do with the energy that has arisen.

If you're trying to figure out what you're feeling or what to do with your feelings, contact me. I'm happy to try to help.