Published on 12, July, 2020
Well well.. a very important topic for me.
How to name a feeling is a huge struggle. I could describe myself as a colour blind person who is looking at a very long colour palette. My emotions and feelings are the hundreds of colours in the palette and I'm the person who can't see more than blue, red and yellow and hundreds of shades of grey. Although I'm very sensitive and I know that my emotional landscape is very rich (hundreds of hues in my palette), I can't always name my feeling (recognise the hue for what it is), therefore I don't know how to manage it. An example, although I felt anxious in many situations in my life, I've never knew that this feeling is anxiety until last therapy session when my therapist said "when you feel anxious it's good to think of ...." And I was like "wait a minute, is this what I just described to her now (racing thoughts, restlessness, stomach pain..) is called anxiety? Wow, I finally have a name for this feeling!".. even tho I don't consider names as useful info at all, when it comes to feelings, I think it's important to name them in order to memorize it easily and research how to manage it.
Question here is, is there a book, therapy, technique or anything that would help me recognise and name my feelings? Also, am I now describing Alexithymia? I tend to really relate to others and it sort of feels like I could recognise how others feel more than myself..
Sometimes you just have to sit with your feelings and explre them internally for a long while.I used to think I had anger issues, until I realised the Anger was just an expression of Fustration, and the Fustration was born out of being fed-up with feeling Sadness, which was caused by Hurt. Then after I learned to break the emotional chain I felt no anger anymore.
I kinda get this. A lot of my tears are frustration or internalised anger at not being able to verbalise my emotions/frustration/anger/hurt at that time. I'd be so interested to know how you learned to break the emotional chain and if there's anything you can recommend?
I think to start with when you're "in the thick of it" it's important to remember you don't have to feel like this, the feelings are valid but they will pass, that's the "cure" side, the prevention side of it was in developing better means of communicating how I'm feeling, if I'm feeling fragile or overwhelmed I have a safe word, or hand signal for if I go non verbal that i set up and explained to others in my life this means I'm in need of help or some time to retreat and step away before things go too far. It's also been quite good a reducing the amount of meltdowns I have in general.