Learning to express what we feel not only relieves our discomfort, but also guarantees us proper emotional hygiene. The ability to communicate our emotions facilitates coexistence, helps us set limits and improves our psychological health.
Written and verified by the psychologist GetPersonalGrowth.
Last update: 15 November 2021
Learning to express how we feel is not easy. Where should we start? It is often easier to talk about the television series we are watching and that we like so much or to describe how others behave and what they say. However, expressing our mood and translating the complex, painful and private tangle of our emotions into words is difficult for us.
We could say that it is almost like learning a new language. A language whose terms must express our feelings, emotions and thoughts. A language in which we can channel the needs and that psychological malaise that makes us feel bad and that must somehow be expressed. Releasing and expressing your emotions is not only cathartic, it also has healing effects.
Daniel Goleman defines this process as opening a cage that frees the birds. Most of us are aware that talking about what makes us suffer allows us to relieve our pain. But how to do it? How can we learn to express our emotions? And above all, with whom?
These questions are not irrelevant. It is important to know how to express and communicate your moods, as well as knowing who to do it with. There are unsuitable people and others, on the contrary, who are right for us because they allow us to express our emotions and free us from anguish. Let's deepen the topic.
Background information to learn how to express how we feel without regretting having done so
Learning to express how we feel will help us feel better, it will increase our well-being, our self-esteem and our emotional state. However, there is an important aspect to consider. The expression of our feelings and emotions must not occur when we cannot take it anymore, when we have reached the limit and discomfort causes us pain or when our frustrations prevent us from moving forward.
Expressing how we feel every day is about our health, so it is a habit that we must acquire. If something upsets and angers us, we must not hide it or put it aside. We need to learn to express our feelings assertively. In the event that certain people, circumstances or facts hurt us and generate anguish or sadness in us, we must not neglect them.
Dealing with what makes us feel bad and worries us will avoid future problems and allow us to improve relationships with others. Sincerity, good use of assertiveness and daily emotional self-management promote coexistence and improve health. Let's see how we should behave.
Before we learn how to express how we feel, we need to have a clear idea of ​​what we are feeling
Self-awareness is the first step in emotional communication. To better understand this concept, we will give you an example. In the last period, when you come home, you have more discussions than usual and you feel anger towards your partner more frequently. Starting from this circumstance, what you have to do is understand what is happening and what are the causes of this situation.
Sometimes the problem is not at home and neither is whoever lives with you. The source of the problem could be work and accumulated stress. Bring that inner discomfort into the home by creating a tense atmosphere.
An emotion is an information-laden imprint that cannot be hidden
Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey, professors of psychology at the University of New Hampshire and Yale University, they emphasize that every emotion is like a code that conveys specific information. One of our tasks is to know how to decipher it, first for ourselves and then for others.
The problem is that no one has taught us how to do it. Beyond that, the common attitude is to convince ourselves of the need to repress most of the emotions we feel. If something hurts, you have to hide it. If something upsets us, we need to stay composed and polite and let that emotion pass.
We have been taught that there are bad emotions like anger, anger, sadness or disappointment. In reality, knowing how to give these emotions the right space, learning to understand them and use them in our favor allows us to improve our psychological well-being.
- Expressing what it feels like when something angers you will help you no longer find yourself in that situation.
- If you feel anger, it means that there is an aspect of your life that needs the changes that need to be made.
- If you feel sad, take time to recover knowing that you need to accept some realities.
The feelings we have belong to us, but we can share them with people who understand us
Learning to express how we feel will help us develop our emotional intelligence. What we feel belongs to us and we shouldn't expect others to solve our problems, nor make them feel obligated to make us feel better. This task belongs only to us.
However, we can expect support, understanding and closeness from those around us. It is therefore good to select intelligently the people with whom to share our feelings and what ails and worries us. It is best to avoid those who make hasty judgments, those who underestimate our feelings and those who have quick and generic solutions to specific problems that have many variables.
Recognizing how we feel and knowing how to express our emotions assertively is a way to survive and achieve well-being. In light of this, it is good to work on these aspects.
