The Power of Identifying Emotions

One thing that’s universal right now is we are all experiencing a lot of emotion. For the first time in my life when I ask people how they are nobody says “fine.” Our emotions, positive and negative, feel stronger than we are used to with this giant reduction in distractions. But how do we process this emotion? 

One of the things I encountered as I began working with fear was the importance of identifying my emotions to make them more approachable. Fear as a concept overwhelms us, cracking our confidence. Facing fears sounds like a really intense experience. But what is fear? Fear is not some monolithic thing. Numerous emotional experiences live within the genre of fear (or any other major category of emotion). Overcoming fears starts with naming the very specific emotion you are feeling. So how do we go about identifying emotion? 

I am going to use fear as my example because that is the emotion grouping I have done the most personal work with. The approach I’m going to describe has helped me repeatedly. I think the general process I describe applies to any emotion you want to investigate more deeply, not just fear.

First, we need to recognize how diverse our emotions are. The picture on this post is the wheel of emotion. This great tool helps move the discussion from very broad categories to specific emotions. Nervous and overwhelmed are both fear states but very different from one another. Sometimes a feeling we might call fear could really be something else like loneliness or exhaustion. Just reading the wheel reminds me how broad my emotional range really is. Of course the wheel only offers a starting point. Acknowledging the range of emotions takes practice for anyone. 

I first encountered the wheel of emotion in an improv workshop learning how to use emotions as a starting point for creating characters. In that improv exercise if you declare a character feels anxious and excited your brain can pretty quickly spit out a situation where that feeling makes sense. Our brains are often a lot slower working the other direction to figure out what feelings we are having in reaction to a situation. We can help our brains out by managing our response when we encounter challenging emotions. 

In our day-to-day lives we have to slow down to recognize what we feel. As I have undertaken my fear challenges I have rarely realized what emotion was behind my actions immediately. For me, fear often starts small. It manifests itself as uncertainty or discomfort. I may not even realize it’s fear. It’s not nice to acknowledge being scared so my brain may rationalize it as disinterest, distraction or tell me “you’re just not interested in that.” When I realize I’m coming up against a block of some kind I often turn to the wheel of emotion to really try and pin down the feeling. That process is not comfortable. The mind will try to run away and focus on happier things. Recognize that spending time looking directly at the fear will eventually start to break down its power. 

Negative emotions are cowards. They like to hide in your subconscious and work without you realizing it. Eat away at your confidence until it just seems natural not to try hard things. When you get stressed they sense weakness and jump out to take control. I picture uncertainty or anxiety in tights and a mask leaping out in front of your brain and beginning to scream orders. But when they come to the center of your consciousness it means you get to see them clearly. Once you see them then you can start asking questions. 

What exactly am I feeling? Have I felt this before? What triggered this feeling? What story am I telling myself? What is this emotion protecting me from? What other story could I tell in this situation? What exactly am I scared of? How intense is this emotion? What is this emotion stopping me from having that I want?What small step could I take in the direction that triggers this feeling? 

Once you start to really see the shape of the fear you are getting the upper hand. Fear hates public speaking. The more questions you ask the more uncomfortable fear becomes. Soon the fear will be wishing it could slink back into the subconscious but you have too firm a grip on it. One great aspect of having recognized the fear is that you can decide to interrogate it later. If you are too triggered in the moment just focus on recognizing the emotion and put that in your pocket. Later, when the emotional heat is down, you can begin the process of asking questions. A journal, or just a piece of paper, provides a great tool. Literally right down questions about your fear and answer them. The more you practice interrogating your fears the easier it becomes. 

As with so many things, this is not a one time exercise. Each day, start to pay attention to what you are feeling. When you feel the emotional intensity rising take a pause. Start with small emotional reactions and build up your technique before tackling big ones. Ask what you are feeling. Work to give it a specific name. Begin to ask it questions. Every bit of fear we reduce increases our available strength for other things. Soon those small wins will stack into big wins. You got this. 

Be well, 

Dave