How to perceive, regulate and use feelings for yourself
Imagine if you could not only understand your feelings, but also actively use them to your advantage. Emotions are human, but they often overwhelm us so that we don’t know exactly how to deal with them. We push away negative feelings or play down positive ones. Sometimes we ask ourselves whether our feelings have a right to exist at all and whether it is okay to allow them.
But what if you had the ability to consciously perceive your feelings and even use them to your advantage? That’s exactly what this blog article is about.
But first of all, what are feelings?
The general term for feelings/emotions and moods is “affects”. Feelings and emotions are often used as synonyms for each other. However, in order to understand feelings more precisely, it helps to differentiate the term “feelings” from moods and affects, because: Feelings can usually be assigned to a specific object and tend to last for a shorter period of time. Joy, sadness, fear, anger or shame are all expressions of our inner state. Moods, on the other hand, cannot usually be assigned to a specific object and last longer.
Feelings are determined by how we interpret situations. If I feel that I have been treated unfairly, for example, this triggers the thought “This is wrong” and I feel anger. If I realize that I can’t change a situation that I don’t like, this triggers the thought “That’s a shame” and leads to sadness. If I think “I am wrong”, this leads to shame, the thought “This is right/beautiful” leads to joy and “This is terrible” leads to fear. It can happen that we misinterpret situations and create feelings that don’t help us at that moment.
Why is it important to be aware of your own feelings?
Feelings send a message. They want to be heard and felt. If we ignore them, they get louder and louder because they want to draw our attention to something. You can compare it to touching a hot stove: The pain wants to draw our attention to the fact that we should take our hand away. If we ignore this, the pain gets stronger. It is therefore important that we recognize our emotions and the message they are trying to send.
In addition, ignoring emotions can lead to stress and physical symptoms. If you ignore emotions for a long time, you will gradually lose the ability to feel and will also experience less pleasure.
If we don’t use certain feelings, this can also limit other feelings. If we don’t want to feel sadness, it will be difficult to really appreciate & love something. If we don’t define anything as “wrong”, we will also find it difficult to feel something as “right”. It is therefore very important that we learn to allow all feelings. This does not mean letting them out completely uncontrollably, but giving them space to feel them. ihnen Raum zu geben, sie zu fühlen.
The 5 basic feelings according to Vivian Dittmar
Perhaps you are familiar with this situation: you find yourself in a situation in which you cannot interpret your emotions accurately. At such times, it can be helpful to go through the five basic emotions to gain clarity and identify your own emotional state.
According to Vivian Dittmar, the five basic emotions are anger, sadness, fear, joy and shame. They form the foundation of our emotional world and usually arise through interpretations such as:
- Anger: “This is wrong.”
- Sadness: “That’s a shame.”
- Fear: “That’s terrible.”
- Joy: “This is beautiful/right.”
- Shame: “I am wrong.”
This means that if we change our thoughts and our perspective, we can influence our feelings.
Every emotion fulfills a specific task:
Feelings have power! If we learn to feel them, great things can come from them – especially through feelings that we may not like so much, such as anger, sadness, fear or shame.
Anger poses the question: What do I want? It helps us to take action, say no clearly and change things. Major changes were initiated by people who felt something was wrong and used this anger energy to drive change.
Grief helps us to accept that something is gone, that something we want is no longer there and helps us to realign ourselves.
Fear shows us where we can develop further, where we can develop something new. It is closely linked to the feeling of ‘excitement’. It is always part of leaving safe ground.
Joy asks the question: What do I want to celebrate? It helps us to celebrate and enjoy life.
Shame helps us to reflect on ourselves. To recognize where we are different than we actually want to be. And to sincerely apologize when we have done something wrong. It poses the question: What kind of person do I want to be?
Every feeling has a power that we need in certain situations. If we can’t or don’t want to allow one of the feelings, we switch to others that may do us more harm than good in the situation (e.g. anger if I can’t change something).
But how exactly do we achieve that?
It is important that we always take the time to listen to our feelings and ask ourselves the question: How am I feeling right now? At the same time, it helps to realize that every feeling has a right to exist. If I sense that I am feeling angry, I can consciously think about how I can use this energy to change something. Perhaps this energy can then also help me to consciously focus on the things that I can influence.
A practical tip for feeling more joy in everyday life is to focus on the positive and be grateful for it. After all, gratitude is the key to joy. You can do this by keeping a gratitude journal, for example. Every evening, write down 3 things you are grateful for.
