Have you thought about how you feel? How often? How connected are you to your feelings? Can you name more than one feeling you are experiencing at any point in time? How many feeling words can you come up with?
In terms of human evolution, we were “feeling” beings long before we were “logical thinking” beings. Even if you look at a single human life, we were born into this world with immediate feeling (OK crying), not logical thinking. Logical thinking only came later. Even at the very end of a human life, logical thinking will not serve us as faithfully as feeling. This is not to minimise or waive the importance of rationality, only to highlight that being connected to feelings is crucial for all of us.
Well, aren’t we all connected to our feelings always? Isn’t this a given? Sadly, no.
For the bulk of my life, I was experiencing emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and so on, and I was not able to feel these emotions. It might sound strange, I know. It was basically a case of emotional numbness. The closest analogy I can think of is when you have a cold, sometimes it is very hard to taste various foods. All foods basically taste the same, bland. Similarly, I had a case of emotional numbness. There were many reasons for this, most of which lie in my early childhood and its environment. The net result was that well into my adulthood, I was still very disconnected from my feelings, and really myself as a whole.
And you might ask - why is this a problem? Well, if you cannot feel nor name what you are feeling, it is very difficult to manage it, and it is also very hard to feel or empathise with what others are feeling. More on this later.
In more recent times, I am working through my issue with feeling emotions using various resources available to me, and it turns out however, that even if you did not have this problem and you can feel emotions, most people can recognise only the most basic ones.
Dr. Brene Brown, a researcher at University of Houston, a podcaster and very big personality on the science of emotions, has recently said that most Americans can only name that they are happy, sad or angry. This is something like only being able to recognise the colors black, white and grey. Basically you are then called colorblind.
My thought, and that of Dr. Brene Brown's work, is that we should not become emotionally blind. Why is this a problem? Because if you are unable to name the emotion accurately, it is very difficult to manage it or treat it. Think that when you go to a doctor, all you could say was that you feel “bad”. The doctor then asks you - but what are your symptoms, do you feel pain, fever, indigestion, numbness, tingling, headache, nauseous, itchy, tired, sleepy, diarrhoea? But all you can reply once again is "I feel bad". In this situation, the doctor can do little to help you at this point. Similarly, it is difficult to manage your emotions if you cannot name them, nor can any one else help you. The more accurately you can name and identify your feelings, the greater the chance that you can treat it, or find help to treat it.
So here is a tip. Everyday, spend a few minutes, thinking and naming how you feel. Start with one basic emotion each day - happy or sad. Then as you becomes practised, move to a more nuanced emotion. Rather than simply “happy”, see if you can recognise whether you are feeling inspired, joyous, carefree, open, light-hearted, fun, creative or other. Similarly, rather than simply “sad”, are you nervous, anxious, worried, guilty, shameful, regretful, hurt, isolated, tired or other?
If you are at a loss for words, use the feelings wheel at https://feelingswheel.com. This is life-changing work, especially for us men. Let’s do the work, let’s talk about it with each other, and let's change the landscape on connecting to authentic selves.
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