How are you feeling right now? Can you name it?
How do you know? How are you able to tell what emotions are going through you?
I often have bodily sensations that give me clues to my emotional feelings. A churning or tightness in my abdomen with anxiety. A lightness or sense of light with joy. A heaviness in my pelvis with dread. A current of energy in my chest or belly with enthusiasm or excitement. A roiling in my stomach with anger.
Tapping into these sensations can be tricky, though. It takes awareness and practice.
When my kids were little, it was challenging getting them out of the door to get to school on time. I got frustrated many mornings.
As I got frustrated, my temper and the volume of my voice began to rise. I’m not proud of the number of times I lost it and yelled at those little humans.
We all hated it.
After a lot of tears (there’s and mine) and one of my kids telling me how much it upset him when I yelled, as well as my husband encouraging me to speak more calmly, I decided to do whatever I could to not let my temper get the best of me.
Listening to your body to know your emotions
I tuned into my body and learned to notice how I felt right before my anxiety and anger shot out of my head in harsh, loud words. I bit my tongue and went into another room to calm down.
Then I noticed how I felt right before that moment, as the emotion began to rise, and took some calming breaths so I didn’t need to put myself into a time out. I didn’t do it perfectly. I still messed up from time to time. But it became much less frequent and mornings got better for everyone.
I’ve learned I have some other tells to my emotions as well.
My linguistic tells
If you’ve met me, heard me speak, or seen my videos, you’ve probably noticed I’m not American. I was born in England and have lived lots of places since — the Caribbean, Florida, the Carolinas, New York state, and now the West Coast of the US. I used to have a very posh British accent, but it’s lost a lot of its edge over the years.
There are times it comes out strong, though: when I’m scared, mad, giving a presentation or leaving a message on someone’s voice mail. Even irritation and annoyance can bring it out, as my Anglophile spouse has discovered. (He tells me he feels torn at times, as he doesn’t like to cause me upset, yet loves my accent when it’s stronger.)
My Britishness leaves my voice the most when I’m happy and relaxed, as well as when I talk to babies and animals.
I seem to have little control over it. My fake British accent is nothing like what comes out of me when I’m furious.
Because of this, my accent not only gives other people a good indication of my emotional state, but it’s a tip-off to me, as well. If I’m not already aware of how I’m feeling, hearing my own voice, clipped and tight with the Queen’s English is a sure giveaway.
Another tell has cropped up in recent months. The experiences with my kids over the last couple of years have been a series of letting go while simultaneously learning to prioritize and hold on to what’s most important. It’s changed me.
My filter has eroded to the point that I no longer constantly wonder how other people are judging me. Do they think I’m a good parent? A good person? Maybe I know myself more — I am a good parent (even if my teenagers don’t always think so). Am I “good”? I don’t know. I am a human who cares deeply, is willing to learn, to be self-aware and grow, to give and change. I like myself. I’m good with me.
I curse a lot more now. Mostly when I’m frustrated, stressed, or near depletion. Those places became familiar territory for a long time.
Cursing is an indicator of how I’m feeling. If I’m cursing a lot, there’s something going on with me that I need to pay attention to.
Why do I need to pay attention? Why is it important to know what you’re feeling?
Repressed emotions don’t go away
As much as they may feel inconvenient or uncomfortable, feelings are part of being human. We can’t not have them. We might try and convince ourselves we don’t need them, or squash them down and repress them. Or distract ourselves from them, usually through one or more destructive methods. But they’ll still be there when we’re done. Feelings don’t go away.
Ignoring and repressing them often just makes them stronger. Because if you’re not paying attention, they’re going to get louder, like a little kid trying to get you to listen to them. Or past me in the morning trying to get my kids to listen to me.
We live in these human bodies. They give us all sorts of clues and sensations to let us know what’s going on with us. Our job is to pay attention, to listen — literally listen to our voices in some cases — so that we can better know how to be there for ourselves.
So what’s your tell? How does your body tell you if you’re anxious, or angry? How can you tap into your body’s innate wisdom to learn more about yourself?
Image by Gino Crescoli from Pixabay