The Good and the Bad
For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night. —Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Confused? Calling an emotion “good” or “bad” doesn’t give us a lot of information as to why someone is feeling this way, and it becomes especially hard to be helpful. Different coping strategies and support work for different emotions and so it’s important to be specific about emotions. We want to name them and include nuance.
It’s not uncommon for people to confuse their emotions with thoughts. For example, people might say they feel like “the situation is unfair” when they are actually feeling sadness or frustration. One way of distinguishing emotions from thoughts is to keep in mind that emotions are usually one word (e.g., sadness, frustration, guilt, despair) and thoughts are usually a few words. If you are trying to understand your emotions, cope with them, and communicate them to others- specificity is key.
Other times, we have what can be known as meta-emotions. We have an emotion that occurs in response to the original emotion. This could be feeling positive about feeling positive, feeling negative about feeling positive, feeling positive about feeling negative, or feeling negative about feeling negative. Meta-emotions can reflect a judgment about the original emotion.
Being specific about the original emotion and the meta emotion can help us understand our experience and whether our feelings (and/or the intensity) fits the facts of the situation. For example, if you feel guilty about being angry with a loved one, this awareness might be a useful starting point to figure out if the anger is disproportionate/proportionate or an ineffective/effective response. Or, whether guilt reflects negative beliefs about expressing anger from past history and learning experiences.
Some research has indicated that the act of naming your emotions can provide emotional regulation. Personally, I’ve found that identifying my emotions can give me space between my emotions and actions, and gives me a greater ability to be patient with their presence.
If you are not sure how to identify your emotions, try and pay attention to the following :
What physical sensations do you experience?
What are the action urges you have?
What do you want to say ? or do ?
What would people notice about your facial expressions? Or posture?
What thoughts are going through your mind at the moment?
If you are not used to paying attention to your feelings, it may take some time and practice to observe your experiences in the moment. Try to keep at it and you can always search on the internet for an “emotion wheel” to help get you started- taking your best guess is also one way to start !
A bit about the author
Melanie Adamsons is a Registered Clinical Counsellor at Latitude Counselling, and specializes in DBT, CBT and client-centred therapy.