Getting in touch with your emotions is easier said than done.
Many people find it hard to recognize their feelings and act on them. Even if they once felt able to, trauma or negative experiences can cause a shift that leads to suppression of these feelings to the point where they stop feeling them altogether.
It’s easy to get stuck inside your own head and focus on the negatives. You can get into a self-destructive mindset that convinces you that it’s easier to ignore your emotions than deal with them. You hide behind your feelings and remain silently suffering.
However, with a little patience, you can get back in touch with your emotions and feelings. It might take some time and energy, but it’s definitely doable.
Doing so will give you a whole new lease of life. You will grow in confidence, you’ll be able to make better decisions, and you will become a better judge of character.
If you’re currently struggling to tune into your emotions, here are five ways to help you get back into the right frequency.
Think About Your Communication With Others
Consider how you feel when you interact with others.
What emotions stir up when you communicate with them? In particular, focus on those with whom you interact regularly, such as a partner, family, friends, and work colleagues, as these are the people who are likely to influence your emotions the most.
The way you perceive other people’s words and actions can make a huge difference to the way you internalize these interactions. You build a conclusion based on everything you have internalized and this influences your emotions and feelings. If you want to learn more about this, you can do so using the guide about judging vs perceiving by MBTI.
Recognize The Emotions You’re Feeling
Recognizing how you feel is one of the most important steps when you’re trying to get more in touch with your emotions. This includes both positive and negative emotions.
Whether you’re experiencing happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, boredom, doubt, stress, or anxiety, taking the time to reflect and identify which emotion(s) you’re feeling can be the first step to acceptance.
Remember that you can, and often will, experience more than one of these emotions at once. It can be difficult to distinguish between similar emotions, but over time, as you self-reflect more often, it will become much easier.
Create A Mood Tracker
If you’re an artsy person (or even if you’re not), grab some pens and paper or buy a new journal, and create a mood chart. Split the chart into each day of the month so you can track your mood and any associated emotions throughout the whole month.
Make your mood tracker your own! Add in some doodles and lots of color to make it fun and creative. It’s your space to keep track of how you’re feeling so it needs to make you feel calm and comfortable.
At the end of each month, take some time to reflect on how your mood has been over the past few weeks. Are there certain days of the week that you seem to be experiencing more negative emotions? If so, can you identify a common denominator that might be contributing to this?
When you learn to identify the patterns in your mood, you can start associating particular thoughts and feelings to your emotions.
Start A Meditative Practice
Believe it or not, your thoughts and emotions create your physical reality. When you’re constantly feeling down, it can manifest in your body. You can start to feel tired or you might get sick more easily. This is because the mind and body are so closely connected.
By practicing meditation, you can learn to strengthen this connection. Meditation has been shown to enhance self-awareness, boost self-esteem, and improve focus and concentration.
It can also decrease your levels of stress by activating your parasympathetic nervous system, which relaxes your mind and body. When you are in a more relaxed state, it’s much easier to take a step back and identify the way you are truly feeling.
Listen To Your Body
When you are feeling stressed, worried, angry, or doubtful, it can show up as a series of physical symptoms. Usually, negative emotions like these ones tend to manifest as tightness in your chest, headaches, numbness, nausea, or dizziness.
Different people will experience unique physical sensations when they are feeling a certain way. Make sure you learn how your own body reacts so you can be proactive about things.
Getting more in touch with your emotions can help to reduce any unwanted physical symptoms and silence your negative thoughts.
