Finding the Words to Describe My Emotions
By: The Good Men Project
Tags: Life Lessons, Emotional Intelligence, Self Improvement, Emotions, Advice

Finding the Words to Describe My Emotions

Photo credit: Shutterstock

By Dyanne Brown

One of the hallmarks of emotional intimacy is communication. Oddly enough, even though I am a writer and can express thoughts and emotions very well in a professional setting, in a personal scenario I find it challenging.

I was also smug that being a girl meant that I understood emotions. I knew how to display a whirlwind of emotions when I felt challenged, disrespected or triggered.

At one point, I compared myself to the Tazmanian Devil because I was cool as a cucumber and then without warning my target was suddenly swept up in a tornado of my anger, sadness and frustration. I knew how to tap into those emotions very easily and how to throw them like daggers at whoever I identified as dangerously close to my vulnerability.

None of this served me. It was just how I handled being overwhelmed when I was young. When I spun out, my parents and other people would back off. It was effective for short-term relief even if it got me in trouble. It gave me a chance to breathe.

Most of the time, I was shut down. I was numb to my emotions.

In my mind, there was no benefit to having emotions. When I cried, I got in trouble. When I was angry, I got in trouble. When I was anything else in between, I was ignored. And, when I was really happy, it irritated the people around me. So, I learned to suppress all of it.

I thought I was expressing myself with my girlfriends, but even they only received the hot and cold feelings. Either sadness or anger was discussed. Really, I would mostly listen to them vent and provide sympathy. I had learned how to be able to tap into the feelings of those around me and show up however they needed me to.

I wasn’t challenged until I was in an intimate relationship with someone who was as shut down as I was. Suddenly, I found myself trying to express how I felt and I had no idea.

He was asking me, “What do you want from me?” I had no words except I wanted to feel better.

Over the next few years, I had to meet my emotions.

They rose like captives, shading their eyes as they adjusted to the light. They had so long been pushed down that they seemed timid to speak. I had to coax them out and create a welcoming environment.

I had to understand that I was the one pushing them beneath the surface and ignoring them. Now, I was demanding they inform me by telling me what I refused to acknowledge in the past. Ultimately, they trusted me and showed up as they normally would if I hadn’t been locking them away.

I didn’t recognize them. I didn’t know their names.

Sometimes, I had to look them up. I found an emotion wheel online and I used it to identify the appropriate word to what was giving rise to my body. It wasn’t always a pretty process. Sometimes, it was a fight and there were tears, but it was always cleansing.

Suddenly, I was seeing them as rejection, scared, discouraged or joyful and excited.

The two biggest seemed to be disappointment and grief. My grief showed up as guilt and shame. My disappointment was actually sadness and rejection.

As I got to know these emotions and even figured out where they came from, they didn’t feel as frightening. I even started to expect them to show up in certain situations because I had learned their origin story.

The most surprising thing is I had made them enemies when really they were just trying to protect me. Ironically, I was trying to protect them by pushing them away.

Sometimes, I didn’t even feel the need to express them to anyone else because I knew how to take care of myself.

The big ones, the ones I couldn’t easily comfort, I would let them speak in the situation and pray the other person listened. Sometimes, they did. Sometimes, they couldn’t.

People who are equally emotionally shut down find it difficult to meet your emotions when they refuse to meet their own.

What it did help me to do was to understand what I needed and when it wasn’t being given or even possible to be found within a person or a situation. I believe knowing my emotions will save me years of looking for something I don’t recognize in places they will never exist.

Now, when I face something really difficult, I expect my emotions to show up like the scene with the Avengers in “Endgame”.