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How to Express Your Feelings (And Identify Them Better)
Learn how to express your feelings to someone in the best way. These hacks will help you improve communication in relationships and make your heart lighter!
It is unfortunate how most people spend a large part of their lives being unable to express themselves. Because without knowing how to express your feelings well, it is impossible to build trust and a genuine connection with people. Communication is the foundation of any relationship, so by withholding our feelings, we would simply distance ourselves from our friends, family, and romantic partners — and, we all deserve better than that!
That being said, expressing one’s deep feelings is not at all easy, and being able to do that requires time, patience, and empathy. Feelings, sentiments, and emotions are the delicate strings of the heart that you must take care of. And, nothing is better than expressing your feelings through heartfelt paragraphs, gestures, and deep love quotes.
Expressing genuine emotions takes time. You need to understand your feelings and identify effective ways to think and act logically. Scroll down and unlock the secrets to expressing your feelings.
How to Express Your Feelings to Someone You Love?
1. Accept the Way You Are Feeling
Accept your feelings and don’t shut them off hurriedly. Rejecting your emotions might make it difficult for you to think rationally. Analyze your feelings without judgment. Judging, denying, or rejecting them can worsen your emotional state.
2. Identify Your List of Emotions
Emotions have a strong influence on attention, motivating action, and behavior (1). Describe the way you feel or journal your feelings to understand them better. This would help you make others understand your feelings even better. You can describe your mood through single words, including, happy, sad, excited, hurt, overwhelmed, etc. Try to label your range of emotions to clear the path ahead.
3. Normalize Talking About Your Feelings
If you feel intensely about someone or something they did, then start by dropping hints about how you feel instead of attacking them with a flood of emotions.
A great way to do this is to normalize talking about your feelings with people on a regular basis, and not make a big deal about it. Keep it casual and don’t run away from discussing your feelings — they are normal and nothing to freak out about.
This will calm down your thoughts and make it easy for you to express your feelings to your crush over text or call. If you feel awkward initially, you can start by discussing your reactions or mood swings.
4. Don’t Confuse Feelings, Thoughts, And Moods
These three things are completely different from one another, so analyze each of them individually. Feelings change frequently, they come and go. The mood is a sustained period of an emotional state. On the other hand, thoughts are a result of your reasoning. Since these are different cognitive functions that interfere with your decision making, it is imperative to get acquainted with the ‘I think’ vs. ‘I feel’ rule.
5. Don’t Judge Feelings
Refrain from judging yours as well as your partner’s feelings. Listen to them and appreciate the way they feel for you. This will help you connect on a deeper level. Rejecting one’s feelings may seem like rejecting that person as a whole. Hence, it is essential not to get irritated, be judgemental, or defensive about the feeling expressed to you.
6. Try Verbalizing Your Feelings
Understand that the person whom you like cannot read your mind. Hence, always verbalize your feelings directly. Let them know what is going on in your mind and how you feel. Confess your deeper underlying feelings and not just the ones at the surface. Verbalizing can also develop closeness and intimacy.
7. Share And Discuss Your Feelings Daily
Your conversations need not be deep and serious all the time. Keep it casual. Share your day-to-day things, and discuss your feelings along with your thoughts. Let your daily conversations be logical and rational and not something that’s only driven by your feelings.
For instance, instead of simply asserting that you were late for a conference, say that you felt bad or embarrassed about being late to the conference. This will help you in connecting with the person better.
8. Practice Positive Self Talk
Talk to yourself positively. In your head, an inner dialogue is consistently running. If it is more on the negative side, replace the thoughts with positive ones.
9. Be a Listener
Be a good listener. This will help you to respond and communicate with empathy and understanding.
10. Try Spirituality
Your self-transcendent emotions are highly relatable to spirituality. For anyone who wants that additional nudge to express feelings better, practicing spirituality can be of great help.
11. Practice Acceptance And Forgiveness
Accept that certain aspects of your life will not be in your control. This will make you feel relieved and express yourself more authentically, as you relinquish the responsibility of making everything right. Plus, this way you won’t hold any grudges. Simply, free yourself from resentment, open your heart and mind, and express your feelings with confidence.
12. Be Grateful
Appreciate what you have and you will have that feeling of being thankful to God. It can help you in expressing a sense of joy along with your emotions.
How to Identify And Express Your Feelings?
Identifying feelings can be tough if you are a sentimental person. Expressing your feelings too early can mess up your bond, whereas if you are too late in expressing the way you feel, things may not work your way. Hence, below are a few tips to identify your feelings to help you express them better.
1. Notice Your Physical Reactions
When you blush, your cheeks likely turn red. When you are anxious, your heart begins to race. When you are angry, anger reflects through your eyes. In a nutshell, emotional reactions often manifest physically. This is an excellent opportunity to pen down your reactions to certain situations, as that would help us map our behavior.
2. Review Past Situations
If you have observed a pattern in your reactions to certain situations from past experiences, make note of it. Reflect on why you responded the way you did and whether you believe it was justified or not. This would help you understand yourself better and get in tune with your natural reactions, sources of happiness, pet peeves, etc. better.
3. Don’t Make Hasty Conclusions
Don’t come to a conclusion about feelings immediately, based on little evidence from a recent incident only. Instead, slow down and take your time to reflect on your feelings objectively — almost like you’re analyzing it from a third-person perspective. This process requires time, work, and repeated rethinking. After all, as easily as someone may brush it off as unimportant, identifying your feelings is not a cakewalk.
Why Is it Important to Express Your Feelings?
It is important to express feelings to someone special to regulate your emotional state as bottling up your emotions can be detrimental to one’s health and cognitive well-being, leading to a fight-or-flight state. There are also a few other reasons why you should open up:
1. It can strengthen the bond between you and the special people in your life
2 . It will help you understand other’s feelings at a deeper level, thereby fostering empathy and heart-to-heart communication
3. As a boomerang effect, it allows the other person to understand your feelings better, too
4. It creates a sense of trust and intimacy in healthy relationships
5. It can provide validation to your feelings and a sense of reassurance
To sum up, expressing your feelings the right way will strengthen all relationships in your life. For that, you also need to acquaint yourself with a few effective ways to express what you feel. Scroll down and check it out.
Effective Ways to Express Your Feelings Better
Feel confident in expressing your feelings, because the end result can be incredibly rewarding. Here are a few ways to pour your heart out better:
1. Identify your feelings first. Write them down if that helps (refer to the guide above)
2. Accept your vulnerability with confidence, courage, and dignity. Figure out what forces you to be vulnerable. Become comfortable speaking about yourself and your feelings.
3. Don’t worry if you can’t find the right words — you’ll get a hang of it eventually’
4. Use your body language as a supporting tool to convey what you feel and think
5. Be more expressive and foster self-awareness
6. Verbalize all kinds of feelings — happy and sad
7. Play games to strengthen your ties and foster a deep connection
8. Be patient with yourself
9. Cut off distractions that prevent you from thinking straight or articulating your feelings properly
With such kind of right strategies in mind, confessing your feelings will sound a lot easier.
What Happens When You Don't Express Feelings?
Things can get messy! If you keep your feelings to yourself, your negative and positive feelings will begin to accumulate. Your mind will start wondering with you having little to no control over how you may react. Hence, suppressing your strong emotions isn’t a good idea.
That being said, fixating on your feelings out of proportion can be quite draining, and at times, unnecessary too. If not managed well, it may also affect your physical and mental health.
Why Do You Feel Bad for Expressing Feelings?
You may feel bad after expressing your feelings and emotions because not everyone likes to be an open book. Since confessing and sharing what you feel deeply makes you vulnerable and exposed, it can affect you negatively.
Another reason behind feeling bad can be your upbringing or the kind of influence that you had. Feelings of anxiety, stress, and depression can kick in if things don’t go your way. Plus, past negative experiences can also lead to discomfort.
Secondly, if things are extremely serious, with your parents being involved, it can be hard to accept your confession. Plus, we carry our childhood lessons throughout adulthood, hence dealing with basic emotions constructively can be a little difficult post-confession.
How to Help Someone Express Their Feelings Via Text?
To help someone to express their feelings through text, you can consider the following strategies:
1. Ask Questions — But Don't Get too Interrogative
2. Encourage Them to Use Emojis to Support What They Are Saying
3. Don't Interrupt Them Or Try Changing the Topic
4. Validate How They Feel Without Judgement
5. Be a Good Listener
6. Reassure That They Can Trust You
7. Try to be patient and validate their emotions
8. Show appreciation and help them feel grounded
Summing up — to be successful at expressing your feelings, you need to be truthful, honest, and primarily, willing to make time for each other. Once you crack the code of how to express your feelings, you will be able to nurture a deeper relationship.
Expressing your feelings to someone you truly love is a journey that requires a lot of patience. It's a process that involves accepting and identifying your emotions. Sharing it opening and verbalizing your true feelings can contribute to a stronger emotional connection. It is an enriching experience that will strengthen your bond.
Sources
1. The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454/full
ALSO READ: 20+ Ways to Show Love to All the Special People in Your Life
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