Use Your (Feeling) Words: How Naming Emotions Helps

By Aasha Foster-Mahfuz, PhD

A few weeks ago, I was sitting with my latest quarantine acquired hobby of paint by numbers—a colorful rendition of my two pups.  I look over to my partner who was nearby innocently scrolling through social media, and ask if he want to join. He responds with bewilderment that I had another paint-by-numbers (the first didn’t turn out well!) and excuses himself from the activity. 

I found myself feeling tightness in my chest and throat. I got restless and noticed not-so-nice adjectives about him circling through my thoughts. Recognizing the shift from my previous calm and playful state to a tense and irritable one, made me pause. What am I feeling right now? And what do I want to do about it? I felt frustrated and hurt that he wouldn’t do the activity with me because I love doing activities together.  The act of naming the emotion helped me calm myself and regain composure. 

Experiencing overwhelming emotions? Say what you’re feeling

Naming or labeling emotions is the ability to tame them. I believe prominent psychologist Dan Segiel coined that phrase.  In essence, labeling one’s emotion bridges the gap between thoughts and feelings. So that a person can not only feel calmer (but potentially still frustrated etc) but they have a clearer mind that allows them to respond rather than react. 

Emotions can feel all consuming and overwhelming; like you are the emotion rather than a person having the emotion. Labeling the emotion helps reframe the experience and ground in the reality that we are people who feel emotion, not the emotions themselves. Once the labeled, emotions are better managed and better listened to. Emotions are often there to convey information to us. A common example of this is fear telling us that we are afraid of some stimulus and initiates the fight-or-flight response. 

So the next time you find yourself feeling flooded or having an intense emotional response. Pause. Label it and carry on.

About the Therapist: Dr. Aasha Foster-Mahfuz is a licensed psychologist whose made remarkable progress on taming her road rage.