Learning to Acknowledge Your Emotions

We all are born with a certain amount of intuition. The problem is, from a very young age we are often told to ignore our feelings or that our feelings are just wrong. Much like force-feeding an infant can cause the child to ignore their natural hunger control mechanism, it’s the same with emotions. The more we have been taught to push down our feelings, the more likely we are not to trust our emotions. It’s key to examine how to acknowledge your emotions. Following is a simple yet very effective process.

Make Your Environment Comfortable

Emotions need a safe environment to be felt fully. You’re your own best friend. Only you can create the right environment; safe for you to feel the emotions you have. Make your home safe for yourself and safe for your entire family. As Dr. Phil says, “home should be a safe place to fall.”

Acknowledge the Different Emotions

You Experience.

Don’t push away emotions when you feel them surfacing. Instead, allow yourself to experience a full range of emotions as, and when appropriate. Therefore, your home should be that safe haven of expression and acknowledgment. The key is to acknowledge that they exist but to express them in proactive ways. It’s not a good idea to express anger with violence or loud talking.

Acknowledge the Emotions Others Are Having

To improve your capacity for empathy, practice naming and expressing the emotions that other people are having. People who can show great empathy to others, even if they haven’t gone through the situation themselves, have much happier lives than those who cannot relate to other human beings at all. You don’t have to be homeless yourself to understand how truly demoralizing the experience is.

Write Down Your Feelings.

Keep a feelings journal for yourself to help you process different feelings that you are having, and different feelings that you note that other people have about situations in life. Your journal can help you work through emotions in a healthy way, and give you something to look back at when you are having trouble.

As you learn to trust your emotions by practicing feeling them, you’ll get better at discerning what’s right and wrong. It’s important as you learn to become more emotionally intelligent that you understand how to acknowledge your emotions and give them space to exist in your life. Doing so will help you manage life more effectively.