How do you feel your emotions? Do you feel your emotions?

To some this might seem like a silly question, however if we can recognize how we manage our emotions, how we experience them, how we process them, we can gain greater insight into the patterns in which we interact with others and ourselves.

Are you a feeler, do you experience emotions deeply and express them openly?

Are you an avoider, do you generally refrain from feeling emotions, reflecting on them or sharing them with others?

Or maybe you fall somewhere in between, depending on the emotion or the situation.

I’m writing about emotions because they are at the core of our experiences and our memories. How we process and manage our emotions can shift the course of our lives. Emotions can determine how you make decisions and how you interact with people in your life. By strengthening our awareness about our emotional experiences, developing emotional resilience, we can be more adaptive in stressful situations, create deeper connections in relationships, resulting in more fulfilling and meaningful lives.

We carry around our emotions, whether we acknowledge them or not, and when they go unacknowledged this leads to mental health concerns like depression and anxiety. I encourage you to give emotions the space they need by:

• acknowledging them, naming them (be specific)

• noticing how you feel in your body when you experience different emotions

• removing judgement of self or the emotion (emotions aren’t good or bad)

• having courage to lean into the discomfort, there is wisdom in uncomfortable emotions

• find comfort in knowing emotions come and go, this won’t last

• be kind to yourself!