How to express emotions: practical recommendations. Human emotions

• August 24, 2019
• A woman's world
• Daniil Belousov

Emotions are present in the life of every person. They represent a positive or negative reaction that occurs within a person to what surrounds him. This is a kind of energy that accumulates inside the body. If you get rid of it incorrectly, then emotional tension may appear. Experts call this phenomenon psychosomatic. In fact, a kind of emotional-bodily block occurs. Over time, the situation only gets worse, and the person begins to experience a loss of energy. Therefore, the question of how to learn to express your emotions and feelings is extremely important. It's hard to believe, but some people often face such problems. An incorrect response to a situation has a negative impact on the nervous system and the general condition of the body.

Situations when a person is unable to correctly express his feelings

Sometimes it happens that aggression and internal anger reach such a peak that you just want to do something bad to your interlocutor. At such moments, you can say a lot of unnecessary things and then regret it for a long time. These are the situations in which you need to understand how to express negative emotions. If it is very difficult to cope with them, then the easiest option is to use a simple exercise.

To prevent an emotional outburst, experts recommend calming down and slowly counting to 100. As a rule, after this, half of what you want to do seems somehow unthinkable and unhealthy. This method will help you avoid unpleasant situations and learn to react more calmly to difficult situations, as well as show emotions more correctly.

Do you know how to feel joy?

Next key point.
And immediately the question: why do you need happiness if you are not able to feel it? At the same time, everyone has probably said to themselves at least once: “I’ll get what I want and I’ll be absolutely happy. In the meantime, we need to be patient a little more...” Do you recognize yourself?

You stubbornly endure, and when you achieve what you want, happiness turns out to be short-lived or not felt at all, because in pursuit of the result you exhaust yourself so much that you don’t even have the strength to rejoice.

Moreover, you notice that the tension has reached such a level that any positive emotions become impossible for you. Or because a new goal immediately appears to which you need to strive, and this result is just a respite on your path. Why is this happening?

The majority of women who come to me live mechanically, by inertia, “as it should,” “as it should be.” Or they simply cannot feel joy due to accumulated fears and resentments. Someone lives as if in a sleeping state or in a state of chronic fatigue or depression.

There is another category: women who cannot or do not know how to express their feelings in a healthy way, and prefer to think things through and be restrained, supposedly “decent”, constantly controlling themselves.

All this distances them from their natural healthy state in which they are able to live life in the moment and enjoy it. If everything around you is gray and you cannot feel your true desires, it means that you simply do not have the opportunity to get something that you will truly enjoy.

But it is our ability to feel that reveals opportunities for a vibrant life. The broader your perception, the more prospects you notice (and realize them).

Why do some people have a harder time showing normal emotions?

For example, if a person has too broad a horizon, this means that, depending on the situation, he can act in numerous ways. Therefore, it is much more difficult for him to choose one or another emotion for a specific moment. After all, he can experience joy and sadness at the same time.

There are also people who are called introverts. By their nature, they are very difficult to convey any emotions or feelings. It is much easier for them to experience them within themselves. However, doctors have long proven that this can negatively affect health. Therefore, the skill of how to express emotions must be developed.

In addition, some people are so afraid of offending another person that they extinguish all negative emotions and prefer not to use them at all. But the negativity does not go away; it is simply suppressed within the consciousness. And this also does not bring anything good.

Navigating the world of emotions

Human beings live in a world filled with emotions, but for many who lack good mothering, this world is a rather uncomfortable place. The ability to navigate these waters is an important component of successful functioning in this world and the comprehensive development of a person.

John Bradshaw American educator and bestselling author of Coming Home: Reviving and Protecting Your Inner Child explains Bradshaw, Homecoming, p. 71, how many are cut off from this world: “Children growing up in dysfunctional families are taught to suppress the expression of emotions in three ways: firstly, they are not reacted to and they are not mirrored, they are literally not seen; secondly, they lack healthy models for naming and expressing emotions; and third, they are shamed or punished for expressing emotions.” He continues Bradshaw, Homecoming, p. 72: “The sooner emotions begin to be repressed, the deeper the harm caused.”

When emotions are cut off in this way, it takes serious training to become part of the world of emotions. We will have to break the spell of our own “dead face” and become readable. This may be more difficult to achieve with some emotions than with others. Feelings that our parents found difficult to bear will usually be hard for us to bear.

Expanding the range of your emotions (exercise)

• Which of the following emotions do you find most difficult to accept or express?

• Which ones were the hardest for each of your parental figures?
• Using this list as a starting point, make a list of the emotions you want to add to your emotional palette.
• Add to the written emotions what will help you develop it.

Just as we can be active with the other omissions described in this chapter, we can be active in finding or returning emotions that we find difficult to express. For example, in your family you were unable to show disappointment, and you noticed that you were still embarrassed to express it. It may be helpful to choose a reliable person, share your disappointment with him and ask him to evaluate him. Let him mirror it and normalize your disappointment. An example of normalization might be: “Of course it will be difficult! I would be disappointed too!” If you were shamed for showing frustration as a child, this can be a powerful corrective experience for you.

Emotional style and caring patterns

Remember that many neglected people will need to work to get in touch with their feelings. When the mother did not notice or respond to the feelings, we often do not have a strong connection with them ourselves. We may have even learned to turn them off in order to maintain the connection we felt with our mother.

Our personal style (whether we suppress our feelings or exaggerate them in order to gain attention) usually develops in response to the style of our caregiver. It seems entirely reasonable that children learn to suppress their feelings: caregivers consistently do not care about the child's feelings or punish the child for expressing feelings. Research shows that when caregivers respond sensitively at times and simply ignore others to call for help, children are more likely to exaggerate their feelings Gerhardt, Why Love Matters, p. 26. .

Take time to think about the following.

• Are you more likely to hide your feelings out of fear of rejection, or do you make them up when you want to get something from another person?
• If you do both, which feelings (or under what circumstances) do you tend to hide, and when do you really enhance them? What do you think will happen if you give in to your feelings?

When negative feelings manifest themselves in the wrong way

To understand how to express emotions correctly, you need to determine the most common mistakes people make. For example, there are several situations in which there is no point in showing negativity. If you think that everyone around you, or the whole world in general, is to blame for your failures, and you get offended over trifles, then you shouldn’t give in to momentary impulses. These are not situations in which negative emotions are justified.

Also, you should not use such emotions if a person often insults and prefers to humiliate his offenders. In this case, additional reinforcement in the form of negative emotions is not required. Also, people often become aggressive when nothing serious is actually happening. For example, if someone is asked, “How are you?” - It’s illogical to snap back and start being rude in response. After all, the one who asks the question may be completely sincerely interested in the life of a friend.

Negative emotions manifest themselves incorrectly when a person begins to break glass, dishes, break equipment, and much more. A completely wrong manifestation of negative emotions is a fight or any forceful influence on your interlocutor. Therefore, before expressing emotions in this way, it is worth considering several times whether they are appropriate for a particular situation.

How to express feelings through self-knowledge

Emotional stress leads to drug or alcohol abuse. Without understanding oneself, a person begins to look for simple and alternative methods. Unfortunately, this leads to addiction, plus the results are short-lived. The sensations return again. How to learn to express feelings? Start by getting to know yourself privately.

• Take up meditation . Find a quiet place where you can relax, without noise. Use a technique for beginners - breathing exercises. As you exercise, think about the feelings that arose. Meditation will help relieve stress and anxiety, and tell you how to act in a specific situation.
• Record your emotions . Keep a notebook in which you describe the events that happened during the day. This method helps to understand true feelings and makes them tangible. Keep a diary every day, completely unloading your head. When recording events, do not focus on the logic of the presentation or errors. Connect your feelings to music, colors, weather.
• Play sports . If you feel that you are ready to throw out negative emotions, then come up with physical activity. Sports will help you distract yourself, relieve stress and improve your mood. Choose activities that you enjoy.
• Encourage yourself . Maintain a good mood, a positive attitude. Make an appointment with friends, go shopping, visit an exhibition. Fill your day with positive things, do only what you like. This way you train yourself to have positive emotions. The brain remembers that a good mood is accompanied by pleasant events.
• Visualize . Simulate different situations and act out two possible reactions. Express negative feelings and positive emotions. This way you will learn to control your feelings, understand yourself and react correctly.

Expressing feelings begins with understanding yourself. If you can’t speak up or share your emotions, then take a break. Rest and relax, then move on to solving the problem. When opening up to a loved one, do not be afraid of being misunderstood. Sincerity leads to your partner changing with you. If he is not ready for change, then you should not cling to such a relationship. A union without the manifestation of feelings will come to a break or will be accompanied by constant quarrels.

What can happen when using emotions incorrectly?

First of all, you need to understand that if a person behaves aggressively and shows negativity too often, then by doing so he only destroys his own life. Gradually, the people around him will get tired of him behaving this way, and they will begin to move away from him. Therefore, such people have a much higher risk of ending up completely alone.

Someone who is always dissatisfied, aggressive and hates the whole world around him, as a rule, gets sick much more often than a more positive person.

Love, but don't choke!

Showing love to a man means not “pushing” him, not demanding every minute reports, constant attention and signs of love. Often this is the behavior that women who are afraid of being left alone are guilty of. They are frightened by the fear of loneliness and therefore, with their overprotection of their partner, they destroy all relationships.

In no case should you allow yourself and your partner to merge into a single whole in a relationship. Every woman should have her own personal space, an interesting, rich life, hobbies, and work. It is impossible to constantly put pressure on a man and at the same time maintain harmony in relationships with each other. It is always important to remain yourself, do not forget about small joys and individual hobbies.

Important rules for expressing emotions

Before using words to express feelings and emotions, you need to understand how important it is to correctly convey your mood. For example, if someone suffers from severe depression or anxiety, they actually get angry too often, but never share their feelings with others. It begins to destroy from within. Therefore, every day the problem only gets worse.

You need to learn to share your emotions with other people. If a person is feeling sad, then there is nothing wrong with admitting your feelings. You shouldn’t hide under the mask of a happy person; you need to talk about exactly what is happening in his life and share your real problems.

How to regain the ability to feel?

Accordingly, it is very important to reveal your sensory sphere. How exactly? Just two points.

1. First: learn to be aware of how you feel.
2. Second: learn to express it.

There is a wonderful practice for this - “Diary of Feelings”. Stop at least five times throughout the day and ask yourself, “How am I feeling right now? What is happening to me? What condition am I in?

Then write the result in your diary.

Surprisingly, many answer these questions extremely simply: “I don’t know.” This is a signal that there is difficulty in feeling!

Then ask yourself another question: “What am I feeling in my body now?” It will be much easier to answer. For example: “I feel heaviness in my body (tension, lightness, warmth, cold, pain, spasm” or, perhaps, on the contrary: “I am relaxed.”

Based on this feeling, try to determine what you really feel. If there is relaxation, then most likely behind it lies joy, a state of pleasure, satisfaction. Whereas tension reveals irritation, fears, and so on. Do you understand the logic?

If you do this practice for at least a month, your consciousness will automatically begin to pay attention to such things. This is the beginning of contact with ourselves. We must remember that the body and feelings never deceive!

How to properly express your hurt and pain

A person's emotions can be described in a variety of words. The main thing is to start. For example, you can call a friend or your parents and say, “I’m sad.” Close people themselves will begin to ask questions and try to find out what the cause of depression is. During such a conversation, relief will certainly come.

If a person experiences pain and resentment, you need to express the appropriate emotion.

8. Believe in a man

Every man has hidden potential, and his partner needs to see it in time. Some women simply don’t understand what could be good in this particular man, they leave him, and the new partner reveals completely new facets in the same person.

A man wants to see a happy and contented woman in his partner. If a girl constantly looks tired and irritated, then a man constantly receives the same information that he is bad, that he cannot cope and that his beloved is not feeling well with him. And what kind of man likes to feel constantly bad?

It happens that a woman specifically demonstrates her disdain, making it clear that she is dissatisfied with a man’s behavior, insufficient earnings and everything he does for the family.

Such female behavior does not motivate at all, but has the exact opposite effect on a man - he withdraws into himself, seeks support on the side, does not strive for something more, such behavior will not help show love for a man, but will rather ruin the relationship.

Breath

When talking about how to express emotions, experts recommend learning to breathe correctly. This is a good method that will help you properly express your emotions. In this case, extremely simple exercises will help. First of all, you need to breathe quite deeply and with a certain regularity.

This method is most suitable in a situation where you really want to show negative emotions. If it is very difficult to show your true self, then in this case you need to learn to cry. First of all, tears help get rid of internal pressure and emotional stress. In addition, they help to express their emotions and show others that this or that person is experiencing unnecessary pain. The easiest way to convey a person's emotions is through tears. At this moment, the words themselves are found, and real liberation from negativity occurs. In order to start crying, you just need to stop holding yourself back and think about what is gnawing at you the most. If you don’t want to show such emotions in public, then you can cry alone or in front of a mirror.

There are also some other useful tips.

Limiting programs in our minds

Let's move forward. The time has come to realize that, in addition to bodily and sensory limitations, we are influenced by attitudes or, as I also call them, negative suggestions. We receive them both from the outside world and from ourselves. This brings us to where we started: where Impostor Syndrome comes from.

So, bodily limitations plunge us into a state of unpreparedness for happiness. The inability to experience and express feelings does not allow us to have anything. And finally, consciousness, squeezed by artificial frameworks, makes us unworthy of great results.

The attitudes and programs that limit us are varied. They can be:

• generic, inherited from ancestors and sitting in the subconscious. For example, if your grandfather or great-grandfather was dispossessed, then inside you probably have an attitude that living in abundance is dangerous;
• own, acquired during life. They, in turn, are also divided into two parts:
• coming from external sources. Here is what we “spied” on someone. For example, my parents said this all the time, but we remembered it. If a person has been taught since childhood to “be modest and keep a low profile,” then he is unlikely to take a leadership position, even if he secretly dreams of it;
• accepted based on their life experience. “I was deceived, now I don’t trust anyone”, “A woman betrayed me - from now on I don’t trust all women.” And everything like that.

This is how we begin to create restrictions that slow us down. To remove them, you need to expand your consciousness by clearing it of malware.

Advertising

Learning to show emotions

Speaking about how people express their emotions, it is difficult not to notice that some have richer facial expressions. When they are happy, they laugh, smile and talk loudly. When they are surprised, their eyes open wide and they freeze. However, you should not turn your emotions into a farce or theatrical performance.

For example, if someone does not like the topic of conversation, then it is enough to frown a little for the interlocutor to understand that it is better to change the topic. You shouldn’t give up negative emotions altogether. They are also important. They can be demonstrated in different ways. Some people cry, while others become less talkative.

But if in a store the cashier starts to behave aggressively or shouts, then it’s pretty stupid to smile back at him. In such a situation, the best option would be to express your complaint in a serious tone.

If we talk about how to express surprise, then, as a rule, people do not have problems with this. Usually the body automatically reacts to events that cause such emotions. But if difficulties arise, then you can use one more recommendation.

7. Respect

Respect is the key to showing love to a man. The basis of all successful relationships is mutual respect for each other. Absolutely any person has certain good qualities for which he can undoubtedly be respected, it is important whether other people notice this or not.

What does it mean to respect the man you love? This is, first of all, to take into account his desires and respect the boundaries of personal space. Absolutely all men react very sharply to any external pressure; in this case, they show stubbornness and begin to behave directly opposite to women’s demands and desires.

A wise woman will not put pressure on a man; she will try to convey her desires to him in a delicate, respectful manner, and do this in such a way that her loved one makes the choice himself. Mental intimacy is created over a long period of time, but it is always based on mutual respect between two loving people.

Dancing and singing

This is another good way that will help you learn to express your emotions. If at first it is very difficult to share your feelings with loved ones or talk about what is happening in your soul, then the easiest way is to start throwing out your emotions through dancing or singing some favorite song. If you put your soul into this action and learn to tell your story in this way, then you don’t even have to talk. You can dance or sing alone. For example, if you suddenly feel sad, you can turn on a slow song that is closest in meaning to your feelings and start singing along. After a while it will become much easier.

We can’t take dirty linen in public

Leave your fights at home. In order to properly show love for a man, in any conversations with your mother and friends, it is important to learn not to talk about your chosen one in a negative way. Most often, ladies make passionate speeches and scold their partner when they are offended by him. Just learn to keep your mouth shut and endure this difficult moment, the anger will fade away and you won’t have to regret the bad words you said earlier. In addition, if difficult days really come in your relationship with your loved one, then your loved ones, instead of supporting you, will mention all the negative points you previously told.

Definition of concepts

Emotional rigidity is manifested in the fact that the individual weakly, very selectively and within a narrow range shows emotional reactions to all kinds of stimuli.

Emotional dullness is a special mental state in which a person either very weakly expresses or completely loses higher emotions (sympathy, respect, tolerance, tact, modesty, honesty, conscientiousness, etc.).

Emotional coldness is a disorder in which an individual does not experience emotions at all, or their expression weakens.

With emotional stupor, under the influence of intense mental experiences (fear, horror, danger to life), a state arises in which affective activity and motor activity are blocked, and the thought process slows down.

Emotional depression , a pathological mental state, which is characterized by a drop in mood, loss of interest in everything around, and deterioration in well-being.

Taking care of a man with pleasure

In order to properly show love to a man, it is important for a woman not to forget about herself! Self-care, clean and harmonious clothes, hobbies, beautiful appearance - many women do not neglect all this. And, as for ordinary household chores, this is where a glitch occurs. Washing, ironing, cooking, keeping the house clean - all this causes real negativity in women. Try to change your attitude towards what is happening, learn to enjoy everything you do for your comfortable life together!

Turn on your favorite tunes when you iron, buy beautiful dishes to make it a pleasure to cook and set the table. Listen to audiobooks while cleaning; in a word, combine business with pleasure! Make sure that household chores are easy and relaxed for you.

What are such people called?

In everyday life, unemotional people are called callous, indifferent, thick-skinned, dry, soulless, cold, indifferent, insensitive, cynical.

From a scientific point of view, such individuals are considered alexithymic.

Alexithymia is a disorder in which a person is unable to express his own emotions in words.

Alexithymics are distinguished by their conflicting nature, poor resistance to stress, and poor imagination. They often encounter somatic diseases that are formed on human emotions.

Healthy individuals experience emotions intensely , are able to recognize and understand them, and therefore eliminate and calm them.

Since the alexithymic person is not aware of his experiences, he is unable to find a competent approach to eliminating them. Such people look at the world with hostility and do not know how to react normally to stress.

They have no motivation, no moral guidelines, no goals that appear under the influence of positive emotional stimuli.