On Emotions, Part 1: How To Identify Emotions

Dr. Anthea Tjoa
Aug 30, 2024
2 min read

Updated: Sep 26, 2024

“We love to believe we are rational, thinking people who, on occasion, feel some emotion… [but] everything we know about who we are as people neurobiologically points to one thing and that is we are emotional, feeling beings who on occasion think.” - Brené Brown

My work with my clients focuses a lot on emotions–becoming aware of them, feeling them, naming them, identifying what triggered them, working through them, and processing how it shows up in their bodies. I don't know about you, but growing up there had been, culturally, very little focus and attention on this aspect that I believe is such a crucial part of life.

In grad school, I was trained that emotions are what shows up in our bodies that are non-verbal, and feelings are the words that we use to describe those emotions or bodily sensations. Emotions are conscious, unconscious, or subconscious, while feelings are conscious because they are in our awareness.

There is no such thing as “bad” and “good” or “negative” and “positive” emotions/feelings. Emotions and feelings are just what they are–physiological cues that let us know that something in our bodies or the environment is affecting us. Perhaps adjectives like “comfortable” and “uncomfortable” may be more helpful and less stigmatizing.

Additionally, emotions and feelings are usually a mix of different ones and not just one. For example, someone may feel both nervous and excited, sad and happy (bittersweet), angry and passionate while feeling playful. Feelings/emotions just “are,” so maybe we can let them—and ourselves—just “be.”

Here are two resources that might be helpful and a practice that I do.

One of my favorite things to use is a feelings wheel or list of feelings.