Latest / Let's Get Emotional / “I Feel Like…”: Why We Don’t Always Name What We’re Feeling | Let’s Get Emotional

Transcript

“I Feel Like…”: Why We Don’t Always Name What We’re Feeling | Let’s Get Emotional · Let's Get Emotional

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Let's Get Emotional.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Tatiana Rojas, licensed marriage and family therapist, and it's just me again today.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to take a few minutes to talk through some of the ways emotions show up in everyday life.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: So today I wanted to focus on something that sounds really small, but once you notice it, you'll probably start hearing it everywhere.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you might start to actually catch yourself doing it too.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's the phrase, I feel like.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We say it all the time.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like nobody's listening to me.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm doing everything.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm failing.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And on the surface, those sound like feeling statements.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we literally started with the phrase, I feel.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the time what comes after, I feel like, isn't actually the feeling.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's the thought we're having about what's happening.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is one of those things that shows just how tricky emotional language can be.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can be trying really hard to explain how you feel and still end up describing the situation instead.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say you're having a conversation with someone and you tell them, I feel like you don't care about what I need.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: That probably feels pretty emotionally honest when you say it, but if we slow that sentence down a little bit, you don't care about what I need is actually what you believe is happening in that moment.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The feeling is still underneath it somewhere.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're actually hurt or you feel unimportant, or you're frustrated because this isn't the first time you felt this way.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that is probably a really important distinction to make and can really matter, especially when we're trying to communicate with somebody else.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine you say, I feel like you don't care about me, and the other person immediately responds with, Of course I care about you.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're probably thinking, that is completely not the point.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But from their perspective, they're responding to the statement you made.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: You said you don't care, they're saying, Yeah, I do.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Before you know it, the conversation becomes about whether or not they care instead of what you were actually trying to express, which might have been something much closer to, I'm really hurt right now.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that lands very differently.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it guarantees that the conversation suddenly goes perfectly.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wish emotional vocabulary gave us that kind of power, but it does tell the person something different.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, it tells you something different.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between knowing what you think happened and knowing what happened emotionally for you.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us are much more practiced explaining what happened.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We can tell the whole story, who said what, what their face looked like when they said it, what happened three weeks ago that made this even more frustrating.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We can give context, lots of context.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: But then somebody asks, okay, but how did that make you feel?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly it's like, I don't know, bad, upset.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us just haven't had much practice with this.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've had plenty of practice thinking, analyzing, trying to figure people out, trying to understand what happened.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And emotional language is a different skill.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think the phrase I feel like it's really interesting because it can make us feel like we've already answered the emotional question.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm failing.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens inside of you when you think you're failing?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I want you to get curious.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm failing is a thought, a really painful thought potentially.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: But underneath that thought might be disappointment.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It might bring up fear about what happens next.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: You could feel embarrassed because you think everyone else is handling things better than you are.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're starting to learn something about the emotional experience.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be really clear.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you to stop saying I feel like.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're trying to give context, and that's important.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you want to explain what happened, what you noticed, or how you interpreted the situation, and that's completely okay.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: You might say, I feel like I've been carrying more of the responsibility lately because you're trying to explain what that experience has been like for you.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can ask yourself whether there's an emotion underneath that context that you also want to name.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it might become something along the lines of, I feel like I've been carrying more of the responsibility lately and I'm feeling really frustrated.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or I feel like we've been disconnected and I'm noticing that I feel lonely.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to choose between explaining what happened and naming the emotion.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can do both.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: The context helps someone understand what you're responding to, and the feeling helps them understand what that experience has been like for you.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're wondering, okay, so what could I say instead of I feel like when I really am trying to name the emotion?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need anything complicated.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: You could try, I'm noticing that I feel what's coming up for me is, or even I think I'm feeling.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I really like that last one because it gives you room to figure it out.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to sound completely certain.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You could say, I think I'm feeling disappointed, and then realize a minute later that hurt actually fits the experience better.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to adjust the word as you understand the feeling more clearly.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of only saying, I feel like nobody cares what I need, you might say, I feel like nobody's really hearing what I need right now, and I think I'm feeling hurt by that.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you still get to explain what's happening from your perspective, but you've also given yourself a chance to name the emotion.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that can make the conversation a little clearer.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It can also help you to understand yourself a little better before you even decide what you want to do with the feeling.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you want something simple to practice after this episode, listen for yourself saying, I feel like you don't have to catch every single one and turn it into homework.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Simply notice.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: That can be really helpful.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do notice, ask yourself, am I giving context right now?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Am I sharing what I think is happening?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I actually trying to name the emotion?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you're giving context, keep going.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you realize you're trying to name the feeling, see if you can add one more sentence.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm feeling.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You might not know immediately, and you might have to sit with it for a moment.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You might even realize you don't have the word yet.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's useful information as well.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because emotional fluency doesn't mean instantly knowing exactly what you feel.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It means becoming more curious about your emotional experience and building more language for it over time.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually a huge part of why I created the let's get emotional, emotional fluency, learning the language of feelings course.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because so many of us know that we're feeling something, but when we try to explain it, we end up describing everything around the emotion instead.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: The situation, the other person, the thoughts, the story.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: The feelings get buried somewhere in the middle of it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: The course gives us more room to slow that process down and really learn how to understand the language of our emotions.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be able to find the course through my new company, Own Your Bloom, which will be launching in mid-October.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So definitely be on the lookout for more information as we get closer.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: For now, pay attention to the phrase I feel like, not because you need to get rid of it, just because it can give you a little clue about what you might want to say next.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the next sentence is where the feeling actually shows up.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll chat with you in the next episode, and I hope this was helpful.