The Importance of Naming Your Emotions
A recent article it the New York Times by Tony Schwartz talks about the importance of naming your emotions.
One of my favorite parts of the article says:
“So what’s the value of getting people to express what they’re actually feeling, rather than keeping things relentlessly light and bland? The answer is that naming our emotions tends to diffuse their charge and lessen the burden they create. The psychologist Dan Siegel refers to this practice as “name it to tame it.””
Naming your emotions can defuse them; take away the power from them. When our emotions lose the ability to take away our power that makes us more powerful and effective in our lives. The article talks about being more productive in our jobs, but I have found that naming and acknowledging my emotions makes me more effective in every aspect of my life. One of our goals at WeFeel is to give everyone a way to acknowledge, track and analyze their feelings. More than just a journal that records your feelings, you will have the opportunity to see your feelings over time and in the places you are. You will have a set of tools at your fingertips that will help you name it. And like Dan Siegel in the article says, “name it to tame it.”
