Why is it important to know what emotions we are feeling? Have you ever worked on your emotional intelligence? Emotions are a fundamental part of how we experience life and how we use them is important for decision making, relationships, goal accomplishment, wellbeing, and how we choose to move through life! When we acknowledge the value of our emotions and notice the wide variety of emotions we can experience, we can better accept, appreciate, and use them as tools. All emotions – happy, sad, mad – serve as data to help us make decisions. Accurately naming emotions in ourselves and others opens up opportunities to learn. It is so important to remember we are not our emotions, we experience emotions. So rather than naming yourself “I am frustrated”, work to name the emotion “I am feeling frustrated”. This allows us to take a step back and see the emotion for what it really is, information we can use to make decisions about how we want to show up in the world. It helps to put us in the driver’s seat of our lives and perhaps be more empathetic to others’ experiences too.
