Well, learning to identify emotions requires some effort and
lots of self-discipline, but it's worth it
The tools are rather simple (I love simple tools).
1. Write down the feelings. Take a diary, journal, notebook or something, and write down your feelings you experience each day. Of course, that shouldn't be all feelings that you noticed
First you may find this difficult, but I promise - the more you train, the better results you receive
.
Here is how to write the list of feelings:
(feeling) --> when (situation) (event/thoughts)
I.e. :
HAPPINESS, JOY - when I met my girlfriend
SADNESS, LONGING - when I left her house
And remember:
one page - one day.
Got it?
You should record not only the "negative" emotions, but this positive ones too. It is important to know, that you feel not only sadness, anger and fear
You may record emotions short after recognizing, or later - but you have to be systematic and record something every day - even one or two feelings.
Don't worry, if you don't know, what you are feeling at the moment. It's ok. Maybe an hour after, or two, you guess what it was - then record it. Sometimes it is difficult to be aware of feelings, especially when they are strong.
Sometimes you may notice, that nothing special happened, but negative emotions came anyway. Often the reason is your thoughts . In this situation I usually write, i.e.
"worry" - when I think of future meeting.
It is important (on the beginning), that you should record only feelings and events, not your reflections or judgements about them.
You may use a list of feelings - when you feel something, look at the list and try to find that feeling on the list. It is very helpful. The example of list of feelings you'll find
here.
Write your feelings diary for few weeks/months and see if you get any results. Don't surrender after few days
.
2. Tell others (or write them) about what you feel/felt. Do it as often as possible. Let it become a habit. It will not only help you to recognize emotions (and, of course, for the first times it may be difficult - see above), but also it's a good way to improve management of feelings (or, in other words, to improve your emotional inteligence
).
3. I tried also to identify emotion via body and mind. Warning: don't guess "what I SHOULD feel in that situation?". I think rather of that kind of analysis, when you think "Hmm, let's see... What this feeling tell me to do?". I.e. if you wish someone death, probably you hate him/her. If you want to hide under your chair, you probably feel shame. If you want to run out of place where you are at the moment, it probably fear
. It may seem obvious - but it isn't if you are perfect in suppressing emotions. Sometimes you have to look deep into yourself to read the information that your body send to you.. Avoiding to suppress emotions is very important to good recognition.
I hope it will be helpful for you.
(I'm sorry for my grammar
)