How I Truly Feel

You’ve felt it before, the sudden rush of frustration when a friend cancels plans last minute, the tightness in your chest when a message goes unanswered, the sharp sting of disappointment when someone doesn’t show up the way you expected. 

But have you ever stopped to ask yourself, what exactly am I feeling? Most of us don’t. We react, we withdraw, we overthink, or we lash out, all without truly understanding what’s happening inside us. 

The truth is, you can’t control what you don’t recognise, and that’s where emotional self-awareness comes in.

Naming your emotions is like turning on the lights in a dark room. Suddenly, you see what’s in front of you; fear disguised as anger, loneliness wearing the mask of irritation, exhaustion presenting itself as indifference. 

Without awareness, emotions can mislead you, making you say things you don’t mean or sabotage relationships without realising why. But when you name what you feel, you create space between emotion and reaction, and in that space lies the power to choose how you respond.

I recently read a study from UCLA and found that simply labelling emotions reduces their intensity. The brain shifts activity from the amygdala, the centre of emotional reactivity, to the prefrontal cortex, which handles rational thinking. 

In simple terms, the moment you say, I’m not just mad, I feel unappreciated, your brain begins to regulate that emotion instead of letting it control you. This is why people with high emotional intelligence don’t just feel their emotions, they understand them.

But self-awareness doesn’t happen by accident. It requires pausing before reacting, sitting with discomfort, and asking, what am I truly feeling? 

It means going beyond the surface. 

That anxiety before sending a text? Maybe it’s fear of rejection. That sudden irritation with a friend? Maybe you’re feeling overlooked. The more precise you are in identifying emotions, the better you become at managing them.

Think about the last argument you had. Were you upset about what was said, or was there something deeper, an unmet expectation, a lingering insecurity, an old wound resurfacing? 

Many conflicts escalate not because of the issue at hand, but because emotions go unrecognised and unspoken. Imagine how different things would be if instead of yelling, ‘You don’t care about me!, you could say, I feel unheard and that makes me withdraw.’ The first statement attacks; the second invites understanding.

Self-awareness isn’t just about understanding yourself, it’s about improving your relationships. People who master it become easier to connect with because they communicate more clearly, take responsibility for their emotions, and are less likely to project their feelings onto others. 

Instead of expecting people to just know what’s wrong, they articulate their needs. Instead of bottling up resentment, they express boundaries. Instead of overreacting, they reflect.

So whenever you feel something rising within you, don’t just react, pause. Give it a name. Is it disappointment, jealousy, fear or insecurity? 

Identify exactly what you are feeling. Because once you name it, you can tame it. And once you tame it, you can master the art of emotional intelligence.

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