How to identify your Emotions when you’re Depressed

Depression can be thought of as a heavy fog within your mind that blocks out everything from view and obscures how one will feel.It’s often a mix of sadness and numbness, making it hard to describe exactly what you’re feeling. Naming those emotions, however, is a very crucial step in managing depression and finding ways of dealing with it. This article will look at some effective ways of identifying your feelings whenever you are feeling depressed.

The Relationship Between Depression and Emotions

Depression does not always have to be about feeling sad; it is actually a multi-layered mix of feelings. You feel angry, frustrated, anxious, hopeless, or guilty. Sometimes, you may feel all of these emotions, and at other times, you may not feel anything at all – that would be the emotional flatlining. Sometimes, depression makes it hard to understand your feelings because it mixes up your emotions.

The first step in identifying your emotions is to acknowledge that depression distorts them. For example, it may blow up the negatives and dampen the positives. You might feel extremely sad over something that wouldn’t faze you on those better days or couldn’t feel happy with something that would normally put a smile on your face. This knowledge helps you re-look at the emotions more objectively with less self-judgment.

Develop Emotional Vocabulary

Emotional vocabulary is important in the identification of your emotions. It means naming different emotions and knowing how they feel. The more words you use in describing your emotions, the easier it gets to identify what you are actually feeling. For example, instead of saying that one feels “bad”, one can identify that he or she feels “overwhelmed”, “lonely”, or “irritable”.

A helpful tool is to apply an emotion wheel, which, by the name, breaks down feelings into larger categories-being happy, sad, or angry, for example-and then their degrees, such as joy, contentment, frustration, or despair. Use an emotion wheel to check a variety of possible feelings you may have and thus be able to describe how you are feeling more appropriately.

Practice Mindfulness and Self-Reflection

Probably the most mainstream product of emotional awareness is mindfulness. This approach demands being highly observant about your present thoughts and emotions without judgment. When depressed, your head might be full of negative thoughts or memories. In these situations, instead of ignoring your feelings, mindfulness encourages you to pay attention to them and acknowledge their presence, allowing you to let them go without getting caught up in them.

It is now time to move into the practice of mindfulness. Try to sit quietly each day for just a few minutes and focus on your breathing. When thoughts and feelings arise, notice them but do not judge these as “good” or “bad.” Just recognize that this was a thought and again point your attention to your breath. This may also, over some time, lead to an emotionally aware person who can then realize slight changes in the way one feels.

Read More: 26 Questions for Self-Reflection

Keep a Diary

Writing in a journal can be therapeutic as a means to explore and understand your feelings. When you feel depressed, take some time each day to write about how you feel and any thoughts you have concerning those feelings. Do not worry about spelling or grammar; just let your stream of consciousness flow onto the page.

In your journal, try to answer such questions as:

• What am I feeling at this moment?
• What have been the triggers for this feeling?
• Is there any physical component of the emotion at all, such as tightness in chest, lump in throat, headache?
• What do I need at this moment? Example: rest, support, distraction

Rereading your journal entries over time may help you identify your pattern and triggers of your emotional responses which can be an important part of understanding your depression.

Engage in Body Awareness Techniques

As has frequently been stated, our feelings are often stored in the body. When you’re depressed you may feel uptight or get headaches and stomach problems. In this case, the physical sensations might be an indicator about the status of your feelings. For instance, clenching your jaw, or tightening your shoulders, may indicate to you that inside, you feel angry or frustrated, whereas a feeling of heavy weight on your chest may reflect sadness
and grieving.

Begin a meditation on body scan to heighten your body awareness. Lie in a comfortable position where you can relax, close your eyes, and start deep breathing. Take slow notice of all the parts of your body-from the toes to the head-and note the sensations. This may connect your physical sensations with your emotions and help you make out what you might be feeling a little more clearly.

Talk to Someone You Trust

Sometimes, a talk with a trusted person helps to work out how you feel. Here, trusting your thoughts and feelings to a friend or family member or therapist may yield insight into how you feel. They may note patterns or triggers in your behavior that you haven’t considered, or they may be able to put words to the feelings that seem too vague or overwhelming to articulate.

These therapists will be especially trained to enable someone to look within themselves and understand why they are feeling a particular way. They may even lead you through some cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT techniques that might allow you to realize the negative patterns of thinking whereby you try to understand your feelings more clearly. If it is hard for you to open up, at least hearing someone else talk about their experiences of depression helps make one not feel so alone in their thoughts and opens up emotions.

Practice Self-Compassion

Practice self-compassion toward your feelings. When you feel depressed, you may feel critical about what you do or don’t feel. The thing is that there really is no such thing as an invalid emotion. All emotions serve a purpose, even though they may not always be comfortable at all times. Practicing self-compassion is about treating yourself compassionately and empathetically-being kind to yourself as you would toward a friend during a hard time.

Practice self-compassion with the following: “It is okay to feel what I am feeling.” “I have permission for this experience.” “I’m doing the best I can at this moment.” Knowing that one can feel just about anything when depressed allows one not to put as much stress on oneself to experience life a certain way. It can also help a person more clearly and accurately identify and understand his or her emotions.

Creative Outlets to Express Emotions

Drawing, painting, music, or creative writing are artworks that can help you bring out your emotions when words are just insufficient. These can be a bridge to the inner world of the grieving person when the words are not enough, as well as means of visualizing or externalizing hard-to-put-into-words feelings. You do not have to be an artist; you only have to allow yourself to create whatever comes to you.

You could paint colors bold and strong in anger or write a poem depicting frustrating times of your life. Possibly if sad, softer hues or maybe a short story that has to do with experience could be chosen. Creative expression can provide a venue in which to have freedom to explore and process emotions without judgment.

Conclusion

Depressive states make it hard for one to identify how he or she is feeling; such identification is part of the important processing stage in understanding and managing one’s mental health. Acquisition of emotional vocabulary, exercises that make one develop mindfulness, journal writing, body awareness techniques, talking with a person whom one confides in, and expression through creative outlets are ways it is achieved. Allow everything to come and hit you, and remember, this is a process. Be easy with yourself; it is okay to feel whatever it is that you might be feeling. Emotions are only the natural human condition, and naming them can be the key-one of the first and most powerful steps-to healing and growth.