**By Madisen Stoler, MS, LPC, Forward Healing Therapy**

Madisen is a therapist at Forward Healing Therapy in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, where she works with adults in person and virtually. She helps clients notice, name and express their emotions with grace and curiosity. She also specializes in helping adults navigate grief/loss of a parent. Madisen practices Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), among other evidenced based therapy to help her clients heal and live fulfilling lives.

I just got a book for my 18-month-old called A Little Spot: My First Emotions by Diane Alber. This lovely little book shows how emotions exist inside us and often feel tangled up. If we can see them more clearly and know what they represent, we can untangle the feeling by saying it aloud and moving through it. Each feeling has a color (blue is sad, orange is confident, pink is love) and the book offers little prompts like "How do you know you're feeling happy?" and "When is a time that made you feel uneasy?"

At 18 months, my child is just thrilled to flip through the pages and name the colors. But I hope this book becomes a resource for understanding emotions and communicating about them. I want to help instill the message that emotions are colorful, and being able to name and express them is a beautiful skill.

If naming your own feelings feels hard as an adult, you're not alone. Many of us never saw emotions named or talked about growing up, so we never learned the language. The good news is that it's a skill, and we can start practicing it at any age.

Why is it so hard to know what I'm feeling?

Many of us, myself included, grew up in environments, households and a general culture that didn't always talk about emotions. Take a moment to consider:

What emotions did you see in the adults around you growing up?
How did the adults in your life respond when you had emotions?
Were certain emotions allowed or not allowed?
Did you hear the phrase "I'm feeling… and I need…" much from important adults around you?

It's really hard to build a relationship with our own emotional world, and to communicate it in a helpful way, if we never saw this modeled.

Emotions are big sometimes. They feel intense. Sometimes we have no idea what we feel, just that something's "off," or we feel "stuck," or we have the urge to "not think about it."

What are my emotions trying to tell me?

I believe our emotions help us make sense of ourselves and the world. Emotions tell us "Something important is happening here!" We can choose to wince away from the alarm bells, or we can work to approach the important information with grace and curiosity.

Emotions show up through body sensations. Our bodies work to alert us that something inside us needs attention. Many of us learn to ignore these sensations.

Why did I learn to push my feelings away?

Some of us grew up in a reality where emotions were punished, which sent the message that feeling our feelings is unsafe. Some of us had, or still have, to push away our deepest feelings and experiences to make room for others. We often carry a sense of responsibility that keeps us from tuning in or taking up space.

None of this means something is wrong with you. It means you adapted to what you needed at the time.

What can I do with an emotion once I notice it?

We might not have learned how to notice, name, express or ask for our needs to be met when we had important feelings in the past, but we can start practicing these steps now. With practice, we can recognize our body's internal communication of emotions and then choose what's next. There are many places to go with an emotion:

Name it.
Share it with someone else.
Ride the wave of it, just feeling the ebbs and flows.
Do something to change it or your present situation.
Follow the energy of it to inform a next step.
Breathe into the body sensations, tears or tension, which often leads to a sense of relief.
Simply be with it.

How can therapy help me understand my emotions?

I love walking alongside people as they build capacity and confidence in learning a new language of emotions. In therapy, we can slow down and notice what your body is telling you, put words to it, and practice responding to your feelings in a way that feels safe. At Forward Healing Therapy, we work with adults in person in Wauwatosa and virtually across Wisconsin.

Frequently asked questions

Is it normal to not know what I'm feeling? Yes. Many adults never had emotions named or modeled for them, so a vague sense of feeling "off" or "stuck" is very common. Noticing that something is there is the first step.

Can I learn to name my emotions as an adult? Yes. Naming emotions is a skill, and like any skill it grows with practice. Starting with body sensations, like tightness in your chest or a lump in your throat, is often the easiest way in.

An invitation

Can I invite you to notice the next time there's a lump in your throat, or a tickle at the corners of your mouth, or a hollowness in your heart, or you take a deep breath and your chest expands in openness? Ask yourself, "What am I most needing right now?" And listen.

If you'd like support learning this new language of emotions, reach out to schedule a consultation with Madisen.

This post is for educational purposes and isn't a substitute for therapy or professional care.

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