Our culture is not very feelings and emotions oriented. While there are many words to express them in the English language they are mostly part of our passive vocabulary. That means that we understand the word when we read or hear it, but don't use it actively in conversation.

Because we live so removed from our emotions, we don't understand the purpose of them very much and are ill equipped to name them. Feelings and emotions express themselves both physically and mentally, such as a heaviness in the chest, or a lightness of being. Understanding not only your own, but also someone else's emotions about an event or occurrence improvs relationships tremendously. The same event may be perceived completely differently by two people. If the boss yells at a subordinate for submitting an assignment late the boss feels aggravated, angered, perhaps fears retribution from higher up. Depending on why the assignment was submitted late the subordinate may feel all kinds of emotions - relief at being finally finished, dissatisfied with himself for being unable to submit on time, unnerved because the assignment was hard and took longer than expected, burnt out because he was up all night. Who knows. Empathy and trying to put yourself in the other person's shoes always changes the perspective. It helps to learn putting into worlds what we feel.

Here are a few neat feeling words to say out loud, savor, reflect on their meaning, and perhaps sometime even use them.

Lousy emotional connections and compassionate communication are two previous posts on emotions.