MENTAL HEALTH: Five Reasons Why You Need To SAY Your Emotion

by Alexis Rosendo

How do you feel? Right now? Take a moment to put an emotion to your current state. Do you feel anxious, or frustrated, or confused, or calm? Knowing how you feel, and then being able to share that with others is such a rare, valuable, and necessary skill! 

But why? Why does it matter if someone knows how they’re feeling in different moments? And why does it matter if they tell people what these emotions are? How does that change anything?

5 Reasons Why You Should SAY Your Emotion

1. It increases one’s emotional self awareness. Few things are more powerful than knowledge, wouldn’t you agree? Self-awareness is knowledge and insight about yourself that comes from consistent self-monitoring — this knowledge and insight changes based on ever-evolving situations and, yes, it is powerful. Many people lack self awareness, and it shows in their interactions, level of empathy, and emotional intelligence. Saying your emotion is a great step towards becoming self aware and cluing in to how you are experiencing the world around you in any given moment. This rare and valuable self awareness helps you to connect with others, present yourself in the way you intend to, resist allowing an overwhelm of emotion to overtake and rule you, and self soothe. 
2. It helps to name it , claim it, tame it. Let’s get back to this self soothing idea. When we NAME the emotion, CLAIM it, we can TAME it. That is a catchy way of saying that when I can put my finger on what’s going on with me emotionally and accept that, yes, this is actually an accurate description of my emotional state, then and only then can I begin to resolve that emotion. Too often we can’t overcome an emotion because we don’t know what we are feeling and, even if we did, we would 100% deny that we were feeling it! It’s like when someone is feeling betrayed but can’t articulate that it’s betrayal (and not, say, anger or frustration) that they are feeling, and are denying that anything is wrong at all. They will have a very hard time working through that betrayal to regulate emotions back to a peaceful or neutral state. We cannot heal what we don’t reveal.
3. It helps to connects people to other people. This one is a BIG one. How often have we been insulted or felt forgotten because someone didn’t respond to our emotion in the way we hoped? After feeling that disappointment, have you ever felt silly in realizing that you never actually SAID what your emotion was? I have! I think most people at one time or another have been guilty of assuming others can read your mind and body language with accuracy and precision, and then been guilty of expecting someone to do read your mind about what they should do with the information they have assumed. This is NOT FAIR. Even if someone knows you and loves you, their own emotional and mental state can cloud their ability to accurately judge what’s happening internally for you, and also…they shouldn’t have to work that hard! Open your mouth, remove all doubt, and give people the information they need to love and care for you properly based on how you are feeling. There’s no guarantee they’ll do it perfectly, or that there will be a flawless emotional connection, but there is a greater chance of a faulty emotional connection if you say nothing at all. 
4. It helps one person to teach and model other people. We live and exist in community as flawed people who are all equally in need of growth and grace. The great thing about this is that we learn from one another and can grow together. As you boldly say your emotion, it allows for conversation and connection that then teaches and models for others how to say their emotions. Can you imagine living in a world where we all actually said what we were feeling…no mind games, no assumptions, just honesty and transparency? Some things could go wrong, but a lot could go right. If you are hoping others would be more open with you, a wonderful thing that is within your circle of control is first being open with them. 
5. It disarms the emotion. Research shows that the emotions (and thoughts) that stay in our heads feel bigger, stronger, more daunting. Holding in an emotion will inevitably magnify that emotion beyond what is reasonable until the emotion feels increasing more difficult to overcome and manage. Saying our emotion helps us both to process the emotion on a deeper level and see it for what is really is: a temporary state of being that will pass, NOT a scary monster that has taken over and will never go away. I wonder how many times it has happened where something felt so insurmountable in the mind but once it was talked aloud, the individual realized it was actually not that bad as their own mind had made it seem. The same happens with our emotions. Is being ANGRY really the end of the world? What’s the worst that can happen if you really are CONFUSED? Disarm your emotions, take away the power they don’t deserve, and gain perspective by saying them aloud. 

Full disclosure – there’s a reason why everyone you meet or even everyone with who you are in relationship isn’t going around stating every emotion every day. IT’S HARD. It exposes us and makes us vulnerable. It’s scary. It is unpredictable how people will react to hearing our emotion. All of that is true and valid. It takes considerable courage to be real with yourself and others, so don’t feel bad if you struggle with this currently or have struggled with this for a long time. Take it one step at a time, say your emotion aloud to an empty room and let yourself get used to it before saying it to others. Or maybe set the goal to say aloud one emotion per week to anyone, doesn’t matter who or where. Where ever you start, you can make progress and you can build this skill. You can do it! 

Onward and upward!