Feeling Your Emotions Recap

Back in 2017 I started a series called Feeling Your Emotions. The intention was to look at different emotions (such as anger, sadness, fear, peace and love) and get in touch with them, to help heal and move forward. You can read the introduction here: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2017/11/feeling-your-emotions-introduction.html

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, so if you're having mental/physical issues please seek medical help in addition to reading this. :)

I  haven't done any new posts in the series for over 2 years (2 and a half years this month actually), so I felt like now was a good time to do a recap. I started with the so-called "negative" emotions, intending to work my way up to more "positive" ones. However, I didn't end up covering love or peace (which I intended to do next), since I just didn't feel in a space to write about them, especially with the events of the past two years.

I'm going to revisit the previous posts, plus take another look at emotions in general and then decide where to take FYE next.

Here are the previous posts in the series:

Intro: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2017/11/feeling-your-emotions-introduction.html

Anger (Part 1): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2018/02/feeling-your-emotions-anger-part-1.html

Anger (Part 2): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2018/04/feeling-your-emotions-anger-part-2.html

Sadness and Depression (Part 1): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2018/07/feeling-your-emotions-sadness-and.html

Sadness and Depression (Part 2): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2018/08/feeling-your-emotions-sadness-and.html

Fear and Anxiety (Part 1): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2018/10/feeling-your-emotions-fear-and-anxiety.html

Fear and Anxiety (Part 2): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2018/12/feeling-your-emotions-fear-and-anxiety.html

Shame: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2019/02/feeling-your-emotions-shame.html

Neutral: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2019/07/feeling-your-emotions-neutral.html

Happiness (Part 1): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/01/feeling-your-emotions-happiness-part-1.html

Happiness- (Part 2): https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/feeling-your-emotions-happiness-part-2.html

I started with anger because I felt like it would be good to begin with the "heavier" emotions first and anger is one that is often frowned upon. I have felt a lot of anger over the years. 

Next, I moved onto sadness and depression. I wanted to look at both sadness, an emotion which affects everyone at some point or other, and depression (considered a mental health condition). And then fear and anxiety, both the natural emotion of fear, which also affects everyone at some point and anxiety (in the context of the mental health condition). As someone who has depression and anxiety, it was important to me to cover those subjects.

Then I looked at shame, which is quite a difficult emotion. I felt that only needed one post compared to sadness/depression and fear/anxiety though. Although I have often felt shame too, I just didn't have as much to say on it.

The next post was a "neutral" one, on the subject of feeling in a void type state, neither happy or sad, being in between positive and negative. I also briefly looked at the difference between feelings and emotions in that post.

And then my final two posts to date were about happiness. I've been interested in the emotion of happiness and how to become happier for a long time, ever since I first become depressed in my teens.

I've also written some "stand alone" posts (not part of the FYE series) on the subjects of feeling like a "loser", going through a difficult time (when you're struggling), loneliness and feeling low. Plus, last year I did a two-post series, Starting From the Bottom- Part 1 and Starting From the Bottom- Part 2, about moving up from a low place to feeling better and improving your life. And earlier this year I wrote a post called When You've Been Down for Too Long, where I discussed feeling like you've been down and stuck in the same place for a long time, e.g., in a cycle of depression and anxiety.

I'd like to pick the FYE series back up again. I'm planning to look at peace next. The original intention was to move upwards from "negative" to "positive" emotions, but I think in future posts I might circle back round to other emotions like jealousy and feeling empty. That makes sense, since in life we have seasons and we experience a range of emotions (sometimes several throughout the same day).

 

To round off this post, here are a few links about feelings and emotions in general:

5 Reasons Emotions Are Important: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-purpose-of-emotions-2795181

This article is about listening to your emotions and an exercise that you can do to look at the basic emotions (8 basic emotions are referenced here): https://happiful.com/why-you-should-listen-to-your-emotions/

And here is a helpful post on dealing with uncomfortable feelings: https://itsallyouboo.com/dealing-with-uncomfortable-feelings/

 

So, I hope this was useful in some way. :) It's not an in-depth post but more just getting back into "the flow" of the Feeling Your Emotions series again. I'm not sure when the next post will be yet (I may be writing about a different subject first) but probably in the next few months.

Photo: Mill Hill, Shoreham-by-sea. Moonsparkle 2022.