When people feel low or anxious or stressed it can be hard to talk to others about it. These are examples of thoughts people may have about how they are feeling:
Others are fed up with hearing about me and my problems.
No one really understands how I feel.
I don’t understand how I feel.
I don’t know how to cope.
I feel like crying all the time.
I’m worried about worrying.
No one likes me anyway.
I’m always spoiling my relationships.
I’m lonely.
I can’t sleep.
No one wants to help me.
As a counsellor, I have noticed that some people find it very difficult to express their feelings and often have a limited feeling word vocabulary.
Counselling may help you to identify and understand your feelings. The following list describes a range of feeling:
- Angry
- Anxious
- Bored
- Competitive
- Confused
- Defensive
- Disappointed
- Frustrated
- Guilty
- Happy
- Hopeful
- Hurt
- Inferior
- Intimate
- Jealous
- Lonely
- Rejected
- Repulsed
- Sad
- Satisfied
- Shy
- Worried
Do you recognise any of these feelings? If so, how intense are the feelings? For example, if you feel angry how do you know whether you are feeling irritated or furious?
So what?
So why bother with understanding and acknowledging how you are feeling?
How you are feeling may impact on how you behave. If you feel rejected then you may minimise any social contact to avoid further rejection. You may end up in a vicious circle and feel unsure how to break this circle.
As a counsellor, I have noticed that clients will often say things like:
I bottle everything up and then I explode like a bottle of pop.
I feel guilty about how I feel.
Other people think I ought to be feeling a certain way and I feel bad because I am not.
I hide my feelings.
A good example of confused feelings often arises after a loss or bereavement. Clients are often dismayed to realise that they don’t feel the way others expect them to. Counselling can be a useful way of helping you to accept your feelings and of gaining a better understanding of yourself. This may help you to improve your relationships with other people and help you to respond to situations in a more helpful way.
I hope that this information has been helpful. There are many self help books on this subject and please feel free to email me if you would like some more information.
Copyright Christine Bonsmann. All rights reserved.
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