Do You Know What Emotional Tagging Is?

Emotional labeling helps you connect and better understand what you’re feeling. The often chaotic ball of your universe of sensations, feelings and emotions is so imprecise, nervous and diffuse at the same time that it is not easy to define or order it. However, this therapeutic resource can be a tool of power and well-being capable of changing your life.

Many of us have found ourselves in that situation where we suddenly point out to someone that “I can’t really tell you what’s wrong, but I’m wrong.” They are vital moments in which everything bothers, hurts and annoys. What happens inside us is very similar to a scene full of mist ; It’s hard to identify what’s underneath all that brain fog.

However, the labeling of emotions allows us to delimit these inner realities to make them visible. It is to give a name to what we feel to put light on what happens to us. It is true that it is not an easy task, but it is something that we should all promote.

Emotional labeling: what is it and what does it consist of

How do you feel right now? Could you say what emotions you have felt in the last week? There are those who will have no difficulty in answering these questions. Many on the other hand will need a little more time to give a clear answer. Because, as simple as it may seem, it is not easy to speak the language of emotions.

It is not enough to point out something like “Well lately I haven’t been feeling very well.” You have to go from the general to the specific. It is advisable to frame sensations to reveal psychological states. This is what emotional labeling consists of, in making conscious and expressing in concrete words wider and more diffuse psychophysiological states.

Difficulty clarifying emotions leads to suffering

This is an obvious fact. There are many people with an emotionally impoverished language. They are the ones that limit themselves to saying only “that they are wrong” and that far from connecting with the emotion felt and the thoughts that accompany that state, they let themselves be carried away by it. Something like this leads to unadjusted reactions and behaviors that they later regret.

Research papers, like those done at Ohio State University, remind us of something important. Difficulties in identifying the emotions we feel provide the substrate for anxiety and the foundation for depressive disorders. Clarifying and making use of emotional labeling sheds light on what we feel to reveal what we need.

Designate what I feel to control what happens to me

That is the key. Being able to name what we feel (anger, fear, frustration, disappointment, sadness, nervousness, etc.) not only allows us to put the magnifying glass in that state that grips us. Emotional labeling is an essential resource in psychological therapy because it facilitates change.

It does this in the following way. Once we proceed to this labeling and designation of the felt emotions, the obligation arises to take responsibility for what happens to us.

• I am angry and sad–> why do I feel this way? -> I think nothing is happening the way I want .–> what can I do to feel better? -> maybe I should reorient my goals and make some changes.

Something as basic as putting a “label” on that internal emotional knot also facilitates less physiological reactivity. That is to say, when we are clear about what that feeling inside us is due to, the feeling of control rises. It is like naming that enemy that stalks us and thus making it smaller to handle it much better.

Emotional labeling is decisive in our communication

Making effective use of emotional labeling is not only essential in a therapy setting. It is also in interpersonal communication.

Clearly designating what we feel and what happens to us brings assertiveness and maturity to the dialogue. Thus, in the classic couple conversations in which the classic “ what’s wrong? / Nothing’s wrong with me ” often emerges , we need to be able to use a more nutritious and emotionally accurate language .

In this way, being able to clearly express what happens to us and what we need not only makes things easier. It also reverts to the quality of our bond so that clarity and trust flow at all times -> “what’s wrong with you? / I’m disappointed and angry because I hoped you had supported me in this matter.”

Teach children to make early use of emotion labeling

We teach our children to cross the zebra crossings when the light is green. We guide them to learn how to dress. We introduce them to new languages ​​early, hoping that they will gain good proficiency in English, German and even Chinese. If we do all this, why not train them as soon as possible in the correct practice of emotional labeling?

This ability will make it easier for tantrums to be reduced, so that they can designate as soon as possible what happens to them instead of being kidnapped by their own frustration, by the anger that explodes into screams and tears. However, let’s keep something in mind. To initiate children into emotional crafts it is essential to be the best example for them.

We will be in charge of validating each emotional state in them, in helping them to recognize, express, name what they feel to regulate that psychophysiological state. Such work takes time, but they will eventually become skilled people in the most decisive competence of all: understanding emotions in order to live better.