Communication is essential for maintaining a good relationship. Yet, building healthy communication in a relationship starts by building healthy communication with ourselves. Studies show that noticing and naming emotions helps us manage them better and make choices about what to do with them. Being attentive to our feelings by identifying and sharing them with others helps our stress decrease and our emotional intimacy and support increase.
At our discussion session with UW Students from Consuming Happiness, we discussed the idea of naming our feelings and completed an exercise where they named their feelings about the post-pandemic era. The word cloud gives an overview of the most frequent words used by UW undergraduate students in an anonymous discussion thread on TopHat. Although the word cloud shows that the feelings of hope and excitement are the central positive feelings shared by the majority, it is important to note the variety of negative feelings surrounding the cloud. Students named feelings of anxiety, difficulty, nervousness, languishing, and being lost and overwhelmed. This variety serves as a piece of evidence of the students being more particular and reflective about their worries and fears. Based on research we can infer that our students are on the right path toward reflecting on their feelings and trying to manage them.
While this was an individual exercise focusing on the self, being attentive to our feelings and sharing them with our significant other contributes greatly to our relationship. This is how according to studies.
- Strengthening Your Self-Awareness
By being attentive to our feelings we learn about ourselves and understand what fuels our behavioral choices. As we grow our internal muscle of self-awareness, we start to not only connect within and also to express feelings more clearly and directly to trusted others. As a result, this increases our emotional and social intimacy and decreases feelings of isolation.
- Becoming Less Reactive and More Responsive
Studies show that putting feelings into words makes sadness, anger, and pain less intense. As we learn to identify, label, and express emotions, our reactive area of the brain “amygdala” is strengthened, and we start to become more responsive rather than reactive to our feelings. When we take time for our feelings, our stress levels decrease which helps us think more clearly and creatively, making it easier to find constructive solutions for ourselves and our relationships.
- Increasing Emotional Intimacy
Naming and sharing our emotions with our significant others help us to understand the breadth and depth of what matters most to us. Putting our feelings into words helps us, as we learn to pay greater attention to our feelings by identifying and sharing them with others, our emotional intimacy and support will increase.