{"id":23844,"date":"2021-01-10T09:08:30","date_gmt":"2021-01-10T13:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=23844"},"modified":"2021-01-22T19:33:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T23:33:40","slug":"expressing-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/expressing-feelings\/","title":{"rendered":"Expressing Feelings: Tips to Improve Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Do you struggle with expressing feelings beyond the simple, everyday emotions? How can you get better at expressing more complex and nuanced feelings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our culture doesn\u2019t value expressing our feelings, so we\u2019re never taught healthy ways to express strong emotions. As a result, most of us have limited emotional vocabulary<\/a>, preventing us from expressing feelings with their afforded nuance and subtlety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some tips to help you get better at expressing your feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Dos and Don’ts of Expressing Feelings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The cultural taboo around showing emotion means that most of us have a limited emotional vocabulary. When we don\u2019t have the words to talk about our emotions, we struggle to even identify them beyond broad categories of happy or sad. Building up your emotional vocabulary will help you identify and express your feelings more clearly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first major hurdle in expressing your feelings is understanding exactly what a feeling is <\/em>(or, more importantly, what it isn\u2019t). Feelings refer to internal physical and emotional states, not judgments of external events. That may sound obvious, but we often conflate thoughts and feelings<\/a> because we use \u201cI feel\u201d to express opinions, not true feelings, in three distinct ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n