• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

"How does that make you feel?" I don't know!

ThatsWhatHeSaid

Well-known member
Joined
May 11, 2007
Messages
7,263
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
This isn't really a rant, but a question for people.

I have incredible, incredible difficulty labeling my feelings and experience, which is somewhat strange because I'm very good at labeling other things (usually abstract) and take joy in it, too. I was seeing a therapist a while back who would occasionally ask me "how do you feel right now?" I had absolutely no idea. The only feelings I can clearly identify are sadness and infatuation which have very distinct psychological and physiological features. The rest I'm terrible at.

I'm curious about a few things.

1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?
2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?
3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?
 

maliafee

Active member
Joined
Feb 10, 2009
Messages
1,127
I have a hard time with this, too, especially when pressure is put on me to answer. I can see it clearer at other times, but never fully clear... Or maybe I know, but just cannot articulate it?


This isn't really a rant, but a question for people.

I have incredible, incredible difficulty labeling my feelings and experience, which is somewhat strange because I'm very good at labeling other things (usually abstract) and take joy in it, too. I was seeing a therapist a while back who would occasionally ask me "how do you feel right now?" I had absolutely no idea. The only feelings I can clearly identify are sadness and infatuation which have very distinct psychological and physiological features. The rest I'm terrible at.

I'm curious about a few things.

1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?
2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?
3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?
 

Costrin

rawr
Joined
Nov 1, 2008
Messages
2,320
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
5w4
1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?

Only when attention is called to it, or when it's particularly powerful (rare).

2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?

I can usually identify the general area of the emotion. I don't really have a lot of shades to my emotions. It's like a step up from your basic box of crayons in terms of number of shades.

3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

I have no idea. Taking more time to think about how I'm feeling, and why I guess.
 

Tiltyred

New member
Joined
Dec 1, 2008
Messages
4,322
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
468
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I think of that as a male thing. I remember years ago complaining to a counselor that my boyfriend only ever said "I don't know" when I asked him how he felt, and the counselor said, "Maybe he really doesn't know," and that was a total revelation to me.

I remember being very very young and bursting into tears over something and my mother saying, "Oh, you're tired," and I suddenly realized she was exactly right, I was crying because I was tired.

Maybe it's just about knowing what words to attach.
 

Kyrielle

New member
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,294
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
4w5
1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?

To some degree, yes. But how my general mood is (very different from feeling something specific) is heavily influenced by external conditions. If I am consistently in a non-threatening environment (meaning I am not anxious for whatever reason), then I will not notice me feeling anything or take note of how I am feeling--nothing is wrong, so why take the time to check up on myself?

2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?

Yes, but not quickly. I have to think about it before I can be certain of what I'm feeling. I could be very nervous about something (like hands trembling), but not be able to recognise what kind of nervous it is until I am well outside of the situation. It takes me a long time to figure my own feelings out, which is odd considering I can pick up on other peoples' feelings rather quickly.

I'm all right distinguishing one shade of an emotion from another, the problem is always the time it takes to do so. I have to process and analyse a lot of what was happening and what I was thinking before I can have a clear idea of what emotion I was feeling at the time. Even then, the result is skewed because it's based off of memory.

I don't know.

3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

Probably by writing about them. I find that once I've sat down and written a description of the feeling, it makes more sense to me and the definition is catalogued for later use. All of these definitions are described in figurative language, drawing parallels between different concepts to create an understanding of what the feeling is like when it has been experienced. I actually enjoy doing this quite a lot, as it allows me to explore my emotions on a "detached" abstract level that feels more comfortable with the way I process the world.
 
Joined
Jun 6, 2007
Messages
7,312
MBTI Type
INTJ
I run into this a lot. When people ask if I am happy, I say I'm not really sure what that's supposed to feel like. My answer to "How do you feel?" is often "I don't know".

I hope Tiltyred spreads the word that that isn't a cop out answer :)
 

cascadeco

New member
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
9,083
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?

As far as my general emotional state goes, yes, I'm naturally aware of how I'm feeling throughout the day, assuming I have the time/inclination to take a moment to assess it or to notice it. i.e. happy, excited, bored, annoyed, melancholy, grim, confused, anxious, etc.

BUT. When it comes to how I 'feel' about a specific situation, or a specific person, or whatever...I might not know. When I read your OP, I kinda cringed at the 'How do you feel about that?' question. Oftentimes w/ regards to a situation or scenario or relationship, I might have so many conflicting thoughts or feelings that I simply do not KNOW yet how I feel about it. So that's when I need time to myself to really reflect and sift through everything until I do figure out how exactly I feel about it.

2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?

Hmm...think I just answered that one!

3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

Perhaps just setting aside 5-minute segments of time a few times a day devoted just towards going inward, contemplating, and assessing where you're at internally, and trying to label feelings? I would assume if you were really serious about it it would be something that would be rough/impossible at first, but would improve over time.

Edit: and as Kyrielle mentions, writing/journaling can assist a lot too. Especially in more convoluted situations. But if you're not even in a position where you're dealing with multiple feelings or lack of resolution, then writing it out might be pointless, as there wouldn't be anything to write out. :)
 

Tiltyred

New member
Joined
Dec 1, 2008
Messages
4,322
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
468
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
Oftentimes w/ regards to a situation or scenario or relationship, I might have so many conflicting thoughts or feelings that I simply do not KNOW yet how I feel about it.

In which case, you could just say, "I'm conflicted." It's better than, "I don't know." :smile:
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
This isn't really a rant, but a question for people.

I have incredible, incredible difficulty labeling my feelings and experience, which is somewhat strange because I'm very good at labeling other things (usually abstract) and take joy in it, too. I was seeing a therapist a while back who would occasionally ask me "how do you feel right now?" I had absolutely no idea. The only feelings I can clearly identify are sadness and infatuation which have very distinct psychological and physiological features. The rest I'm terrible at.

I'm curious about a few things.

1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?
2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?
3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

This is an interesting question.

I'm in contact with my immediate feeling all during the day.

And when push come to shove, I would never give up my immediate feelings. It would be like abandoning the best part of myself.

My immediate feelings are a connection to my past and a connection to my family and country. Also my immediate feelings are a connection to my future - even though my future is uncertain - I can still feel it.

But it's interesting Edahn, although I recognise you as a decent person, I have always felt protective of you. Perhaps this is because immediate feelings are blind spot for you, and so as a good seeing-eye dog, or a good immediate-feeling dog, I look out, or feel out for you.

I tug on my collar and say, "Look out for the gutter Edahn - look out for this feeling". Or I say, "Look out for the car Edahn - or look out for that feeling".
Just as any good feeling dog would do.

But it all brings up an interesting question - what is my blind spot?

And what kind of seeing-eye dog do I need?
 

cascadeco

New member
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
9,083
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
In which case, you could just say, "I'm conflicted." It's better than, "I don't know." :smile:

Oh...I agree. But then that would also prompt more questioning. Sometimes I say 'I don't know' because...well....I don't. Which is also an honest answer.

I do have a habit of saying 'I don't know' when I'm put on the spot and am flustered/unsure. It just comes out spontaneously.. I can't help it! :smile:;) But I will typically follow up with one thing or another.
 

ajblaise

Minister of Propagandhi
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
7,914
MBTI Type
INTP
If I'm not feeling any particular emotions one way or another, I don't think I should be expected to have an answer to the "How are you feeling?" question.

If I try and force out an answer, I just have to take a super vague hint of what might be a feeling or notion, and expound on it until I can use words to describe it, and by then I'm just trying to label things that aren't there.

So I don't think I'm hiding from emotions. I certainly experience them. I just think that my emotions aren't doing much of anything a lot of the time, so they usually aren't pronounced enough to be made readily apparent to me.
 

BlackCat

Shaman
Joined
Nov 19, 2008
Messages
7,038
MBTI Type
ESFP
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
1. Are you naturally aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?

I am naturally aware, it would be weird not knowing how I was feeling throughout the day. This is probably Fi.

2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?

Yes. I am excellent at discriminating between feelings, I can pretty much instantly tell how I am feeling. There's way too many to list with the different feelings, it would take me a long time.

3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

I'm not sure that I really need any. The best thing for me to do is to pinpoint the source of my feelings (a physical thing perhaps) so that I can take care of it if it's a bad mood.
 

Orangey

Blah
Joined
Jun 26, 2008
Messages
6,354
MBTI Type
ESTP
Enneagram
6w5
1. Are you naturally aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?

I'm only aware of my feelings if I call attention to them, and my attention is often elsewhere. Therefore I am not usually aware of my feelings throughout the day.

2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what you're feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?

When I do turn my attention towards feelings, I can discriminate between the basic emotions like "sad" or "happy." Actually, I'm having some difficulty coming up with the names of more emotions while writing this post (I'm actually thinking of a facial expressions chart I have in an art book :huh:). Unless it's severe sadness, anger, infatuation or exhilaration, I don't pay much notice to my emotions, and so I haven't really built up much of an emotional vocabulary.

A lot of times, though, if I become aware of a unique emotion that I'm experiencing that I haven't ever experienced before, I will become fascinated by it and want to talk about it to others, as though it's something novel and worth commenting on. People will then look at me weird because I'll be talking excitedly about, say, a feeling of utter hopelessness. Or they'll think I'm weird because I'm talking about the feeling as though it's something remarkable, when everyone else in the world already experiences this emotion and finds talking about it to be banal.

3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

I always think that analyzing my feelings more would give me more of a vocabulary of feeling. Similar to schoolwork, if I would just concentrate long enough on how I feel, I would be able to discriminate between the different shades of feelings. I have a sort of dull awareness that something like, say, sadness comes in different flavors and gets tinged frequently by other emotions. I have just never taken the time to find out what those are and analyze the differences between them.

If I asked you to tell me right now how you are feeling, what would you say?

Well, if this were being asked by someone to my face, I'd not know what to say, and any feelings I may have had would be quickly replaced (as you mentioned) by anxiety.

But since I have time and space to think about it, I guess I'd say that I feel a generalized undercurrent of anxiety right now.
 

King sns

New member
Joined
Nov 4, 2008
Messages
6,714
MBTI Type
enfp
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?

Only when I call attention to it.
2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?
Yea, I'm pretty good at identifying feelings. Usually it takes a little while if I'm feeling 2 or 3 feelings all at once. I can recognize when i'm sad, fearful, or anxious. (Or atleast, I find it most helpful to recognize these feelings, so I can take steps to move past them.)
3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?[/QUOTE]
Sometimes when I have a bad day, I go back through what happened throughout the day. I identify things that precipitated certain feelings. I think about them. I think about what to do in a case like that the next time, and then often when i'm faced with similar situations I can identify the feeling immediately since i've already meditated about it. Again, most helpful with unneccissary anxiety.
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

Well-known member
Joined
May 11, 2007
Messages
7,263
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
REPLIES

Wow, awesome answers so far. Part of my confusion, like Victor said, is that I'm really, really empathic, but I have trouble identifying my own feelings. To me, that's strange. A question to the group I should have asked:

If I asked you to tell me right now how you are feeling, what would you say?

I have a hard time with this, too, especially when pressure is put on me to answer. I can see it clearer at other times, but never fully clear... Or maybe I know, but just cannot articulate it?

Maybe it's just about knowing what words to attach.

That's a good point. There are two possibilities that I can see:

1. I'm not registering how I'm feeling.
2. I'm not able to label what I am experiencing.

It's interesting because if the question throws someone off, their experience (whatever it is) would likely be replaced by anxiety anyway. Hm.

It's like a step up from your basic box of crayons in terms of number of shades.

I like that analogy.

I'm all right distinguishing one shade of an emotion from another, the problem is always the time it takes to do so. I have to process and analyse a lot of what was happening and what I was thinking before I can have a clear idea of what emotion I was feeling at the time. Even then, the result is skewed because it's based off of memory.

Very interesting. How many different shades of anger or anxiety or sadness or happiness can you identify? Can you describe some of the distinguishing features of each shade?

Kyrielle said:
3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

Probably by writing about them. I find that once I've sat down and written a description of the feeling, it makes more sense to me and the definition is catalogued for later use. All of these definitions are described in figurative language, drawing parallels between different concepts to create an understanding of what the feeling is like when it has been experienced. I actually enjoy doing this quite a lot, as it allows me to explore my emotions on a "detached" abstract level that feels more comfortable with the way I process the world.

Very very cool. I did something like this a while ago but not for every feeling, just anxiety. I did notice a few different prominent thought patterns -- self-critical, deprecating, dissipating -- but the feeling was generally the same, some feeling of generalized dread.

But it's interesting Edahn, although I recognise you as a decent person, I have always felt protective of you. Perhaps this is because immediate feelings are blind spot for you, and so as a good seeing-eye dog, or a good immediate-feeling dog, I look out, or feel out for you. I tug on my collar and say, "Look out for the gutter Edahn - look out for this feeling". Or I say, "Look out for the car Edahn - or look out for that feeling".
Just as any good feeling dog would do.

Interesting. I see lots of similarities between us, actually. I even become a little protective of you myself. Weird. I've never noticed you being protective of me, though. I also don't really read your posts. LOL. (No offense, though.)

Victor. said:
But it all brings up an interesting question - what is my blind spot?

And what kind of seeing-eye dog do I need?

I'm not going to turn this into a therapy session, but I do want to ask YOU a question: are you comfortable and at ease when you post here? Do you amuse yourself and are you amused by others? Sometimes I wonder, Vic.

If I'm not feeling any particular emotions one way or another, I don't think I should be expected to have an answer to the "How are you feeling?" question.

If I try and force out an answer, I just have to take a super vague hint of what might be a feeling or notion, and expound on it until I can use words to describe it, and by then I'm just trying to label things that aren't there.

So I don't think I'm hiding from emotions. I certainly experience them. I just think that my emotions aren't doing much of anything a lot of the time, so they usually aren't pronounced enough to be made readily apparent to me.

You, FMW and Orangey and I, I think, have the same experience. All four of us are also NT, and I lean towards introversion a lot. I wonder if it has something to do with spending too much time in our head. On the other hand, maybe there's just nothing strong going on to deserve a label.
 

Ghost of the dead horse

filling some space
Joined
Sep 7, 2007
Messages
3,553
MBTI Type
ENTJ
1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?
I feel my obvious, expressed, subtle, nonexpressed and other feelings at least in a passing way when not thinking about them. Think about them in depth, I can immediately think about at least 2-3 levels of them, and specifify them more when aided.

For some perioids of time (2-3 hours or so) I might disregard certain class of feelings, not being particularly sensitive for them for the time. It's from expreience, like I know it's not effective to consider myself for the insecurities of someone insecure while I have to do something, so I dismiss it entirely on a decision for the time.

My own feelings? I'm much aware of them, in a calm manner.
2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?
Perhaps 30-60 feelings, some of them not describable with a common word. I don't feel extremely lot; sometimes I find someone claiming I feel thing X (guesswork) when in fact it's only probable a person in my situation would feel so, but just recognize the possibility, and don't feel much unless I open up a chance to really feel it.

It's possible I externalize a lot. Jealousy? It's something someone might feel in this situation. I feel it a bit, but it doesn't really apply.

Insecurity? Not in a manner of not being seen as capable or respectable, but perhaps in a manner of not belonging to a group.

So yes I think I recognize feelings and the shades of them quite well.

3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?
I think my recognition of my feelings is great, my Ti and Fi having been my top functions for quite some time in my past. I'm seeking no improvement in this regard.

As an additional note, I don't think it's the apec of my humanity to recognize my feelings. I'm doing that fine. The next step is to work out with them, and the feelings others are having, in a way that promotes good fellowship and interaction with one another. I have opinions on this that don't always go along with the most "mature" or "conventional" views on the subjects.

This is something I have to work out.
 

Orangey

Blah
Joined
Jun 26, 2008
Messages
6,354
MBTI Type
ESTP
Enneagram
6w5
There's way too many to list with the different feelings, it would take me a long time.

Could you give maybe a couple examples? I like to hear how people describe these things.
 

proteanmix

Plumage and Moult
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
5,514
Enneagram
1w2
Lolz, I was just talking with my friend about this two days ago! How we process our emotions and how we and others know what we're feeling. I'm noticing at work the people who are capable of expressing their feelings more are viewed as more effective communicators.

I'm more or less looking for the effects/ repercussions of not doing this and how it affects workplace relationships.

1. Are you naturallly aware of how you are feeling throughout the day, or only when you call attention to it?

I feel like I'm pretty good at knowing what I'm feeling, when I'm feeling it.

I know generally, my feelings don't sneak up on me. But usually I don't even feel like I own my feelings, they're just there. I'm like, oh, Exasperation is here for dinner. Oh, Disappointment wants to go to the movies next weekend. Where's Joy and Elation? I haven't heard from them in a minute!

That's what I mean when I know what I'm feeling. They're just there. Most of the time I do what they tell me to do. That's why I feel like I'm an impulsive person.

2. When you do call attention to it, can you identify what your feeling? How good are you discriminating between different feelings? How many different feelings (or shades of feelings) can you identify?

OK, since I seem to be in a negative emotion mood right now (I'm also still at work, ugh) I can tell you exactly what the main feeling I'm feeling followed by the little duckling feelings that accompany it.

Frustrated>powerless>unappreciated>underrated>dispensable>trapped
optionless

Is this what you mean?

3. How would you go about improving your ability to identify your feelings?

What more or less happens is I'm learning to trace cause and effect with my feelings. Identifying the source of my feelings and how I feel about that. I just wonder what to do with the source of the feelings. Most of the time the source it's another person or a situation. Sometimes there is no immediate way out of a situation or away from a source of emotion. I can't always extricate myself from sources of negative emotion, so I'm figuring out how to deal with these sources.

I don't know, I have to think about how "refined" I want my own internal thermometer to be. I know that when I attempt to do this it feels unnaturally egocentric. But at the same time when people say they don't know what they feel, I think to myself how can you not know what you're feeling? I don't know, maybe somebody have lots of fiber in their emotional diet and others don't.

Wow I just realized how absolutely extroverted feeling my answers are. I don't want to use the language of MBTI to describe this but it happened anyway.

I feel like most of my emotions happen outside of me and come into me and then they become mine. I can throw them back out again with my own spin but I'm not quite sure if they're internally generated. I also tend to confirm if I'm feeling the "right way" about something or if I have a right to feel the way I feel about something's with close friends, probably due to low introverted judgment.
 

King sns

New member
Joined
Nov 4, 2008
Messages
6,714
MBTI Type
enfp
Enneagram
6w7
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I often feel calm and content and mildly blank. (Present, more than blank, I guess.) My mind is just here and i'm satisfied. So theres no reason to try to identify feelings. I can easily put words to feelings when asked, but I'm not usually thinking about them unless i'm on a big giant mood swing.
 
Top