Secrets to Happiness: Secret #11

This secret is part of a duo. We really need the other secret to make it most effective, but it will still work pretty well on its own.

Identify your emotions

This is tough for most people, myself included, especially if you haven't made a habit of doing it.

Don't run out and buy any "mood" jewelry. Those are just fancy thermometers. In the summer you are likely to be "happy" or "relaxed" while in winter (if you live in a cold climate) you'll be "tense" or in some nervous negative mood.

To do this right, you're going to have to step back from yourself and be the scientific, dispassionate observer, the clinician. When you are in the middle of an intense feeling, like anger, frustration, elation, and such, you probably aren't thinking about identifying your mood. That's fine for now.

Let's try this instead. For the next few days, identify your emotions at the following times: when you wake up, during lunch, at 5 p.m., and before you go to bed. Do NOT attempt to figure out the reason for your mood. Don't blame anything good or bad at this point. Just give your emotion or mood a name.

It's like developing a vocabulary for identifying flavors. Not too easy at first.

How does this help with happiness? Well, the purpose of happiness is to enjoy life, to live life. I believe that too truly deeply enjoy something you have to be able to put into words how you sense it. Emotions are the indicators of the harmonics of life and us.

I did say that at least one other secret is necessary for this one to be even more valuable. We'll get to that today or tomorrow. The important thing for now is to step back, take a different perspective--pretend you are observing yourself from a secret observation spot--and honestly name your feelings.

Here are a couple that are tough to name, because we don't want to feel bad about ourselves:

1) envy - which I think is the worst of the seven deadly sins, yet I struggle with this emotion a lot. I don't want to feel envy, but I do. Identifying it when I do, takes away much of its power and gives me a chance to honestly examine myself (but now I'm hinting at the next secret...)

2) humble - it would be easy to say "pride" here, but I think recognizing when we are feeling humble is tough for a couple of reasons. First, the act of calling one's mood "humble" feels like an act of pride. Remember, be dispassionate. You are merely stating an observational fact. Second, we usually are able to identify "humble" when we have suffered some injury to our pride. I would argue that we aren't feeling "humble" at that point. That is probably "embarrassed" more than anything. They are two separate feelings.

So, after you read this, try it on yourself immediately and post your observation in the comments.

For example, I am feeling apprehensive, mildly frustrated, and a small amount of dread right now. That will change immediately after I post this to a mood concerning preparing for work, that I can't identify yet (because I am not feeling it yet.)

Please think about subscribing, it's free and is delivered to your favorite RSS reader or via email.