What's that feeling?

Becoming emotionally smarter

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It’s not that I’m overwhelmed. I don’t have too many things to do. It’s not boredom, either. There are plenty of things I could be doing, I’m just not sure which of them is right. It doesn’t quite feel like anxiety, though it might be anxiety-adjacent. What is this feeling I’m having?

I’ve been working lately on building my emotional intelligence, specifically my ability to identify and understand my own emotions. Turns out I may be smart about a lot of things, but emotions aren’t one of them.

Of course, I’m not alone. Most of us aren’t very good at being able to tell what we’re feeling. Studies tell us that people can identify only three emotions on average—happy, sad and angry. That’s all. That’s what we’ve got.

Still, figuring out what I’m feeling at any given moment seems like such a basic thing and if you’d have asked me before, I would have said, yeah, I’m pretty in touch with my emotions. Or that at the very least, I could come up with more than three (Anxiety! That’s four!).

A lot of my meditation and mindfulness practice involves developing emotional awareness, especially around anger. Thich Nhat Hanh talks a lot about taking care of our anger. About realizing that your emotions are like weather—they come and go. It’s important to pay attention to them, so you know when you need an umbrella and when to wear shorts. But they’re not who you are. Yeah, I get all of that. I’ve got this emotion thing figured out, right?

Then my therapist suggested I start keeping a journal, recording the strong emotions I have throughout the day and I realized I am not the emotional guru I thought I was.

The first thing I discovered was that I spend a lot of time feeling bad about not getting enough done while simultaneously getting a lot done.¹ So that’s…yeah, a thing, but also good to know. Also, my emotional awareness usually leads more to scolding than any sort of acceptance. “You shouldn’t be feeling anxious/angry/worried,” is my default response. This is not a healthy reaction to one’s emotional state. So I’m working on that, too—toward a radical acceptance of my emotions.

As a guide on my emotional journey, I’ve been reading Brené Brown’s newest book, Atlas of the Heart. In it, Brown outlines eighty-seven core emotions and experiences that we share as human beings. I started listening to the audio book a couple months ago and then stopped. “Why is it important to be able to identify the specific emotion you’re feeling?” I remember thinking. “So what?”

There’s an especial irony to thinking this as a writer, someone for whom language is so important. I spend huge chunks of my life translating thoughts and experiences and, yes, feelings, into language. But I thought there was no point in being able to describe my own emotions in a more precise language? Okay.

Then I read Brown’s description of resentment, which is not, as I thought, a close cousin of anger, but about comparison and therefore more closely related to envy. Resentment, as defined by Brown, is “the feeling of frustration, judgement, anger, ‘better than,’ and/or hidden envy related to perceived unfairness or injustice.”

If you’re teaching classes of 24 students while your colleagues are teaching classes of 3 and then on top of that, you get asked to raise your course limits even higher? That’s resentment—the sense that this shit is not right. I, too, would like to teach small classes with so much more intimacy and so much less grading.

The unfairness or injustice that comes with resentment is perceived. It doesn’t have to be real. You can feel resentment even when no one has actually wronged you. What matters is that you feel you’ve been wronged.

Which is useful to know, but back to my, so what? I’m feeling resentment, not anger. What do I do now?

Brown also notes that resentment is something we’re likely to experience when “…we fail to set boundaries or ask for what we need, or when expectations let us down because they were based on things we can’t control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how they’re going to react.” And that’s the useful bit, because it provides a road map for what to do about resentment.

If you’re feeling resentful, you probably need to do a better job asking for what you want. Or a better job setting a boundary. Or examine exactly what your expectations are and whether they’re realistic. You can figure out resentment. Accept the feeling, but then rationally make a plan for how to deal with it. Or reduce it. Or avoid it.

Ah-ha! That’s why it’s useful to be able to specifically identify your emotions. I may be slow, but I get there eventually. If you don’t understand what your emotions are, then you can’t really know what to do about them. You’re driving blind through your own emotional life.

What is that feeling, then, when I’ve finished one task and I’m trying to figure out what to do next? It’s not overwhelm. Not boredom. A little bit of worry that I might make the wrong decision. Shame, maybe, that I don’t immediately leap into the next task, which is a sign that I’m somehow lacking or unworthy.

Even if I can’t find the exact word for the feeling, there’s a value to getting more specific. If I’m feeling shame, the best response is self-compassion. It’s perfectly okay not to know exactly what to do next. I’m certainly not the only one who feels that way. It’s okay to feel shame and also okay to let it go.

So I’m checking out emotion wheels. I’ve downloaded an app that helps you identify and track your emotions. I’m studying Atlas of the Heart. I’m having conversations with people about my emotions and emotions in general. I’m asking myself, what exactly is it that I’m feeling?

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In the category of good writing news this week, my entry in the CRAFT Novel Excerpt Contest got an honorable mention, which is very cool. Check out the winners here.

The same novel excerpt got me accepted to Writers in Paradise, a writing conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, on the campus of Eckerd College. I thought I was applying to a novel workshop with Stewart O’Nan, which was awesome, because I love Stewart O’Nan (especially Emily Alone). But then when I got the acceptance e-mail, I found out that Stewart O’Nan wouldn’t be able to attend due to family issues (sorry, Stewart) and instead the novel workshop would be led by…wait for it…ELIZABETH STROUT! Pullitzer prize-winner! Author of pretty much my favorite book of all time, Olive Kitteridge. If you don’t know who Elizabeth Strout is, go read all her books right now. Otherwise, take my word for it when I say that I am a BIG FAN and this is VERY EXCITING.

Things that blew my mind this week—this post at

Burnt Toast by Virginia Sole-Smith

about diet culture and the myth of regular exercise. Really, everything she writes about diet culture is mind-blowing.

1. This despite the fact that I teach all about how capitalist culture encourages us to judge our own worth based on how productive we are (how much we get done) and that this is bullshit, but apparently, I have not fully absorbed that lesson myself.