Naming Your Negative Emotions

“I have two ways to describe how I feel: good and bad. Four if you count ‘very good’ and ‘very bad.’” Someone close to me literally texted me this exact line!

“Oh, I have so many more words for you!...” I replied with glee.

So often we feel uneasy or upset – in short, “bad” – but we can’t really label our feelings with any precision. We might be able to convey magnitude, but for some people like my friend, that’s where their insights stop.

Part of our limitations might be because we were never given an emotional vocabulary; unlike the vocabulary words we got in school and diligently memorized using flash cards, there was never going to be a quiz asking us if we knew the difference between feeling flummoxed and feeling perplexed. (Thank goodness there are now books like this one that teach kids how to recognize and name their emotions from a very young age.)

Even when we have the vocabulary, sometimes we can’t label how we feel because we haven’t stopped to examine our emotions more closely. Yikes, having to think precisely about how we feel is a horrifying prospect for a lot of people, especially when we force ourselves to examine why we feel “bad” – it’s hard enough feeling bad, and now we have to delve into why?? Yes, because correctly labeling your bad feeling is going to put you on the fast track to feeling better, and who doesn’t want that?

Let’s start with the basic understanding that feeling bad is not healthy, and we certainly shouldn’t accept it as a steady state. In fact, feeling bad is an alarm that lets you know that something in your life is out of balance and ought to be fixed – that’s why we call these feelings Alarm Emotions.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are five basic categories of Alarm Emotions, one corresponding to each Element. The Alarm Emotions we experience are a clue to what areas of our lives need rebalancing, so it’s critical to identify and label our feelings correctly. Finding the right words to describe how we feel can not only help us gain awareness and insight – to the source of our upset, to the effect that it’s having on us – it also gives us a starting point for figuring out how to fix it and regain balance.

For example, Worry and Fear are often confused for each other, but they are not the same. Both of them make you feel like some catastrophe is about to happen, but their causes are different. Worrying is the result of a lot of little things causing us agitation; we frantically dart about trying to get things done without any discernible method to the madness (if you’ve ever watched a Roomba clean a floor, it’s like that). Fear, on the other hand, is about life and death and can dramatically paralyze us. For example, even though we know that failing this med school exam won’t kill us, the body feels exactly as if there is no life after failure. How we go about resolving Worry and Fear are inherently different.

Sadness and frustration can also feel quite similar: as if you can’t go on. Frustration, being a form of Anger, arises when you repeatedly run into obstacles on your way towards your goal and you’re simply not strong enough to overcome them. Sadness, on the other hand, is the Alarm Emotion that signals loss, and feels like something being ripped away from you; your energy just oozes out of the hole that’s been left behind, leaving you feeling like you don’t have what it takes to keep going. Moving forward from a place of Sadness versus Anger requires a different approach.

The negative emotion you experience has a specific remedy for bringing you back to balance – there is no single approach that fixes everything.

Once you identify which type of Alarm Emotion is blaring, then you can begin to formulate a plan for how to fix the problem, which we will definitely discuss in future posts! For now, though, here is a cheat sheet of various “bad” feelings and which Alarm Emotion we think they fall under:

Worry (Earth)

• Agitated

• Anxious

• Brooding

• Burned out

• Depleted

• Dismayed

• Disturbed

• Doubtful

• Envious

• Exhausted

• Greedy

• Guilt-trippy

• Guilty

• Helpless

• Impatient

• Insecure

• Isolated

• Jealous

• Jittery

• Lazy

• Longing

• Miserly

• Neglected

• Nervous

• On edge

• Overwhelmed

• Pessimistic

• Pitiable

• Possessive

• Powerless

• Rattled

• Reluctant

• Reserved

• Restless

• Shaky

• Tense

• Tired

• Troubled

• Uncertain

• Uncomfortable

• Uneasy

• Unsettled

• Unsure

• Vulnerable

• Weary

• Worn out

Sadness (Metal)

• Alienated

• Ashamed

• Broken

• Dazed

• Dejected

• Despair

• Disheartened

• Dispirited

• Embarrassed

• Ennui

• Gloomy

• Glum

• Grief-stricken

• Homesick

• Hyper-sensitive

• Indignant

• Loss

• Melancholy

• Numb

• Removed

• Self-conscious

• Sorrowful

• Sullen

• Woeful

Fear (Water)

• Apprehensive

• Cold

• Concerned

• Despondent

• Detached

• Dismayed

• Disorientated

• Distant

• Distracted

• Disturbed

• Dread

• Dumbstruck

• Foreboding

• Frightened

• Guarded

• Horrified

• Hyper-vigilant

• Indifferent

• Lost

• Mistrustful

• Obstinate

• Panicked

• Paranoid

• Perplexed

• Scared

• Shocked

• Suspicious

• Terrified

• Unnerved

• Unsettled

• Wary

Anger (Wood)

• Aggressive

• Annoyed

• Contemptuous

• Cowardly

• Critical

• Cruel

• Demoralized

• Disappointed

• Discouraged

• Disgruntled

• Displeased

• Exasperated

• Flustered

• Frustrated

• Furious

• Grouchy

• Grumpy

• Hateful

• Hopeless

• Hostile

• Impatient

• Irritated

• Loathing

• Nasty

• Obstinate

• Offended

• Outraged

• Rage

• Ruthless

• Scornful

• Self-pity

• Smug

• Standoffish

• Stubborn

• Stuck

• Submissive

• Tired

• Undermined

• Vengeful

• Vicious

• Wrathful

Pain (Fire)

• Agony

• Anguish

• Animosity

• Apathetic

• Aversion

• Bitter

• Bored

• Contempt

• Devastated

• Disgusted

• Dislike

• Fragile

• Hateful

• Heartbroken

• Hurt

• Insulted

• Miserable

• Mortified

• Nihilistic

• Pining

• Regretful

• Rejected

• Remorseful

• Resentful

• Revulsion

• Self-loathing

• Sore

• Spiteful

• Torn

• Uninterested

Generalized Alarm Emotions

Sometimes we have a feeling but its root cause could be one of several things. For example, am I feeling resigned because no one will help me do something and I am left to shoulder the entire burden on my own (Earth imbalance)? Or am I feeling resigned because I realize I’m never getting back together with my ex (Fire imbalance)? Maybe I’m resigned that, even after years of practice, I will never be able to be a part of the US Gymnastics Team (Metal imbalance)?

Check out this post for more on how to differentiate your emotions. For now, here’s a working list of some of the emotions where you might have to dig a little deeper to find where the elemental imbalance lies:

• Apprehensive

• Confused

• Depressed

• Disappointed

• Distressed

• Helpless

• Humiliated

• Lonely

• Pessimistic

• Regretful

• Remorseful

• Resigned

• Shame

• Stressed

• Weak

Conclusion

Examining and labeling how we feel allows us to put our emotions into context; in the TCM framework, knowing which Alarm Emotion is blaring tips us off to what we need to do to shut off that alarm. From this starting point, we can adapt our reactions to the situation that has thrown us out of balance so that we can get back on the path to happiness.