Who has experience being triggered into a showy storm of emotional reactivity? Let’s say, stomping around, grunting while putting three boys to bed last night? (Ahem, hand raised.) Whatever the cause, we can all relate to emotions getting the best of us at times. After all, we’re human.
Here’s a strategy for quelling the storm when it naturally arises: Name it! Known as affect labeling, this strategy is prevalent in the work of UCLA Professor of Psychiatry, Dan Siegel, who says name it to tame it.
Simply labeling a difficult emotion dampens its effect by creating distance from it, providing space for other options. This rests on a neurological foundation. In a simplified model, emotions are borne in the nonverbal “right-brain” and applying language to them connects us back to our verbal, logical “left-brain.” The labeling of emotion appears to decrease activity in the amygdala (part of the brain’s emotional center), allowing the brain’s reasoning and thinking center to have greater influence.
From a mindful perspective, labeling takes advantage of the awareness that is experienced as an emotion is felt. Labeling helps us engage as a nonjudgmental observer – enabling us to witness the emotion and realize that we are not it. Being unentangled, we can then consider options about how to respond.
Here’s one way to use labeling in daily life.
Notice that an emotion is present.
Christopher Germer (author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion) writes that labeling requires turning toward an inner experience with awareness. To do that, we need to notice that a sensation, thought, or feeling is present. For the hyper-rational like me, it may be surprising that we are always feeling and experiencing something. Try pausing for a minute and checking in with yourself. Just notice what is there.
Label the emotion.
Putting a label on an emotion allows us to bring greater awareness to how we feel by engaging with it enough to be aware but not enough to be swept away. Labeling says, “Ah, this feeling exists.” Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein suggests that noting be done softly, like a whisper, but also accurately enough to connect with the experience. What feeling word captures your experience?
Investigate difficult emotions with curiosity.
When difficult emotions are present – for example, anger, sadness, restlessness – labeling can create enough distance for us to realize that we are not them. Just like thoughts, feelings come and go. Consider the felt sense of the emotion – where do you most feel it? What does it feel like? How is it changing? When it comes to putting kids to bed with them jumping on the bed, for example, the label and investigate steps could sound like: “Frustration, frustration, anger, tension, tightness in the jaw, [breathe], loosening…”
Choose how to respond.
With a bit of distance we are freer to consider options in responding. The truth is that we have choices. To continue with the bedtime theme, we could yell something hurtful that we may later regret, or we could remind ourselves that many kids get wound up at bedtime and that we are all responding to the shared feeling of being tired. The bottom line is that conscious awareness gives us the opportunity for choice and change. And that allows us to make choices we feel good about.
When we approach our feelings with an attitude of kindness and curiosity, we’re able to slow down, or even interrupt, our knee-jerk reactions. So, give it a try… the next time you notice the storm approaching name it to tame it, see the possibilities, and, ultimately, respond with conscious choice.
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