Our feelings are data waiting to be processed, not enemies to be fought.

Naming our emotions isn't just therapy-speak—it's a powerful tool for mental clarity and focus. When we acknowledge our feelings without judgment, we free up mental resources that would otherwise be consumed by emotions running like background programs.

• The five universal emotions identified by psychologist Paul Ekman are joy, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust
• Each emotion serves an evolutionary purpose—fear protects us from harm, joy signals when to relax, sadness shows what matters to us
• Feelings are a combination of bodily sensations and thoughts that provide important data
• When emotions are ignored, they demand attention like a crying child
• Naming feelings helps transfer control to the organized part of our brain
• Acknowledging emotions doesn't change external circumstances but transforms our internal experience
• A simple practice: ask "What am I feeling?" when overwhelmed, then name the feeling without judgment

For a family-friendly introduction to these concepts, watch Inside Out, which beautifully illustrates the five universal emotions discussed in this episode.

Opening Music by Jeremiah Alves from Pixabay

Closing Music by Aleksandr Karabanov from Pixabay

Chapters

• 0:36 Welcome to Wellness Minute
• 1:15 Why We Should Ask About Feelings
• 2:13 The Five Universal Emotions Explained
• 3:02 Naming Feelings Without Judgment
• 3:54 How Processing Emotions Creates Lightness
• 5:03 Inside Out Movie Recommendation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Hello, welcome to episode 12 of the Wellness Minute. This is a podcast that reminds you to pause and take a deep breath, and how does that make you feel? That is probably the most cliched question associated with therapists. I feel a little self-conscious whenever I ask people how they feel. I feel a little self-conscious whenever I ask people how they feel. So in today's episode, I'll talk about why. This is an important question that I hope each one of us could start asking ourselves.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Ever been in a bad mood and found it really hard to focus on work? Me too, in fact. Recently I was extremely irritable while trying to concentrate on work. That feeling just kept escalating, like a child demanding attention, so I had to finally stop what I was doing and ask kya hai? At first, all I could say was I'm feeling irritated, and I think I even growled a few times. Sometimes there just aren't enough words to describe our feelings. And then I realized that my feelings had started after an email about some disappointing news. I realized I was also feeling quite sad and worried about that email.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Feelings are a mix of sensations in the body and some thoughts, and these feelings can calm down once we acknowledge them, but when we ignore them, they can end up being like a program running in the background. A study by psychologist Paul Ekman and his team identified five universal emotions Joy, fear, sadness, anger and disgust. Each of these emotions serves an evolutionary purpose for humans. Fear helps us protect ourselves from harmful things. If we didn't feel fear, we would have been eaten up by the lion in the jungle a long time ago. Joy tells us when we can let our guard down. Sadness tells us something matters to us. Anger is a reaction to feeling threatened. Disgust tells us something is poisonous or cannot be digested. The part of our brain that experiences feelings is essentially processing data from the world and giving us that information.

Speaker 1: 2:44

When you're feeling overwhelmed or finding it really hard to focus on something, just ask yourself what am I feeling? Name the feeling without judgment and notice what happens. Set a timer, if you like. Keep breathing and noticing the sensations in your body. Name the feelings that arise. Maybe go through the list of five universal emotions as a starting point. Am I feeling joy, fear, disgust, anger, sadness?

Speaker 1: 3:19

Naming the feelings helps hand over the reins to that part of our brain that's more organized and can actually guide us better. Our feelings are data and naming our feelings helps us process that data and organize it, a bit like filing all our papers in proper folders. Our brain devotes resources to our feelings and when we ignore those feelings or try to push them away by saying I should not feel this way or I'm weak for feeling this way, these feelings end up becoming more complicated and they become a heavy program that keeps running in the background, exhausting our CPE resources. In my case, when I sat with the feelings of irritation and looked at them without judgment for a few minutes, I was able to recognize the sadness and fear and I ended up feeling this lightness.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Though naming my feelings did not change that email. That email was still disappointing it helped change my internal situation. I was no longer fighting my feelings, I was just letting them be. Though it sounds like a paradox, focusing on our feelings for a few moments can help us eventually turn our complete focus to other things. Just like a child that will keep crying unless you respond to it in some way or the other, our feelings have a way of demanding our attention until we recognize them. To understand this idea better, here's a movie recommendation for the family. Please watch Inside Out. It's a wonderful introduction to the five universal emotions that I discussed in this episode, so treat that as your satsang for the upcoming weekend.