Big Feels and How to Talk About Them

1. Enjoyment

People generally like to feel happy, calm, and good. You might express these feelings by smiling, laughing, or indulging yourself.

You might feel enjoyment when:

• You feel close and connected to people you care about.
• You feel safe and secure.
• You’re doing something that triggers sensory pleasure.
• You’re absorbed in an activity.
• You feel relaxed and at peace.

Physical manifestations may include lightness, warmth, relaxed muscles, and increased energy.

If enjoyment and its related feelings seem out of reach, try to take a look at how other emotions or feelings may be getting in the way, such as:

• trouble focusing on what’s happening in the present
• worry
• stress
• a low or anxious mood

2. Sadness

Everyone feels sad from time to time. This emotion might relate to a specific event, such as a loss or rejection. This can cause you to begin reflecting and processing things, which may be helpful to move past the feeling. But in other cases, you might have no idea why you feel sad.

Physical manifestations may include heaviness in the chest, tearfulness, low energy, and slumped posture. You may feel you need for comfort, support, or time to grieve.

Sadness can be hard to shake, but depending on your situation, these tips might help:

• Mourn. Mourning is a typical part of grief. Whether you’re trying to recover from a loss, breakup, change, or failure to reach a goal, acknowledging your loss can help you accept and work through it. Everyone grieves in their own way, so do what feels right to you. It might help to talk about the pain you’re in, but it also might help to simply sit with your feelings for a while or express them creatively.
• Do something meaningful. Doing something to help others or give back to society can help you feel more connected with other people. If you’ve recently lost someone you love, consider finishing a project they cared about or donating your time to a cause they supported.
• Reach out for support. This is easier said than done when you’re at a low point. Try to remember the people in your life who care for you and likely want to help you. The pain of heartache does ease with time, even if you can’t imagine it at the moment.

It may help to talk with a therapist if your sadness lingers or begins to have a significant impact on daily life and makes it hard to work, go to school, or maintain your relationships.

3. Fear

Fear happens when you sense any type of threat. Depending on that perceived threat, fear can range from mild to severe. Physical manifestations of fear can include shivering, increased heart rate, butterflies in the stomach, and sweating.

Keep in mind that the level of fear you feel doesn’t always match up with the intensity of the threat. For example, if you live with anxiety, you might feel fear around situations that don’t actually pose much of a threat, though that doesn’t make the fear any less real.

The feelings are designed to help you respond to danger (fight or flight) and heighten your awareness. It may indicate a threat (physical or emotional), uncertainty, or anticipation of harm. However, you may become stuck in this cycle after the threat has gone, and it may no longer serve you.

Fear is a totally normal emotion, and one that likely kept your ancestors from harm.

However, there are things you can do to help manage this feeling if the fear is irrational:

• Confront fear instead of avoiding it. If you’re afraid of something, whether it’s a serious discussion, meeting new people, or driving, it’s natural to want to stay away from the source of your fear. But this can often make your fear worse. Instead, try to face your fear safely. For example, if you develop a fear of driving, it can often be helpful not to stop driving, as this can reinforce the fear. Perhaps a better option would be to stick close to home for a bit if it helps.
• Distract yourself from your fear. Sometimes fear can become so overwhelming that it’s hard to think about anything else. But ruminating, or letting the same thoughts play out over and over again, can have a negative impact on your emotional state. It can also make fear worse. If you feel yourself fixating on a worry or source of stress, try to do something distracting. Listen to an audiobook or podcast, cook with a new recipe, or go for a walk or jog with energizing music.
• Consider the fear logically. Take a moment to think about your fear. Is there anything you can do about it? Can it actually harm you? What’s the worst thing that could happen if your fear came true? What would you do in that scenario? Knowing how you would deal with your fear can help you feel less afraid.

It’s important not to get discouraged if these tips seem impossible or overwhelming — they can be hard to accomplish on your own.

Consider working with a therapist, who can help you navigate mental health issues around fear, such as:

• panic attacks
• phobias
• anxiety

4. Anger

Anger usually happens when you experience frustration, a threat to your personal values or safety, or experience or see some type of injustice. You may experience tension in your muscles, clenched fists, increased heart rate, and a flushed face.

This is a result of your body mobilizing energy for defense, addressing perceived injustices, and asserting boundaries.

For example, feeling a surge of adrenaline and a stiffening of muscles when confronted with unfair treatment at work can make you feel threatened, trapped, and want to defend yourself.

Many people think of anger as a negative thing, but it’s a normal emotion that can help you know when a situation has become toxic.

There are a lot of ways to deal with anger, many of which can cause problems for you and those around you.

The next time you find yourself in a huff, try these tips for managing anger more productively:

• Take a break. When you feel frustrated, putting some distance between yourself and the upsetting situation can help you avoid in-the-moment reactions or angry outbursts. Try taking a walk or listening to a calming song. While you’re away, take a few minutes to consider what’s causing your anger. Does the situation have another perspective? Can you do anything to make it better?
• Express your anger constructively. You might avoid talking about your anger to help prevent conflict. Internalizing can seem like a safe strategy, but your anger can fester, and you may end up holding a grudge. This can affect your interpersonal relationships as well as your emotional well-being. Instead, take time to cool off if you need it, and then try expressing your feelings calmly and respectfully.
• Focus on finding a solution. Anger is often difficult to deal with because it can make you feel helpless. Working to solve the problem that’s causing your anger can help relieve this frustration. You may not be able to fix every situation that makes you angry, but you can usually bring about some improvement. Asking other people involved what they think and working together may help you. You can also try asking your loved ones for their input. Different perspectives can help you consider solutions you may not have seen yourself.

Everyone gets angry from time to time. But if you feel like you have anger issues, a therapist can help you develop effective tools for dealing with these emotions.

5. Disgust

You typically experience disgust as a reaction to unpleasant or unwanted situations. Like anger, feelings of disgust can help protect you from things you want to avoid. You may feel nausea, a sensation of revulsion, wrinkling of the nose, and a contracting stomach.

This is your body trying to protect itself from harmful substances or behaviors. This could happen for example when you encounter with something perceived as offensive, unclean, or morally wrong.

It can also pose problems if it leads you to dislike certain people, including yourself, or situations that aren’t necessarily bad for you.

Disgust can happen as a natural response to something you dislike. In some situations, you might want to work through or overcome your disgust. These strategies can help:

• Practice compassion. It’s common to feel uncomfortable when facing things you fear or don’t understand. Many people dislike being around sick people, for example. If you feel disturbed when thinking about sick people, try spending some time with an unwell friend or loved one, or offering to help them out. It’s important to take steps to protect your own health, so first, make sure their illness is not contagious.
• Focus on the behavior, not the person. If someone you care about does something that offends or disgusts you, you may disapprove and react by withdrawing, pushing them away, or getting angry. Instead, try talking with that person. For example, if your partner smokes, avoid coughing loudly or making pointed comments about the smell of tobacco. Instead, tell them that cigarette smoke makes you feel sick and you’re concerned for their health. Offer to help them quit or work with them to find support.
• Expose yourself slowly. Some things may turn your stomach no matter what. Maybe you can’t stand any type of creepy-crawly creature, but wish you could try gardening. To get over your disgust for worms, you might start by reading about them and looking at pictures of them. If you worry about them getting on your hands, you could try wearing gardening gloves. If you don’t like watching them move, you could try watching short video clips about worms to get used to them before seeing them in real life.

If you feel a strong dislike toward a group of people, a specific person, or yourself, consider talking with a therapist about your feelings.

Even if you are not sure exactly what’s behind your disgust, a therapist can help you work through the emotion and explore positive ways of coping with it.

Putting it all together

Emotions can be complicated. Some might feel intense, while others seem mild in comparison. You might feel conflicting emotions at any given time.

But emotions can serve a purpose, even when they’re negative. Instead of trying to change the emotions you experience, consider how you react to them. It’s usually the reactions that create challenges, not the emotions themselves.

Try to figure out what your emotions may be telling you and start to put together a plan for how you can move through them and process them in a healthy way. A therapist or other people close to you may be able to help you with this.

Try not to judge yourself for feeling emotions, as they may be uncomfortable, but they are not ‘wrong.’ Pushing emotions down generally doesn’t help and can make things worse, but learning where they come from can help you address them when they arise.