Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › Name what you feel
Give the feeling a number from zero to ten, and watch the number instead of obeying it.
A rating turns a wave you are inside into something you are measuring from the shore.
Qur’an and Sunnah
He knows the stealthy glance and what the breasts conceal (Qur'an 40:19). Reading your own hidden state is answering to the One who sees it.
يَعۡلَمُ خَآئِنَةَ ٱلۡأَعۡيُنِ وَمَا تُخۡفِي ٱلصُّدُورُ
God is aware of the most furtive of glances, and of all that hearts conceal
Qur’an 40:19read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Naming and rating a feeling brings in the watching part of the mind, which is what lets the heat pass without running you.
Lieberman, M. D.; Eisenberger, N. I.; Crockett, M. J.; Tom, S. M.; Pfeifer, J. H.; Way, B. M. (2007). Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli. Psychological Science doi
Naming an emotion in words reduces amygdala activity, dampening the emotional reaction.
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Gauging an emotion engages the observing mind, adding a beat between feeling and reaction.
Where this sits: Emotion regulation, affect labeling (mindfulness-based).
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Under the anger, name the softer feeling: often it is fear, or hurt, or feeling unseen.
When a feeling grips you, name it in one plain word: this is anger, this is fear, this is hurt.
Whoever is going to do the feeling picks what to work with. The tightness in the chest, the closing throat, the anger, the grief, whichever one they are ready for today.