Recognizing, Translating, And Expressing Difficult Emotions

Difficult emotions are those that do not occur purely. Most emotions are more or less difficult. For example, feeling anger and love at the same time is more common than you might believe. Another example of a common combination of emotions would be compassion and anger, or anger and sorrow. Sometimes we enjoy generalizing our experiences and simply list them as stressful. However, identifying and expressing difficult emotions is important and can be practiced.

Sometimes we have to make a horrible effort to identify such feelings, to turn them into thoughts, and then to express them. Each of these steps can be quite complicated, but they are also the way out of this mental state where we don’t want to stay.

However, one thing is certain: there are not enough words to express difficult feelings. This is probably the reason why poetry exists. Poetry is more than just an artistic form of expression. Poets believe it is a great way to convey their difficult feelings to the rest of the world. The same is true for people who choose to shed their feelings in some other form of art.

Difficult feelings

The fact that different words do not have a direct translation from one language to another reflects how difficult it is to define and express difficult emotions. Sometimes it is impossible to translate the purpose of a word into another language precisely because it is particularly complex or involves certain social contexts. Here are a few examples:

• Freizeitstress: This German word refers to the stress we feel when we do certain activities just to kill time.

• Lítost: This Czech word has to do with the feeling when we realize we are irreversibly desperate.
• Gigil: This is a Filipino term that means wanting to “squeeze” something because this something is so sweet.
• Sukkha: This Sanskrit term defines happiness that is not vanishing. It refers to strong, long-lasting happiness.

In many cases, there is no way to translate these strange terms from one language to another without lengthening the text. The same goes for difficult emotions. To date, we have not found a way to identify, translate, or express them. This can make us uneasy, as dealing with a feeling begins with recognizing it.

Identifying difficult emotions

Most of us are used to classifying our feelings into five fundamental groups. These are,  happiness, sorrow, anger, fear, and disgust. Our ordinary feelings correspond to some of these basic feelings. There are also moments when we want to be precise but we can’t because these feelings are too common. Maybe our fears are petty, or our anger is cowardly.

Difficult emotions are shaped by the fact that they are a mixture of many different emotions that are obviously really different from each other. In order to identify them, we must first make our thought process more flexible. It’s important to understand that we can’t sort difficult emotions into different categories because they don’t correspond to “ordinary emotions.”

We must also stop valuing emotions from an ethical perspective. In fact,  there are not even good or bad feelings. One particular feeling can be great or bad, depending on the situation.

What ultimately determines the main characteristics of a particular emotion is the way we control it, and the energy we associate with it. In other words, a certain feeling may precede our actions, but never justify it. We need to understand that it is OK to feel sad joy. We don’t have to make sure one controls the other. This means we have to accept our feelings as they are.

The importance of defining and expressing emotions

Expressing ourselves makes us free. While keeping everything inside makes us stress and feel anxious. Also, verbally expressing our feelings enriches communication with others, and it also develops the quality of our internal dialogue. In addition to this, it promotes understanding (both one’s own and others ’), empathy and internal / external peace.

In order to express difficult emotions, we need to analyze and disaggregate the emotions that originate in a global space, as well as their effects on each other.

If we feel furious joy, then we are dealing with joy and anger. When it comes to petty and fearful grief, it comes with two basic feelings, and one special feeling. All of these concepts can be better defined. For example, anger is synonymous with irritability, resentment, frustration, etc. It is important to find the right word that best suits our emotions.

Here is an exercise to help complete this process of recognizing, translating, and expressing difficult emotions. Let us use the following sentence: “I feel… when…” and fill in the blanks. Let us try to apply this sentence to all the emotions we know. Then let’s look at what we wrote and put them all together. This is an interesting exercise that can sometimes lead to poetry, but at least it always leads to a better understanding of our emotional states.