Identify what I feel

http://www.positivelypositive.com/2013/04/06/want-a-simple-way-to-calm-yourself/
One strategy particularly struck me: if you’re feeling a negative emotion, you can work to reduce it by labeling it in one or two words. Note, however, that thinking or talking at length about the emotional state tends to intensify it, while simply observing and labeling it helps to quell it.

Putting this one to the test. One of the difficulties I had was dissociation separated me from emotions.  As a child, if I expressed an emotion, negative or positive, my mother would refute it.  She would tell me that I didn't feel that way or try to alter it.  One of the stranger memories was I was feeling very happy and told my mother about it.  She then told me a very sad story and childlike I felt the sadness of the story and then she cheered me up.  Pleased with herself for cheering me up.  From my perspective, it didn't seem to occur to her that before starting to talk to her I was happy.  Eventually, I figured out not to show my mother any emotion.  It stopped this roller coaster of highs and lows she seemed to generate.  I thought the memories were totally out of whack and unreasonable.  After I started counseling, my sister and I started comparing notes.  She verified what I experienced.  However, reconnecting to emotions is more difficult than you may think.  For one, the physical reaction for excitement and anger are very similar.  Same with fear and love heart rate goes up, emotionally agitated so the feelings seem confusing to label which emotion is which.  My counselor was curious as to which emotion I felt first after integration.  He was quite surprised when I told him boredom.  Before integration, I had never been bored.  Each personality so wanted time if one was bored the other took over.  Not so when you just have one.  This is when I learned about getting stuck in an emotion.  I can see why people will go to such bizarre lengths to avoid boredom.  It feels terrible.  Fear on the other hand can really jack you up and turn you into a freaking race horse.  Excitement can be like all the fireworks going off at once.  I can identify these fairly well.  But what about meh?   I don't feel happy nor sad nor bored nor any of the big emotions.  I am working at recognizing the subtleties of peaceful, satisfied, and calm.   Calm was very hard at first because I could decide if I was calm or bored.  Then I decided that calm is what happens when I am choosing not to worry about getting xyz done and just sit quietly.  Calm is not something I encounter too often.  My tendency is being up and doing.  To just sit calmly is hard.  Identifying it is even more difficult.

Last week's emotional melt down was a real shock to me.  MyCounselor taught me to sit with my emotions and give myself time to work through what I am feeling.  I fell apart so rapidly over something that logically I knew was not problem.  The emotions coming at me felt like an over full water balloon dropped in my lap.  It went every where fast.  About this time was when the PositivielyPositive posted the article above on Facebook.  Identify the emotion in one or two words.  In computer work, it would be identifying the issue... In art, defining the pallet...shades of green, or blue, warm colors or triads.  Whoa, I think I just stumbled on a way for me to help identify what I am feeling.  Should be a 'duh' moment.  At the beginning of my counseling KavinCoach gave me a coloring book for emotions.  Perhaps instead of verbally naming an emotion, I wonder if coloring my emotions I might be able to grasp them a little better.  I did not enjoy the surprise melt down but I recognize now that I had hints and tremors that I ignored.  I need to try this out to see how it works for me.  Blue is my favorite color so it is not a sad color...blue is a sunny sky, a lake of water, blue flowers, blue birds of happiness...blue is beautiful.