It's OK to feel your feelings!
Understanding your emotions can help your wellbeing
Emotions are signals — they tell us something about what’s happening in our lives.
They can be strong, confusing, or uncomfortable, but every feeling has a reason and a message.
There’s no right or wrong way to feel. The key is learning to notice what’s going on inside and how it affects your thoughts and actions.
When you can name and understand your feelings, you can manage them better — instead of letting them take control.
Building emotional vocabulary helps too — the more words you have for your emotions, the easier it is to handle them.
Everyone’s different. What feels overwhelming for one person might not for another — and that’s OK.
Try using tools like mood check-ins, journaling, or talking things through to help make sense of how you feel
It is OK to be angry, or sad, or worried. You are human and like everyone else you’re going to experience all sorts of emotions in your lifetime and sometimes in a single day or even in the space of a few minutes!) BUT...
...it’s not OK to hurt yourself, hurt others or break stuff
...if you feel sad, or worried or angry and those feelings don’t go away you need to ask for help.
Good news
The good news is that when we can recognise and name our feelings we can understand them better. When we understand feelings we can manage them better and cope in the best possible way to support our wellbeing.
This part of the website is all about learning to recognise, understand, name, express and cope with our feelings.
Feelings? Emotions?
Have you noticed how we have been using the words 'feelings' and 'emotions' interchangeably - i.e. pretty much meaning the same thing?
About 99.9% of people do... and everyone gets it..
The words 'Feelings' and 'Emotions' actually mean slightly different things...
A really simple way of thinking about it is:
“Emotions are your brain and body reacting, and feelings are the names you give to those reactions.”
If you want to find out a bit more about the difference click the button below
Emotions are like the big waves that happen inside us – they are automatic reactions in our brain and body.
Feelings are the names we give to those waves when we notice them.
Example:
- Imagine you’re walking down a dark corridor and hear a bang. Your emotion is fear – your heart races, your tummy feels tight.
- Your feeling is when you say to yourself, “I feel scared.”
Or:
- You see your best friend after the holidays. Your emotion is joy – you smile, your body feels fizzy.
- Your feeling is, “I feel happy.”
You could think of the difference like this:
- Emotions are like the weather happening in your body (stormy, sunny, windy).
- Feelings are the words on the weather forecast that describe what the weather is.
Feelings and our brain
The more words we have for our feelings the easier they are to cope with
The physical sensations in our bodies tell us about our feelings
One minute feelings challenge. How many can you name?
Managing feelings toolkit
Explore the 'feelings files'
A closer look at feelings like 'worry', 'anxiety', 'sadness', 'anger' and more...