Self-Love Challenge - Day 16

Feel and Name your Feelings:

Today’s challenge is for you to connect within, check in with yourself and acknowledge your feelings in this moment. As you do it, you will probably notice that your feelings keep changing, as long as you don’t resist them. If you are having difficulty doing the tasks you need to get done, ask yourself: What am I feeling now? What am I resisting? Name your feeling, allow yourself to really feel it, and continue your day. As soon as you name your feeling, and you allow yourself to truly experience it, moving forward and experiencing another feeling will happen naturally. If you are not sure how you feel, you can name it as frustration or anything else that comes to you, and continue to check in a few times a day. Knowing and acknowledging how you feel in each moment, takes practice and it is one of the keys to self-love.

Naming your feeling to yourself can also help you to stay calm and neutral. One time I went shopping in a mall with a friend, and she was determined to find an answer to a question she had. She asked the same question at several stores, and everyone she asked behind the counter looked puzzled, as if they thought we were crazy, since they had no idea what she was talking about. My first instinct was to confront her, and tell her to stop asking the question. Instead I kept breathing and telling myself, this is irritating me. I didn’t have to act on it, I was aware of my feelings and I kept breathing and acknowledging it to myself. I was convinced no one would know the answer, and that asking was a waste of time. To my surprise, around the fifth store we stopped by, she met someone who actually knew what she was talking about and gave her the answer she needed. Had I shared my frustration with her, she wouldn’t have found out the answer, I would have made her feel uncomfortable, and it could likely have strained our relationship. By simply naming my feelings to myself, I was able to allow them to move through me.

There are times that it is really important to express your feelings to others, and if today is the day go for it. But instead of yelling and screaming your feelings and/or frustrations, choose your words wisely, and speak from your heart. If you are having a hard time moving through a feeling, or if you are in resistance, perhaps calling a friend whom you trust and who is able to listen and provide support, will be ideal.

The key of this challenge is actually being able to acknowledge to yourself how you feel.

Here is to a day filled with all kinds of feelings, and to their fluidity. May they move through you as you honestly acknowledge them to yourself. As I prepared to write this article, and I named my feelings throughout the day, I experienced being stuck, calm, unworthy, stressed, anxious, worried, relaxed, peaceful, doubtful, stressed, neutral. Feel free to share at least one of the feelings you named for yourself today, and let us know how naming and feeling it made a difference in your day.