Happy & Healthy with Amy

Emotional Literacy: The Ability to Say What You Actually Feel

• Amy Lang • Season 2 • Episode 51

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0:00 | 24:45

What emotions can you recognize in your body while they are happening?

For many of us, the list is limited to happy, sad, and angry. But trying to understand your emotional experience with only three words is like trying to draw a sunset with three crayons. You might capture the general idea, but you will miss important shades, details, and information.

In Part 2 of the Name It to Navigate It series, Amy helps you expand your emotional vocabulary so you can identify what you are actually feeling—not just the broad category it falls into.

You will learn how to use the Wheel of Emotions as a practical tool, why feelings such as envy and jealousy require different responses, and how accurately naming an emotion can help you understand what you need.

Because when you can name what is happening more precisely, you are better able to pause, examine the story you are telling yourself, and choose a response that supports your brain health, well-being, and values.

This episode builds on Part 1, where Amy introduced affect labeling—the practice of putting feelings into words—and explained how naming an emotion may help quiet the brain’s alarm system and bring your thinking brain back online.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR:

  • 00:00 — Why three emotion words are not enough
  • 02:15 — The difference between an emotion and a feeling
  • 04:45 — Why emotional awareness gives you useful information
  • 06:30 — How emotional vocabulary works like a map
  • 08:20 — How to use the Wheel of Emotions
  • 11:40 — What emotions may be trying to tell you
  • 13:50 — Envy versus jealousy
  • 15:40 — Stress versus overwhelm and guilt versus shame
  • 18:10 — Fear, powerlessness, and Alzheimer’s risk
  • 21:15 — A journaling practice for naming what you feel

The more accurately you can name what you feel, the more clearly you can understand the need beneath it. That clarity creates a pause between the feeling and the action, giving you the opportunity to respond in a way that aligns with your wants, needs, values, and long-term brain-health goals.

Listen to Part 2 now, subscribe to Happy & Healthy with Amy, and come back for Part 3, where Amy explores why an urge can feel like a command—and how to deal with them when they undermine your long-term goals.

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