Sometimes feelings are difficult to explain

• You are good at • People often tell you about their problems. • You are good at picking up on how other people are feeling. • You often think about how other people feel. • Other people come to you for advice. • You often feel overwhelmed by tragic events. • You try to help others who are suffering. • You are good at telling • You sometimes feel drained or overwhelmed in social situations. • You care deeply about other people. • You find it difficult to • Affective empathy involves the ability to understand another person's • Somatic empathy involves having a physical reaction in response to what someone else is experiencing. People sometimes physically experience what another person is feeling. When you see someone else feeling embarrassed, for example, you might start to blush or have an upset stomach. • Cognitive empathy involves being able to understand another person's mental state and what they might be thinking in response to the situation. This is related to what psychologists refer to as the • Empathy allows you to build social connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, you are able to respond appropriately in social situations. Research has shown that having • Empathizing with others helps you learn to regulate your own emotions. • Empathy promotes helping behaviors. Not only are you more likely to engage in helpful behaviors when you feel empathy for other people, but other people are also more likely to help you when they ...

Share on Pinterest Sarah Mason/Getty Images Understanding another person’s feelings and experiences, even if opposite to ours, may allow us to respond in a supportive way and regulate our own emotions. What happens when you don’t feel it? Is it possible to lack empathy altogether? And if so, is this a sign of a mental health condition? There are many possible answers to these questions, even though this is still an evolving area of research. In general, empathy is the ability to understand or sense another person’s perspective, feelings, needs, or intentions, even when you don’t share the same circumstances. It can sometimes involve acting on that understanding, including offering help. But empathy doesn’t always lead to action. It may depend on the type of empathy you’ve developed. According to psychologists and researchers 1. Cognitive empathy This type of empathy is an intellectual understanding of someone else’s feelings. It’s the ability to consider other perspectives without sensing or experiencing them yourself. For example, if a colleague loses their job, you may recognize what emotions they could be feeling. You could also understand how their emotions might affect their behavior. This doesn’t mean you experience distress yourself. 2. Affective or ‘emotional’ empathy People who have emotional empathy tend to feel another person’s emotions. Although not always the case, this may also include physical sensations consistent with such emotion. For example, if you see ...

Overview Balance problems can make you feel dizzy, as if the room is spinning, unsteady, or lightheaded. You might feel as if the room is spinning or you're going to fall down. These feelings can happen whether you're lying down, sitting or standing. Many body systems — including your muscles, bones, joints, eyes, the balance organ in the inner ear, nerves, heart and blood vessels — must work normally for you to have normal balance. When these systems aren't functioning well, you can experience balance problems. Symptoms Signs and symptoms of balance problems include: • Sense of motion or spinning (vertigo) • Feeling of faintness or lightheadedness (presyncope) • Loss of balance or unsteadiness • Falling or feeling like you might fall • Feeling a floating sensation or dizziness • Vision changes, such as blurriness • Confusion Causes Balance problems can be caused by several different conditions. The cause of balance problems is usually related to the specific sign or symptom. Sense of motion or spinning (vertigo) Vertigo can be associated with many conditions, including: • Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). BPPV occurs when calcium crystals in your inner ear — which help control your balance — are dislodged from their normal positions and move elsewhere in the inner ear. BPPV is the most common cause of vertigo in adults. You might experience a spinning sensation when turning in bed or tilting your head back to look up. • Vestibular neuritis. This inflammatory di...

How Emotions Help Us What are you feeling, right now, as you start to read this? Are you curious? Hopeful that you'll learn something about yourself? Bored because this is something you have to do for school and you're not really into it — or happy because it's a school project you enjoy? Perhaps you're distracted by something else, like feeling excited about your weekend plans or sad because you just went through a breakup. Emotions like these are part of human nature. They give us information about what we're experiencing and help us know how to react. We sense our emotions from the time we're babies. Infants and young children react to their emotions with facial expressions or with actions like laughing, cuddling, or crying. They feel and show emotions, but they don't yet have the ability to name the emotion or say why they feel that way. As we grow up, we become more skilled in understanding emotions. Instead of just reacting like little kids do, we can identify what we feel and put it into words. With time and practice, we get better at knowing what we are feeling and why. This skill is called emotional awareness. Emotional awareness helps us know what we need and want (or don't want!). It helps us build better relationships. That's because being aware of our emotions can help us talk about feelings more clearly, avoid or resolve conflicts better, and move past difficult feelings more easily. Some people are naturally more in touch with their emotions than others. The...

Human emotions evolved so that we can respond quickly to life-or-death situations. After all, while fear may prevent us from behaving in a ‘life-limiting’ way, anger can drive us to protect ourselves or those closest to us. While evidence suggests some emotions are universal, there is no one-size-fits-all emotional balance that suits every culture or all individuals. We should remain cautious and avoid seeing clients who may differ emotionally from ourselves as needing to be fixed. However, we all benefit from better understanding our emotions and how they impact our behavior, especially when they are at odds with our daily and lifelong goals. Before you continue, we thought you might like to This Article Contains: • • • • • • • • • • What Are Emotions and How Do They Work? The human mind evolved key adaptations to facilitate our ancient ancestors’ survival and reproductive challenges. While the environment we live in has changed dramatically, we still share their capacity for problem solving, perception, belief systems, and emotional thinking (Workman & Reader, 2015). A definition of emotional thinking must, therefore, not only (i) cater to the range of emotions we possess (including both positive and negative); it should also (ii) explain how we react physically, psychologically, and cognitively to everyday events ( proximate factors); and (iii) explain why the mechanism evolved over many generations ( ultimate factors). Evolutionary psychologist Randolph Nesse (1990) de...

If you or a loved one are struggling with a mental health condition, contact the 1-800-662-4357 for information on support and treatment facilities in your area. For more mental health resources, see our A Word From Verywell Learning new ways to cope with traumatic events, overwhelming stress, depression, anxiety, or any other serious life event is possible. Reaching out to a doctor is the first step to addressing emotional numbing. They can help you find a mental health professional trained in these areas. • Kerig PK, Bennett DC, Chaplo SD, Modrowski CA, McGee AB. Journal of Traumatic Stress. 2016;29(2):111-119. doi:10.1002/jts.22087 • Fujiwara T, Mizuki R, Miki T, Chemtob C. Front Psychol. 2015;6. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01534 • Tull MT, Gratz KL, Salters K, Roemer L. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2004;192(11):754-761. doi:10.1097/01.nmd.0000144694.30121.89 • Dixon-Gordon KL, Peters JR, Fertuck EA, Yen S. J Psychother Integr. 2017;27(4):425-438. doi:10.1037/int0000044 • Shear MK. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2012;14(2):119-128. doi:10.31887/DCNS.2012.14.2/mshear • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. • Dvir Y, Ford JD, Hill M, Frazier JA. Harv Rev Psychiatry. 2014;22(3):149-161. doi:10.1097/HRP.0000000000000014 • Weilenmann S, Schnyder U, Parkinson B, Corda C, von Känel R, Pfaltz MC. Front Psychiatry. 2018;9:389. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00389 • U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. • Bisson JI, Cosgrove S, Lewis C, Roberts NP. BMJ. 2015:h6161. doi:10.1136/bm...

Share on Pinterest Mayur Kakade/Getty Images You’re sitting there looking at your friend, or partner, or therapist. You meet their questioning gaze, knowing you have the chance to share… but the words seem stuck in your throat. You might feel your heart racing as you try to figure out what to say. Maybe a part of you wants to open up, but another part just isn’t so sure. Maybe you’re not even sure how you feel. Expressing your feelings can be a complicated process for some, and feeling uncomfortable sharing isn’t uncommon. But why do you feel the need to hold back? And is there a way to learn this valuable skill? Have you ever left an important conversation kicking yourself for not saying how you felt, or wishing you had just let go and shared your true thoughts? Many things can make it harder to open up — it might be related to what you’re feeling, who you are, and how you relate to others. Tough topics When the story you want to share with someone brings up Whether you feel like you don’t want to burden the listener with those big emotions, or it’s just too much to feel those emotions, it can be more difficult to share your feelings and story as a result. In addition, the experience of trauma itself can make it harder to name, describe, and share your feelings, according to Attachment issues For example, one Lack of secure attachment due to trauma can make opening up especially difficult. Also, insecure attachment causes some people to feel reluctant to share their feeli...