292: Analyzing Your Emotions: “What Am I Feeling and Why?”
Asking yourself ‘What am I feeling?’ can feel very daunting, but understanding your emotions is a powerful step toward emotional self-awareness. Join me today as we explore how analyzing your emotions can bring you closer to yourself and God.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- [00:33] How Can We Build a Habit Around Noticing Our Emotions?
- [05:14] The First Question to Ask Yourself: “What Am I Feeling?”
- [11:54] The Second Question to Ask Yourself: “Why Does It Make Sense That I’m Feeling This Way?”
- [13:46] What Keeps You From Asking Yourself These Questions?
- [15:08] We Are In Control of Our Actions and Habits
- [15:55] I’d Love to Help You Get to The Next Level in Your Life – Book a Free 15-Minute Call With Me!
[00:33] How Can We Build a Habit Around Noticing Our Emotions?
This month we are celebrating six years of The Christian Mindset Coach podcast! It is an honor to be able to serve like this and it has me thinking “How can I help more? How can I use this incredible medium to offer encouragement, support, and next steps for people to take?”
So in that light, I wanted to share a conversation starter that came up in the Emotional Confidence Club, which is a membership that I run based on my book Emotional Confidence.
A woman in our community was sharing a practice that she was starting at the beginning of the year which is learning how to make a habit of figuring out what she is feeling and noticing why it is there.
So many of us feel like managing our emotions feels huge, scary, and daunting. At times, it can be, and as we look at what we are feeling inside we may think it represents something, and that will result in something else. We can get lost in these thoughts but we all know that how we view a situation, and the emotions and our mindset about it, is going to affect how we show up. Yet, ironically, we have not taken the time to learn about our emotions and unpack the deeper patterns that are going on. But the biggest issue is that we live in a world where we react instead of noticing and responding. If we can start to learn how to see what is happening without judgment, then we can do something with it.
The first step in managing emotions and shaping how you view your life is noticing. Many of us would grow in leaps and bounds if we could simply learn to honestly notice what is going on inside of us. I think the enemy of our soul knows that we are not going to turn away from the Lord in terms of what we believe but he can keep us distracted and busy enough to not learn these simple skills. If he can keep us in a place of reacting and not responding with wisdom, then he can slowly allow us to get to a place where our lives are just spiraling out of control. This is where the lies come in and we start to say “I knew I could never do this or I knew that she would say this” and we get stuck in these patterns.
This work is so foundational to approach our lives from a Christ-centered viewpoint versus just responding in the flesh. So today I want to give you a couple of questions that you can ask yourself in the moment that are going to allow you to practice this habit.
[05:14] The First Question to Ask Yourself: “What Am I Feeling?”
The very first question that I want you to learn to ask is, “What am I feeling? What is the emotion that I am experiencing?” I know that even that question for some of us is daunting. Many of us do not know how we feel but if we can even address something like anger or frustration, which is the first layer of the emotional iceberg that we talk about, then we can start to notice other feelings.
I would then challenge and encourage you, without being too harsh or critical, to start to feel what is underneath that anger and frustration. Is it loneliness? Is it sadness? Is it disappointment? Is it betrayal? Each one of those are going to have a different remedy to help find a resolution for them. If this feels challenging, there are tools out there to help you figure out what emotion you may be dealing with. You can use this “feelings wheel” to help support you on this journey.
A practice that I have found helpful is to pick out a feeling from the wheel (not in the heat of the moment) and ask yourself “How does this feeling feel in my body, in my mind, and what are the actions I take as a result of it?”
For example, when I experience loneliness, I find myself going into a pity party of telling myself the lie that no one really wants to be around me, no one likes me, and I start to spiral. I also start craving something that will satiate my taste buds. For me, this is an emptiness I am trying to fill. I also sometimes feel it in my chest. These are things you can start to notice within yourself as you explore these feelings.
Even if you just take a second before you respond to someone and ask yourself “What is this emotion I am feeling?” the Holy Spirit can help you in this moment. He is our counselor, companion, and He is the Lord of the Universe. He is part of that Trinity that knows everything and He can help us discern what we are feeling. Or if you are “feeling off” and are not sure why, sit down with a journal and take time before God by verbally saying, “These are some of the things that I have noticed, what could this be that I am feeling?”
[11:54] The Second Question to Ask Yourself: “Why Does It Make Sense That I’m Feeling This Way?”
The next question to ask yourself is “Why does it make sense that I'm feeling this way?” There is so much encouragement in these words, especially when it comes to emotions. Oftentimes, we can feel something and instantly think “That is wrong” and not allow ourselves to process with God to find an answer. Unless we are diagnosed mentally unhealthy or unstable in certain areas, there is most likely a plausible cause for an emotion we are feeling. There is a cause, thought, and an action that makes it reasonable that we feel this way.
So when we are able to recognize this, it allows God's compassion to come in the door and give us the courage to go to that next step of working in it. If we can learn in this process of noticing and analyzing, we can become more emotionally confident and not feel so responsive to things that happen to us. This allows us to have a better outlook and mindset around our lives.
[13:46] What Keeps You From Asking Yourself These Questions?
I want to challenge you to ask yourself “What keeps me from doing this?” because that will give you a place to start. Are you extremely busy and just moving from one thing to the next? I would argue that about 90% of us fall into that. There might also be some deeper things like past trauma that is keeping you from being able to look at some of these feelings and that is valid as well. It might just be learning this habit of paying attention. Even if we take the emotions out of it, learning to pay attention is a critical aspect of knowing Jesus. Like we said, the enemy does a ton of work to try to keep us distracted from paying attention.
[15:08] We Are In Control of Our Actions and Habits
I want to remind you that you have the power to live the life that you know that God wants you to live. No, we are not more powerful than God but so much of what keeps us from living the life that God is calling us to is our actions and habits that we are in control of.
Even if our circumstances were to dramatically change in the ways that we hope that they would, we are not going to find freedom because we have not addressed the patterns that are keeping us stuck from moving forward. Just starting with simple shifts inside of us can radically change our faith, how we involve our conversations with the Lord, and even how we respond to what is happening in front of us.
[15:55] I’d Love to Help You Get to The Next Level in Your Life – Book a Free 15-Minute Call With Me!
My goal in 2025 is to put a huge emphasis on being helpful to everyone that I encounter. That means my clients, my friends, my listeners, people I see at the grocery store, and anyone on social media that I encounter. I want to say, “How can I show up, be helpful, and be an encouragement?” I want to be able to help you make progress. I know how easy it is to fall into the pattern of just listening to something and not knowing how to make it happen in your life. So I would love to help support you on the next steps in your life whether that is through coaching, a course, or just having a conversation.
There might be another podcast you can listen to, or there might be a book to read, either way, I would love to have a conversation. I know that I am always looking for people like this in my life – wouldn’t it be helpful to have an expert in a certain field to help you figure out the next step?
We live in a culture where it is more about efficiency and trying to serve as many people as possible but I want to help you with a custom approach. If you want to discuss the issues, obstacles, or questions you may have, book a free 15-minute call with me. It is almost like if you were to remodel your kitchen but did not know where to start. You would go to a design center and let them know what you see as a problem in your kitchen and they would let you know what can be done to fix it. You do not have to agree or move forward with those ideas but it is encouraging to have someone who works in that area give you some tips.
Just like Netflix and Spotify personalize your entertainment, I want to help you move forward with a personalized approach. These calls not only help you but they help me as well. It helps me to know what you are struggling with and how I can help in the name of Jesus Christ. I block out time in my calendar for these calls each week and I would love to hear from you!
RESOURCES:
Tired of up-and-down feelings stealing your peace, sabotaging your relationships, and filling your mind with self-defeating thoughts? If so, make sure to get my new book, “Emotional Confidence: 3 Simple Steps to Manage Emotions with Science and Scripture”.
Want to see what Emotional Confidence is about? Download the first chapter for FREE!
Book a Free 15-Minute Call to discuss the next steps on your emotional management journey.
Ready to know how to manage emotions for more calm, stronger relationships, and a closer walk with God? Want to implement the concepts discussed in my book “Emotional Confidence”? Then join the Emotional Confidence Club!
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