#understandingemotions

Understanding Feelings 🔍

What Your Emotions Are Trying to Tell You

Your emotions are not random.

They often carry important information about your needs, values, boundaries, and experiences.

In this video, we explore how emotions communicate and why listening to them with curiosity can create more self-awareness and emotional clarity.

If you struggle with anxiety, shutting down emotions, emotional overwhelm, or feeling disconnected from yourself, this reminder can help you better understand what your feelings may be trying to say.

Friendship between a man and a woman is a delicate balance, often riddled with unspoken boundaries and emotional nuances. One common question that many guys ask is: "Why don’t girls let their guy friends know that they might consider them for a relationship or marriage?"

While this question might seem straightforward, the underlying dynamics are much more complex. From what I've personally experienced and observed, it often comes down to one key issue: the shift in behavior that occurs when a guy gets the idea that a girl might be interested in more than just friendship.

The Shift: From Platonic to Physical The moment some guys begin to sense that a girl could be open to a deeper connection, they tend to express their feelings through increased physical contact. Even the smallest gestures, like holding hands, suddenly become common in situations where they weren’t before.

A girl might not mind small touches in certain contexts, but when it becomes excessive or feels forced, it can make things very uncomfortable. What used to be a friendly hug while saying goodnight can turn into an everyday expectation, one that’s now layered with a romantic undercurrent that wasn't previously there.

This shift in behavior can make girls feel trapped or even pressured, causing them to pull back from what was once a comfortable friendship. The comfort and safety that friendship provides suddenly vanish, leaving behind uncertainty and awkwardness. The ease of the relationship is replaced by tension, and what was once lighthearted becomes weighed down by unmet expectations.

Navigating Expectations: When Friendship Turns Romantic One thing that guys should take into consideration is that if a girl suggests she might be open to more than friendship, that doesn’t mean she wants to rush into a relationship or immediately shift the dynamics. She still wants to feel comfortable being around him. It’s crucial for the guy to maintain the sense of trust and safety that the friendship was built on, even if there’s a possibility for something more.

Jumping from platonic to physical can create an emotional imbalance that might push the girl away, especially if the guy’s actions are driven by excitement or impatience. What’s key here is restraint and respect for boundaries. The girl may very well consider a relationship, but her comfort level should always be prioritized. If she feels like her space, trust, or autonomy is being encroached upon, the potential for romance will likely diminish.

Why Do Guys Mess This Up? It’s not always intentional, but many guys often misinterpret or overestimate the significance of small gestures when they sense that romance is in the air. The thought of a relationship can become exciting, and that excitement sometimes clouds judgment.

Rather than approaching the situation with patience and care, some men might rush into expressing their feelings physically, thinking that it’s the fastest way to show affection. But physical contact doesn't necessarily equal emotional intimacy, especially if the girl isn’t ready for it.

Another reason is that societal conditioning often teaches men that physical expressions of love are more valid or effective than emotional ones. As a result, when a romantic opportunity presents itself, they might feel the need to escalate the situation through touch. However, what they fail to recognize is that physical gestures, especially too early or too often, can feel invasive to the girl.

What Can Be Done Differently? If a guy senses that there’s potential for something more, it’s important to tread lightly. Communicate openly about feelings and intentions instead of assuming physical cues will do the talking. Just because a girl might be open to romance doesn’t mean she’s ready for immediate physical closeness.

The key is to maintain the friendship first. Let the girl set the pace. If she feels comfortable and safe, she’s more likely to open up about her emotions. Pressuring her or misreading her signals will only damage the connection.

For any relationship to evolve healthily, respect, patience, and emotional understanding must form the foundation. The same qualities that make a great friendship—trust, comfort, and mutual respect—are the ones that will allow a romantic relationship to blossom naturally.

Typically, the things I write that are pretty-sounding or thought-provoking happen when I am just journalling to process my emotions. That being said, I was writing an intro to my new journal and ended up making a connection that I named the "storm analogy", and it is as follows.

"My emotions in a calm body of water cuases a storm rather than ripples. Even just "normal" emotions. That's hard. The stigma around storms is that they are dreary and make everyone in contact with them sad and in a foul mood. Until you find that one person who really doesn't mind the storm. They find an odd comfort in living through storms because they recognize storms are a part of life and will always come to an end.

Some storms are worse than others. Some cause intense destructions, but some people can recognize that its natural, and the only way to move forward is to recover from any damage, realize that this will happen again by force of nature, make appropriate changes to the recovered area to prevent damage in the next storm, and go about.

Right now I'm in recovery from the damage from the storm/category 5 hurricane that was my childhood. Im learning. I moved away from the ocean and built a lake. My own lake that my emotions can exist within, aloud to make storms, so I can learn to rebuild on my own."

The range of emotions remain unclear to people and is often treated as insignificant. They don't know how being more knowledgeable about it helps them own their emotions rather than their emotions owning them. Fortunately, there is a great advantage when we learn how to rely on our emotions in the right way - here's why. Feelings are tied to the knowledge and experiences we store in our brain.  Those feelings are part of the history of our life as we obtain that knowledge and live through those experiences.  In essence, as we learn we store both thoughts and feelings in an inter-connected way.  But, why do we have this storehouse of feelings? Our brain is made to “feel” as we experience things – this must be an important and wonderful ability or we would not have it.  Let’s look at this ability as if it is sort of a “radar” or “early warning system”.  Perhaps we can view this radar as being our range of emotions.  The diagram below illustrates this...