Hi, This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track.

Welcome to the latest episode. Have you ever had this scenario? You've got something that's bothering you. It's been eating away at you for ages. It's been going around in your head again and again, and this could be something that someone said, or a situation that's come up, or a challenge that you've got or something that's upset you, that you need to communicate to someone.

You start explaining it to them, and as you're starting to explain it, if you like me, this is how your thought processes go is "I've got this thing that I need to say to you. The trouble is, I'm still exploring it and weighing it up and figuring it out and trying to understand it. So as I'm saying it, I'm just going to try and verbalise it to you" and you start verbalising it and then they get confused so they suddenly try and get you to explain or justify, and it scrambles your thoughts, and then suddenly it all just goes pear shaped, and you either get frustrated and you end up in an argument or you get annoyed and you walk away.

Now this definitely used to be me. Yet many years ago where I would get upset about something and I would start talking to my partner and explaining it, and then they would get frustrated or confused or angry or whatever, and then they would respond and my head would get scrambled, and suddenly I'd be like, I'd either get angry and retaliate, or I would walk away being even more frustrated and annoyed what I was at the start.

One thing I did for ages was to live my life like that, and I was in this constant state of wanting to explain things, to be able to get people to see my point of view, to get them to understand how I'm feeling and it always seemed to end the same way with me being frustrated and in a worse position.

So a number of years ago before I started on my journey of getting everything sorted out, I realised one thing I needed to do was get that processing in my mind to a point where I could actually start to get some results. Now for a lot of us, when we have anything that we're trying to learn or understand or articulate, it takes time because when we initially attempt it, we're not very good.

As time goes on, we develop the skills, we develop the confidence, we develop the natural ability to do these things. If you think about your job when you first started it, whatever it is that you do when you first did it, you would have had lots of confusion, and questions, and uncertainty, and hesitations, and fears, and it would have been a challenge for you to do your job.

Now you don't need to think about it. Same as driving a car. When you first do it, it's overwhelming, and then after a while you get the hang of it and it becomes easier and then you don't need to think about it. Being able to articulate how you feel is a challenge, and it's a challenge because of a number of things.

One, when we articulate our emotions, we have to go into a place of vulnerability. We have to open ourselves up to judgement and all of this sort of thing, so it takes a degree of courage, first of all, to get started because we're moving into an area of uncertainty. We're on a little bit of thin ice. We're a little unsure of where to put our feet as we go along.

The ice gets thicker, however, to get there first, we need to be able to understand what's going on in our heads so we can get that out and emotions are a tricky thing. The reason they're tricky is we don't get taught about them. I know that was certainly the case for myself. I'm assuming that it's the same for you. It seems to be for most people I talked to, so if you want to be in a situation where you're able to articulate, you're going to probably go through a lot of frustration first.

For myself, what I found was easier, was to do the work privately before I took it to a partner. So I have to start understanding how to to look at my emotions and see them for what they were to be able to understand them, to see how they fit into each other and how they impacted my life both in a good way and a not so good way.

I also have to understand there is no such thing as a good emotion or a bad emotion. It's just an emotion. Once I started to understand them, I then had to be able to articulate them. That's where I then brought it to another person, and that takes time.

They may get frustrated, and that's okay because they're trying to understand, whether it's a partner, a work colleague, a family member, a friend, it doesn't matter, everyone is trying to understand how well they do and understanding is part of their personal journey. You can't make their frustration be part of your problem.

You're probably dealing with enough as it is just trying to be able to articulate what it is that you're feeling. So if you're one of these people, like I used to be, where you have trouble articulating what it is that you feel, start off first of all, understanding your emotions. Once you start to understand your emotions, then you can start practising articulating them.

How I would recommend you start understanding your emotions is using the same tool I did many years ago. What I did at the end of every day was, I sat down with a list of emotions, and I asked myself, "Did I at any point today experience this particular emotion?" The list itself was made up of a mix of various so called negative and so called positive emotions, and all I did was ask myself, "Did I feel it for any moment during this particular day?"

So, for example, "Proud. Did I have a moment today when I felt proud?" and I might ask myself or remind myself I had that moment where I completed my job. I completed it efficiently on time. It looked good. It presented well. I was proud of that moment, and so as long as I could recognise it after the fact, it became easier to recognise it during the fact.

Now it took a number of months for me to achieve this because, like a lot of men, I was shut off from my emotions. So I had to really work at this. But I did it every evening for months on end until I got to the point like I am now, where in any given moment I could recognise multiple emotions that I'm feeling. Like even at the moment, as I'm standing here recording this for you, I'm experiencing a number of emotions, and I can identify each of those accurately because I've taken the time to learn them.

So if you start by learning your emotions, when it comes time to articulate them to other people, regardless of who they are, it will become easier because you can identify them first of all, then all you have to do is say, "I am feeling...", whatever emotion it is that you're feeling in that particular moment.

That is what I would recommend. Getting past this particular challenge is at first getting comfortable and used to identifying and understanding your emotions, which will lead you to naturally being able to better articulate them to another person. The moment you can articulate them better, then it becomes easier to find a solution with that person for that particular challenge that you're going through.

So it's just a simple process of starting at one point, moving on to the next point and then get into some level of mastery, the same as your job or driving a car, where it becomes more and more natural, and more and more possible that you'll get to a result that you're happy with.

So there you go. That was what I wanted to talk about today, something that was a massive part of my journey to get to a point of having a high quality relationship where I could articulate exactly what I needed to articulate with my partner.

So get out there, practise these things. If you need any help, send us a message and we're happy to help. That's what we're here for. I'll also include a link to download my little emotion list so you can see the exact same list. I used to get in touch with my emotions. I recommend doing it every evening just before you go to bed. It'll take you about 15 to 20 minutes, and it will be the best 15 to 20 minutes of your day that you could spend.

So click on the link, download your little emotion list, practise it, practise it, practise it, you'll get better, and the result will be worth it. Because you'll be able to articulate better, you'll feel better being able to articulate it, and you'll get a better result with the relationships with the people that you care about.

So there you go. That's it for today. Have a fantastic day. Look after yourself and remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.