Why Naming a Feeling Is More Powerful Than Fixing It
Welcome to Sacred Musings, a space where I share reflections from the heart on love, life, caregiving, and the lessons that shape us into who we are. My hope is that these words bring comfort, perspective, and inspiration to anyone walking their own path of healing and growth.
For most of my life, I tried to plow through difficult emotions instead of stopping to notice them. That’s the trap of being an Enneagram Five living in the head, analyzing, strategizing, trying to survive by figuring things out. When pain showed up, I reached for solutions. When heartbreak arrived, I reached for explanations.
But here’s what I’ve learned:
feelings don’t need fixing they need noticing.
The Illusion of Solving
When something hurts, our instinct is to make it stop. We want to patch it up, push it down, or rationalize it away. We think: If I can just solve this, I won’t have to feel it anymore.
But emotions don’t work like math problems. They aren’t equations to balance. They are signals. When you skip straight to solving, you silence the signal without learning the message. The pain stays, waiting for another day.
The Power of Naming
Something shifts the moment you simply name what you’re feeling.
“I’m angry.”
“I feel abandoned.”
“I’m anxious.”
“I’m lonely.”
The act of naming validates the truth of your inner experience. It acknowledges: Yes, this is real. Yes, I feel it. That in itself is powerful. The body relaxes, the mind quiets, and you realize you don’t have to run from the feeling. You only have to recognize it.
Listening to the Body
Naming also helps you notice where the feeling lives in your body. Anger in the chest. Anxiety in the gut. Sadness in the throat. Your body tells the truth long before your mind tries to dress it up with logic.
By asking “Where do I feel this?” you give your body a voice. You allow your whole self to participate in healing not just your thoughts.
The Message Beneath the Feeling
Every emotion carries information. Anger might be telling you a boundary has been crossed. Fear might be warning you of risk. Sadness might be asking you to release something you’ve been holding too tightly.
When you name the feeling, you create space to ask: “What might this be trying to tell me?” Without rushing to fix, you open yourself to the wisdom inside the emotion.
A Different Kind of Strength
It takes courage to stop fixing. To simply sit with a feeling instead of silencing it. But that pause is where healing begins.
Naming a feeling doesn’t make you weak or stuck. It makes you strong. Strong enough to let the truth exist without needing to escape it. Strong enough to know that being human isn’t a problem to solve, but an experience to feel.
My Reminder (and Yours)
At the bottom of every page of my Emotional Check-In Journal, I’ve placed a simple reminder:
Don’t try to solve it. Just name it and notice it.
That’s it. That’s the practice. And it’s more powerful than you think.
Because when you stop trying to fix your feelings, you finally give yourself permission to feel them and that is where real healing begins.
Sacred Musings is my space to reflect on life, love, and the spiritual lessons that come with being human. Thank you for walking this path with me.
