Identifying Primary Emotions: A Roadmap
Why I will Never Believe You When You Say “I’m Fine”
It’s 7 PM on a Tuesday and your partner asks, “How are you? How was your day?” You stop to consider how to answer the question. You do a quick scan of your body and try to remember the day. Your neck is hurting from sitting at the computer, thoughts swirling in your head about that salty interaction you and your partner had that morning that went unaddressed, you just got a panicked text from your mother who needs you to call her immediately, you are annoyed with yourself for eating the peanut m & m’s when you said you wouldn’t, and to boot, you were up half the night stressing about a work project, so you were completely exhausted the entire day.
So, when your partner asks “How are you?” all you are able to muster up is the answer “I’m fine. It was fine.”
I’ve heard a few acronyms to describe the word FINE. F=Fucked Up, I= Insecure, N=Neurotic, and E=Emotional.
I also heard that FINE stands for Feelings Inside Not Expressed- a slightly more compassionate description. In my example above, from the neck pain to the disappointment in myself for eating the M & Ms, to the salty interaction from the morning, there were many feelings happening that were not being said.
As I think about it, there are a couple of reasons I would say “I’m fine”. One would be if I’m actually angry, but don’t want to say so. Let’s say I’m in a fight with my husband because he is going to play tennis when we have so much housework to do. He might say, “Is it ok with you if I go play tennis?” And instead of actually saying how I feel, which is “hey I could actually really use your help with the housework”, I would say, with annoyance, “um, ok, fine”, even though it is in fact not fine with me.
I also might say it’s fine even when its not because a) I don’t want to get into it with him and I’m afraid of it escalating into something bigger, so I just say “fine” because it’s a word that indicates that I’m not happy, but I’m consenting, or b) I don’t feel comfortable saying no ( the people-pleaser never does) and so I say fine instead of no, hoping my partner picks up on it and realizes that, in fact, it’s not fine, thereby making it so that I don’t actually have to be the one saying no, but he can come to that conclusion on his own.
Saying “I’m fine” when you are actively angry can be a way of quietly punishing the person you are angry at. In this sense, its a way of expressing “cold anger” which is an avoidant behavior and not actually telling someone how you feel. So for example, I’m angry that he’s going to play tennis, and I’m aware that I’m angry, and so when he asks me if I’m ok and I say I’m fine, it’s really a way of shutting him out, withholding contact and avoiding vulnerability with a desired effect of making him feel guilty, sad, lonely, or confused. This is an example of how “hurt people, hurt people” meaning that a person in pain might try to make someone else feel pain too.
In contrast to saying I’m fine when we KNOW it’s not true, other times, we really don’t know how we are feeling and FINE is the only description we can come up with. As a therapist and also a human, I’m always amazed at how often people really don’t know how they are feeling. And you can bet that this makes it hard to be insightful about why we do the things we do and say the things we say, and what we really want or need in moments when we say I’M FINE.
Learning to identify our primary feelings is one of the most important steps to learning how to take care of ourselves better and improving communication in our relationships. Most people are aware of their thoughts as well as their secondary feelings, but not their primary feelings.
Secondary feelings are harder, more externally focused feelings including irritated, guilty, worried, overwhelmed, annoyed, frustrated, angry, rageful. These are often associated with feelings of anger.
Primary feelings are the deeper and more intense underlying feelings at the core: fear, pain, sadness, shame, hopelessness, helplessness, loneliness and even joy.
Let’s say your partner forgot about a dinner plan you made even though you told him about it three times AND put it on the shared Google Calendar.
Here are some thoughts you might have in that moment:
“He is so forgetful.”
“I feel like there is nothing I can do to get him to remember.”
“Am I going to have to do this for the rest of my life?”
“I’m all alone.”
Secondary feelings:
Anger
Irritation
Frustration
Worried
Overwhelmed
Primary feelings:
Fear (that I can’t rely on him)
Hopeless (that I don’t know what else I can do)
Sad (that I can’t seem to get through to him)
Lonely (I feel like I’m alone when I can’t get his attention)
Now let’s put this all together and see how it’s related;
Triggering Situation: Partner forgot about dinner plan even though I reminded him 3 times:
Now you try it: Pick a triggering situation and identify your thoughts, secondary feelings, and primary feelings. If you need some help identifying your feelings, check out the Wheel of Emotions and The Atlas of Emotions- (links provided) Both are incredibly helpful resources for identifying and naming our feelings.
Triggering Situation:
Write this down in your journal, or print out the Identifying Thoughts and Feelings worksheet.
How did this go for you? Was it hard? Even for a therapist who does this for a living, identifying primary emotions is really challenging. So don’t be discouraged if this didn’t come so easily to you. It’s a work in progress, and it takes practice and a good dose of kindness and patience with yourself! And it’s well worth it: once you’ve identified your primary underlying feelings, then you can be softer with yourself (and the people around you) rather than coming from a place of anger. This type of vulnerability will make your conversations with loved ones go a lot smoother, plus it will go on a long way in your journey to being more kind and compassionate with yourself.
You also then have a roadmap to what might help you in that moment. We can refer to these as your “Unmet Needs”, and identifying your unmet needs is the key to getting them met.
I hope that these strategies for identifying primary emotions will help to enhance your self-awareness, help you to explore your underlying needs, and improve your communication in your relationships.
If you are tired of feeling “fine” and are ready to start learning what you are really feeling, contact our Client Care Coordinator today to learn how therapy can help.
Warmly,
Becky, LMFT