by Wanda Diep, LCSW.
Have you felt that lingering pang of guilt after feeling upset or even pissed the hell off at someone you care about deeply? Or frustrated when you notice feeling upset after something that’s “small” or “not worth getting emotional over”?
What you notice in these moments are called meta-emotions: feelings about your feelings. There are a few examples of these meta-emotions. Here are some of the most common I come across:
Guilt about feeling anger
Shame/embarrassment about experiencing jealousy (which can be viewed as a system of emotions, but that’s a conversation for another time).
Frustration with feeling sad, anxious, or “emotional”
Anxious about feeling anxious
Nervous about feeling happy
Okay, now I know what meta-emotions are. Why are they important?
These meta-emotions can give insight into a person’s belief system about emotions, their openness toward emotions and their tolerance/bandwidth for talking about emotional experiences. When I’m in a session, I try to listen for emotions about an experience and also any meta-emotions following. Having a better understanding about meta-emotions can help a person to understand the root feeling of an experience, increase emotional closeness with another person, be more aware about their relationship with emotions (and emotional vulnerability), accepting multiple (sometimes, conflicting) truths, increase resiliency and also unpack the beliefs/stories associated with their emotions.
What can I do with meta-emotions?
For the sake of ease, let’s focus on the example of: I feel so guilty after getting mad/feeling angry.
If you’re feeling guilt or shame after feeling angry at someone, let’s acknowledge the guilt/shame, make room to be curious about the original frustration/anger, explore if there are any needs related to that anger and figure out next steps from there.
Sometimes, that guilt is there as a way for us to move attention away from the anger rather than focus on what that anger is trying to communicate.
Generally, in sessions, I work with my clients through these steps:
Identify the emotion and the feeling about the emotion.
Start to reflect on the experience with curiosity: What happened? How did you feel during? How are you feeling now about your reaction?
Acceptance/acknowledge those feelings.
Encourage openness toward the emotions: Try not to resist the emotion. Allow yourself to name and accept the emotions that show up.
Offer some empathy and understanding toward the feeling.
One of my favorite ways to do so is to start by saying “I can see why I was feeling that way. I was focused on/worried that ____ would happen..”
Explore options for next steps.
Now that there’s understanding about where that feeling was coming from, the next question is: What want to do next? Is there anything that needs to be done? What needs did I have then? Could they be met? If so, how?
This can be done alone or with someone you trust. Journal it out. Think it through. Talk to someone. A therapist can walk through these steps with you. If you’ve done all the self-reflecting you can, and you’ve asked all your friends for advice, myself and our therapists are here to talk through these meta-emotions with you.
Read more about therapy with Wanda here.