Name the Feeling Before You Try to Fix It

When we feel bad, our instinct is often to fix it right away. We distract ourselves, push through, or try to talk ourselves out of it. But we rarely stop to ask: what exactly am I feeling?

This approach is backwards. On this week’s Mental Fitness Podcast, hosts Dave Barney and Luke Olson chat with Jil Hunter, creator of the YouTube series Lulubug’s Garden, about what happens when you start by naming your feelings.

Unnamed feelings can be confusing

Eight months after her fifth child was born, Jil started experiencing severe anxiety. She didn’t know it was anxiety. Instead, she felt numbness in her face and issues with her leg. One neurologist even suspected MS. When her scans came back clear, she kept searching for a physical explanation.

Everything changed when a doctor spent over an hour listening to her, then suggested words like anxiety, postpartum stress, and burnout. Jil’s body felt the same, but putting a name to her experience gave her a starting point and a way forward.

Recovery was gradual. Jil changed her diet, improved her sleep, and tried different therapists before finding the right one. She says she was back on her feet in about a year, and fully healed after several. Before this, she believed those feelings were just part of who she was. She remembers, “they were in control over me.”

If you’re struggling with physical symptoms or a heavy feeling that won’t go away, talk to a doctor or therapist. Naming what you feel is a good way to start that conversation.

Naming a feeling changes your brain’s response

A 2007 UCLA study led by psychologist Matthew Lieberman showed what happens in the brain when people name emotions. Researchers had participants look at photos of emotional faces. Sometimes, the task was to pick an emotion word like “angry” or “scared.” Other times, they just identified the person’s gender.

When people chose an emotion word, their amygdala, which is the brain’s threat detector, calmed down. Meanwhile, the part of the brain that helps manage emotions became more active. As Lieberman put it, when you put feelings into words, “you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses.”

Labeling alone didn’t solve any problems or change thoughts. But simply naming the feeling changed how the brain responded.

As Luke points out, people often skip this step because it sounds too simple to make a difference.

Envy or jealousy? The difference matters

Naming feelings accurately matters, as Jil discovered while making her show.

Lulubug’s Garden helps kids ages 3 to 7 recognize and talk about big feelings through puppets, music, and stories. The team had filmed an entire episode about jealousy. But while working with Dr. Karen Manotas, a child psychiatrist, Jil realized the episode was actually about envy.

Psychologists make a clear distinction: envy means wanting what someone else has, and jealousy is the fear of losing what you already have. A 1993 study by W. Gerrod Parrott and Richard Smith found that envy comes with longing, inferiority, and resentment, and jealousy with distrust and anger.

With just a week before release, the team changed every mention of “jealousy” to “envy.” It took extra time and money, but Jil insisted they could not release something they knew was wrong.

The difference matters because you handle envy and jealousy differently. If you want what someone else has, the focus is on your own desires. If you’re afraid of losing someone, it’s about trust and security. Mislabel the feeling, and you might try to solve the wrong problem.

Most adults have a limited feeling vocabulary

Kids usually learn a few feeling words: happy, sad, mad, scared. Most adults never expanded much beyond that. As a result, “stressed” gets used for everything from disappointment to overwhelm, and “fine” covers the rest.

Psychologists call this skill emotional granularity. In a 2010 study of young social drinkers, those who could describe intense negative emotions precisely drank less.

It’s one study, and it shows a link without proving cause. Still, it matches Jil’s experience: naming a feeling gives you more ways to handle it.

Treat a feeling as something you have

Jil explains that once she could name her emotions, she felt in charge of herself. The feeling stopped being her identity and became just information.

The hosts compare feelings to signals. Just like physical symptoms, emotions let you know something needs attention. Jil likens it to teaching toddlers to sign “more,” helping parents understand what their child needs instead of guessing.

That’s why her show uses puppets. Kids watching a character deal with big feelings can observe from a safe distance. Adults can use this trick too. Describe your own feelings as if you were talking about a friend: “Part of me is feeling envious right now.”

Try it this week

1. When a strong feeling appears, name it in one word. Say it out loud if you can.
2. Then get more specific. If you start with “mad,” ask yourself: is it annoyed, resentful, hurt, or embarrassed?
3. If you catch yourself comparing to others, check: do you want what they have, or are you afraid of losing what you already have?
4. Notice where you feel it in your body. According to Jil, different emotions settle in different places.
5. Instead of saying, “I am anxious,” try “I’m feeling anxious.” This small shift puts a little space between you and the emotion.
6. If you have young kids, watch a feelings-focused show together and use those words with them afterwards.

Start by naming the feeling

Jil would tell her younger self that the feelings she saw as enemies would one day become guides. It all starts with a name. You can’t respond well to a feeling you haven’t identified. Once you name it, your next step becomes clearer.

Name your feeling first. Then decide what to do about it.