The Feeling Indicator

It was a regular school night, I was reading a book after dinner, when my eldest daughter came over and said, “Mummy, look at what I made! It’s a feeling indicator. Right now, I’m putting the cursor on the happy one because I feel happy about making this. Do you like it?”

I looked at her creation and said, “Ili! This is amazing, I love it!”

She smiled and then asked, “Where are you on the indicator?” I told her I was right there with her, on the happy one.

I asked what had prompted her to make it. She said she’d been feeling a bit weird, so she decided to create something to identify how she felt.

That stuck with me. I didn’t teach her that. She came up with it all on her own. It made me think… I should be teaching my kids this!

Most of us, depending on our cultural background or upbringing, were taught not to show our emotions. We were told that expressing feelings was a sign of weakness, let alone learning to understand or name them.

So let me ask you something, can you pause for a moment and reflect: Were you ever taught how to recognise your emotions? What about understanding them? Or how to handle them?

If your answer is yes, you are one of the lucky ones. For most of us, the answer is no. And that includes me.

The ability to recognise and manage our emotions is a skill. It’s not something we are born with. It requires self-awareness, practice, and most importantly, a willingness to learn. Somehow, Ili already understands how important this is. Maybe it's because in our home, we talk openly about how we feel.

Now, as her parent, it’s my job to help her go one step further, to teach her how to handle those emotions, especially when the cursor moves to the right side of the bar, and help her notice how emotions show up in her body.

So next time you find yourself reacting to a situation, I invite you to pause and ask yourself:

1. What is making me feel this way?
2. Does this emotion leave me feeling empowered or disempowered?
3. How would I like to feel instead?
4. What can I do to shift into that emotional state?
5. And how will I feel then?

Ili needed to create something about her feelings to find clarity. And maybe you. Or maybe you just need to write them down.

Try journaling! You might be surprised how much clearer things become when they are on paper.