To know ourselves in an honest, non-judgemental way can help us to navigate the medley of emotions we all experience and can be key to our personal development.

Knowing the signs and signals our body emits when emotions are rising, gives us the opportunity to work with those emotions, either enhancing them, or calming them, in order to move forwards and respond, rather than react. Using emotional intelligence as their inspiration, the children’s mental health charity Place2Be, teamed up with their charity partners at Here4You this week, to host Children’s Mental Health Week 2025, with the theme ‘Know Yourself, Grow Yourself’. Supported by The Walt Disney Company and the ‘Inside Out 2’ endearing characters, they are encouraging children to grow their self-awareness through understanding their emotions.

The underlying message expertly weaved into the ‘Inside Out’ films is that all of our emotions have a purpose, which combined together, form our core belief system and ultimately our sense of self. The main character, teenage girl Riley, finds that fear and anxiety help to keep her safe, anger helps her to speak out when something feels unjust, joy and sadness help her to process disappointment and then realise what true happiness feels like. As Brianna Wiest writes in her poem on the purpose of emotions, ‘“Your feelings aren’t random, they are messengers. And if you want to get anywhere, you need to let them speak to you and tell you what you really need.”

But how do we befriend our emotions? The Irish language uses a beautiful way of describing emotions, instead of saying, ‘I am sad’, they say ‘tá brón orm’, which when translated means, ‘sadness is on me’. In a similar context, the Latin expression of emotion is ‘emovere’, which means ‘to move out’. These translations point to emotions as transient, they move and change, they do not define and consume our identity, they are a sensation we feel in our body for a while, before making space for other emotions to arrive.

The connection between our body and our emotions has long been a point of scientific research. Darwin’s interest in the development of species, also sparked his lesser-known research into emotions, in his work titled, ‘The expression of the emotions, in man and animals’. Darwin wrote about the similarities in how humans and animals express emotions via muscle movements in our body and facial expressions as a way of communication and survival, a common language used across continents and species. In his groundbreaking book, ‘The Body Keeps the Score’, Bessel Van Der Kolk clearly demonstrates the importance of tuning into and working with our emotions via physical sensations in our body. He writes, “We do not truly know ourselves unless we can feel and interpret our physical sensations…while numbing may make life tolerable, the price you pay is that you lose awareness of what is going on inside your body, and with that, the sense of being fully, sensually alive.” Van Der Kolk describes how trauma can remain in our body, but with support, we can learn how to move this energy towards both emotional and physical healing. Whilst some emotions can generate a sense of unease within us, turning away from emotions may limit our capacity to live a truly fulfilled life. Mindfulness practices teach us to turn towards discomfort with gentle curiosity and compassion for ourselves, as noted by the renowned Mindfulness teacher, Jon Kabat-Zinn and his ‘9 Mindfulness Attitudes’. 

As parents and guardians, we may be the ones that children express their full array of emotions to, and as children grow, they naturally experience more intense emotions, which can be overwhelming for them. We can help our children to understand and embrace their emotions, firstly by encouraging them to discover their emotions, what they feel like physically, and helping them to express and release their emotions in a positive way. We may initially notice our children’s behaviour change on the surface, however we can support them more deeply by exploring the underlying emotion that has triggered their reaction. 

A practical method to work with our emotions is to use the technique, ‘Name it, to Tame it,’ as coined by UCLA Professor of Psychiatry Dr Dan Siegel. He found that naming our emotions can reduce the intensity of that emotion. As parents and guardians, we could use the phrase, ‘It seems you are feeling…would you like to talk about it?’ Children may at times struggle to articulate and release their emotions, but we can support this by holding space for them to safely convey their experience in other means such as writing, art, music or movement. At times children may not be ready to explore their emotions and we can support them by letting them know that we are there for them when they are ready. Sitting with the child through difficult emotions can often be enough for the emotion to fade and pass. Befriending our emotions in this way can help us to navigate the range of emotions that we all experience, enabling us to continually grow as individuals, becoming more skilled at dealing with life’s ever-changing circumstances.

By learning to ‘know ourselves’ through our emotions as an aid to our mental health, we become familiar with our natural responses to situations and we ‘grow ourselves’ by building trust in our capability to deal with such scenarios. This wisdom also helps us to follow our energy when there is a spark of excitement and something feels right to pursue in our life. As Psychologist David Caruso said, “it is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head – it is the unique intersection of both.”