College Counsellor
Returning to School: Name it to Tame it
How do you feel about returning to school? Name it to tame it!
Going back to school after the holidays is a transition that can be challenging to navigate. Perhaps you’re filled with positive emotions, perhaps there’s more hesitation. How would you describe your feelings as we commence Term 1 2026?
People can readily identify Happy, Sad and Angry and Pixar’s 2015 animated film Inside Out popularised Disgust and Fear to the common palette. But did you know recent scientific studies suggest there are at least 27 distinct emotions that account for the human range of feelings? (1)
Being able to label what you are feeling has been shown to reduce the severity of emotion, allowing us to work through them and develop skills to deal with them in the future.
Labeling the emotion supports moving the feeling from our primitive downstairs brain responsible for feeling (limbic system) to our upstairs brain (pre-frontal cortex) which governs higher order thinking.
Giving a name to the emotion takes it from a sometimes overwhelming, unknown feeling, to something with a title and boundaries around it.
Simply put, we name it to tame it.
Sometimes we may need a little help to enrich our emotional vocabulary, so I’ve included a feelings-colour wheel to help us out.
Next time you are experiencing a big emotion, remember, give it a name using the colour wheel if you need to. After all, naming it, tames it.
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