The first step is to identify what you are actually feeling.  Feelings are everything that our body is feeling.  There can be multiple feelings at one time.  We identify thos feelings as emotions and create a label for the feelings.  Multiple feelings may have the same resemlance, such as my hands are shaking, my heart is racing can be excitement or anxiety.  We create that label taking into consideration all that we are feeling and our thoughts.  Many of us though, use a very vague label to describe our emotions.  I am happy, sad, angry, hurt, etc.  We need to dig in deep to find the correct label.  Once we know exactly what we are feeling, we can do something about it.  If I am sad, I could be lonely, disappointed, or grieving.  If I inspect closer and find that I am lonely, I can reach out to my friends or family.  I can do something to help me feel better.  If I say that I am sad, it will be hard to take action for that, because I am not identifying why I am sad.  Take a look at the following emotion wheels from Brene’ Brown.