How Baby Teaches Us About Feeling


We generalize baby’s crying as an interpretation that they are just unhappy. But actually the baby is trying to communicate with you. Because of their limited language, the state of hungry, tired, sleepy, discomfort, or just need mommy are spoken by crying. They cannot tell you what is causing of their crying. You need to have more insight about the reason behind why baby is crying.

While it’s going, babies try to develop an unique language to express their need to their mother. It consists a strange vocabulary like “ba.. baa..” or “bumm..” or “ooh”, smiling or mirroring facial expressions or just using special tones.

And what makes the mother can “speak” with her baby?

The unique language was developed by guessing.

Why guessing?

When the first time baby met his mother, they didn’t understand each other. The first time baby cries for showing hungry, mother feels that he feels uncomfortable. It’s wrong. She comforts him but the baby is still crying. Then mother change the decision to feed him and suddenly the baby stop crying.

It is like an understanding way of respond that comes from an act. Day by day, mother and her baby will have an “agreement” of their unique language. Mother is guessing their “talk” for the first time. And so is the baby.

This guessing mechanism is very similar with human feeling. I believe you never know certainly about each of your friend’s emotions.

I’m sure she is happy now“.

I understand your feeling, I’ll always be here for you“.

I know you are angry but you need to be calm“.

Sometimes you’re just pretending on Facebook/Twitter about your feeling.

It’s Monday and I’m very excited“.

Happy new year, this is our cheerful selfie“.

Aw, this pic makes my day“.

Nobody knows you’re pretending or not. People are always reading and guessing about your feeling.

The “baby-mommy talks” is just telling us how to have unique language to express or read the feeling. Human feeling inconsistently fluctuates like waves. Only if you are already synced with a person feeling, you can understand what this person truly feels about.

Unfortunately, a resonance syncing of people feelings is not as easy as understanding the feeling itself. Like baby-mommy talks, the languages are unique for each person. It takes time to be in tune. The processes are full of guessing and guessing and more guessing. Just let it works then.

Typologically about feeling, Carl Jung describes us a rational function of decision-making. The rational function or judging function known as the terms thinking and feeling. The thinking types use their head to make decision. The feeling types use their heart to make decision. It doesn’t mean the thinking person doesn’t have feeling or the feeling person can’t think. By the most condition, which one you’ve used for decision-making. Is it logically with your head or lovely by your heart?

The feeling itself has direction. It can be external or internal. If you are an extroverted feeling (Fe), you have an interest to feels what the world feels. And if you are an introverted feeling (Fi), your interest focused on your feeling about yourself.


The Fe dominant can easily understand what’s inside people feeling. It makes the Fe(s) a lovable person, easy to be in tune with people feeling and have ability to hide their own feeling. The Fi known as a selfish person just because they always feel with their own point of view. The Fi is unconcerned with connecting on a feeling level with others. So that, in my opinion a mother with Fe type can easily get the baby-mommy talks.

I had a little social experiment by asking many people or acting like I’m interviewed by this question below, please answer:

  1. If you feel like you are the happiest person in the world. When was it? How?
  2. When was the last time you cry? How?

Surprise me with the answers.

The most thinker person answers those questions by a very normal answer. It can be like “I’m not sure my happiest moment will make you happy if you’re me”. “It feels like nothing”. Or “It’s very long time but I was really crying that day”. But the feelers person knows exactly when it was happened.

The point is everything comes from your feeling is always changing and hard to be constant but it makes you a human.

Then I found something useful for us. To make people love you, you must try to feel what people feel about themselves and what people feel about the world. Spreading your positive feeling to the world is better than craving the world’s attention to your negative feeling.

Here is the list of feeling words to help you assess yourself. Good luck!

Positive Feelings:

  • Open: understanding, kind, easy, free, interested
  • Happy: great, joyous, thankful, glad, satisfied
  • Alive: energetic, optimistic, wonderful, playful, courageous
  • Good: at ease, peaceful, encouraged, certain, blessed
  • Love: devoted, attracted, passionate, sympathy, touched
  • Interested: concerned, affected, curious, intrigued, fascinated
  • Positive: inspired, excited, brave, confident, challenged
  • Strong: sure, rebellious, dynamic, secure, hardy

Negative Feelings:

  • Angry: irritated, enraged, insulting, annoyed, hateful
  • Depressed: lousy, disappointed, guilty, powerless, terrible
  • Confused: upset, uncertain, shy, skeptical, lost
  • Helpless: alone, useless, inferior, empty, pathetic
  • Indifferent: dull, bored, lifeless, preoccupied, disinterested
  • Afraid: fearful, terrified, nervous, panic, shaky
  • Hurt: crushed, tormented, injured, offended, humiliated
  • Sad: tearful, pained, mournful, grieved, desolate