When I’m going through something stressful, I have a strong urge to think out loud about it with someone I trust. There are probably several reasons I end up feeling better: my listener helps me avoid catastrophic thinking, or reminds me that they have my back if things get worse. But another likely reason is that having the chance to describe a difficult situation in detail – even if you’re just describing it to yourself, as in a journal – invites you to see the full picture, and in many cases, it’s not all bad.

Research by Christian Waugh and colleagues at Wake Forest University in North Carolina underscores this and highlights its potential for helping us manage our emotions. They focused largely on people’s experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on data they collected then. When people reflected on a stressful experience they’d been having, and were prompted to describe six specific elements of the situation, they tended to list at least one that was positive (such as spending more time with family during the pandemic). Having more positive elements in the list was associated with feeling less negative and more positive emotion following the task. Taking some time to elaborate on one of the positive aspects seemed to help people feel better, too.

It can be annoying to be told to ‘look on the bright side’ or ‘find the silver lining’. But personal trials often come with opportunities for growth or self-insight; grief or separation sometimes lead to new connections; and even mundane sources of frustration (a traffic jam, say) can contain small points of pleasure or relief (enjoying a song on the radio that you would’ve missed). Where there are such leavening factors, taking a moment to talk or write about the experience could help us make the most of them.

On a beautiful day in early summer, four friends and I decided to picnic and paint in the park. We brought along small squares of watercolour paper split into quadrants, sat in a circle, and took turns painting how we saw each other. These depictions could be abstract or literal: one person did colour swatches of how they interpreted your aura, another person painted objects representing your hobbies and passions. At the end, I got my paper back with four painted interpretations of myself, each done by a different friend.

As I looked at these artistic renderings and considered the close attention my friends had paid me to complete them, I felt a warm swell of emotion and got a little choked up. In that moment, I couldn’t quite define the feeling. It wasn’t exactly joy, nor was it appreciation or pride, but something else. Later, I found the answer in a psychology research paper: it was kama muta.

About a decade ago, the anthropologist Alan Fiske saw a gap in the English language. There was no general term for the emotion of being moved or touched by moments of sharing and connection – such as when you hold a baby for the first time, listen to a loved one’s eulogy, or feel profoundly linked to others at a religious or social gathering. Moments like these can produce a warm and fuzzy feeling, sometimes accompanied by tearing up, getting choked up, or the urge to go ‘aww’. Fiske and his colleagues labelled it kama muta, derived from a Sanskrit term that means ‘moved by love’. Experiencing this positive emotional response, they argue, helps to motivate continued engagement in the relationships that spark it.

For me, knowing about the power of kama muta is a useful nudge toward greater bonding in my relationships. Now I look for opportunities to cultivate it where I can, as my friends and I did that day in the park – sharing care and attention so freely that it moved us.