Are you fluent in the language of emotions?
It happens all the time — a work colleague, or someone you’ve just met, says: “Hi, how are you doing?” The usual answer is something like: “I’m OK, thanks,” or, “I’m fine.” There’s an unwritten rule in these polite, small-talk situations that you don’t reveal too much about how you’re really feeling.
But when these vague responses become habitual and you start using them with friends or family, you’re more likely to run into trouble. Even those closest to you aren’t mind-readers or able to attune to you emotionally in order to guess how you’re feeling.
Or maybe the real problem is that you find it hard to name your emotions and articulate how you’re feeling, even to loved ones?
Many of us have acknowledged how stressed we have felt during the pandemic — but what exactly does “I’m feeling stressed” mean? What are the underlying emotions?
One person might be feeling frustrated about a situation at home or work, another might be feeling sad about not being able to see family during lockdown — but both would describe themselves as “stressed”.
Expanding your emotional vocabulary
It’s worth taking time to reflect on your feelings and finding the precise words to describe them. According to Susan David, Harvard Medical School psychologist and author of the book Emotional Agility, an incorrect labelling of our emotions might lead to an incorrect response — and that’s why we need a more nuanced vocabulary.
In an article published by the Harvard Business Review, she says: “It has been shown that when people don’t acknowledge and address their emotions, they display lower wellbeing and more physical symptoms of stress, like headaches. There is a high cost to avoiding our feelings. On the flip side, having the right vocabulary allows us to see the real issue at hand — to take a messy experience, understand it more clearly, and build a roadmap to address the problem.”
She suggests three ways of getting a more accurate reading of your emotional state:
- When experiencing a strong emotion, take a moment to consider what to call it. Then come up with two more words to describe how you’re feeling.
- Consider the intensity of the emotion — rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. Does that change the word you would use to describe it?
- Write it out — spend 20 minutes reflecting on how you’re feeling, in longhand.
Your Emotional Vocabulary List
If you need some help with identifying the appropriate words, Karla McLaren (a social science researcher and author of The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You) has created a useful resource — Your Emotional Vocabulary List, which you can download from her website.
She breaks down different emotions into categories (anger, apathy and hatred; shame and guilt; fear, anxiety and panic; jealousy and envy; happiness, contentment and joy; sadness, grief and depression; and depression and suicidal urges), suggesting words for each category at different levels of intensity.
For example, if you’re feeling annoyed or irritated, that’s soft anger; if you’re feeling incensed or indignant, that’s medium anger; and if you’re furious or feeling vindictive, that’s intense anger.
Calibrating your emotions in this way will help you judge how best to respond to whatever is triggering those feelings.
Acknowledge the complexity of your emotions
Emotions are often labelled ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, but most of the time we humans experience a mixture of both.
According to an article published in Scientific American, experiencing and accepting negative emotions such as sadness and anger are key to psychological wellbeing.
A study conducted by psychologist Jonathan M Adler of the Franklin W Olin College of Engineering and Hal E Hershfield, a professor of marketing at New York University, investigated the link between mixed emotional experience and psychological welfare. It found that “taking the good and the bad together may detoxify the bad experiences, allowing you to make meaning out of them in a way that supports psychological wellbeing”.
Saying: “I’m happy with the work I’m doing at the moment and love my husband, but still feel sad about my mum passing away last year,” acknowledges the complexity of the human condition in a more honest and authentic way that supports good mental health.
You can acknowledge these feelings for yourself, through journaling or other forms of writing, but there is added benefit in expressing how you feel to another person. This may help to shift your perspective and bring some closure, especially if you have been feeling troubled or isolated.
Zgmund’s ‘Emotional Insights’
This is where the Zgmund App comes into its own. You can chat to like-minded people in an anonymous emotional support group and freely express your feelings without judgment, while Zgmund Empathic AI keeps the conversation safe and confidential.
Zgmund also tunes into the tone of the conversation and offers ‘Emotional Insights’ such as “Zgmund noticed that you are feeling sad” — which allows you to further check in with your emotions and share more about why you might be feeling that way.
The more fluent you are in the language of emotions, the more you are able to connect with other people and experience the emotional relief of feeling heard and understood.
Originally published on Zgmund.com, April 19, 2021.
(https://www.zgmund.com/blog/a005/)
