Developing your Emotional Literacy
By Steve Hein
Definition of Emotional Literacy
I define emotional literacy as:
The ability to express feelings with specific feeling words, in 3 word sentences.
For example, "I feel rejected".
Developing your emotional literacy
The purpose for developing our emotional literacy is to precisely identify and communicate our feelings. When we do this we are helping nature fulfill its design for our feelings. We must know how we feel in order to be able to fill our emotional needs. And we must communicate our feelings in order to get the emotional support and understanding we need from others, as well as to show our emotional support and understanding to them.
Also, one of the first steps to developing our emotional intelligence is to improve our emotional literacy. In other words, to improve our ability to identify our feelings by their specific names - and the more specific we can be, the better. Though the term emotional literacy is not used in the Mayer Salovey model of emotional intelligence, they do say that the first branch of emotional intelligence is ...the capacity to perceive and to express feelings. They then add that Emotional intelligence cannot begin without the first branch..." 1 Mayer and Salove have also written that the "ability to label emotions" is part of the third branch of their model (Emotional understanding) 2
In the English language we have thousands of words which describe and identify our emotions, we just don't use many of them. (I have been compiling a list of such words since 1995 and the list is now over 3,000 words. Here is part of that feeling words list.)
There are a lot of reasons we don't make much use of this rich vocabulary, which is available to us. One is that we just aren't taught to speak using feeling words. Other reasons are on this list of "Why it is hard to talk about feelings" I have found, though, that many people can identify their feelings quite well when given a little help.
If you are interested in working on your emotional literacy, the first step is to start using simple, three word sentences such as these:
I feel sad. I feel motivated. I feel offended. I feel appreciated. I feel hurt. I feel disrespected.
This may feel strange at first, since not many people do this. But it gets easier with time, and as you find other people who you can share your true feelings with. (See also emotional honestly)
In my experience, sometimes just by naming a feeling, we begin to actually feel the feeling. It seems that by naming the feeling we help our mind access the emotional part of the brain where feelings are stored. This step of identifying the feeling by name is, I believe, essential to a high development of one's innate emotional processing abilities. I also believe that most of the literature on EQ and EI fails to acknowledge the importance of this and of the importance of having a rich emotional vocabulary.
I messages vs You Messages
When we talk about our feelings using three words sentences we are sending what have been called "I messages". On the other hand when we say things like "You make me so jealous" we are sending a "you message". These "you messages" typically put the other person on the defensive, which is hurts communication and relationships rather than helping.
Note that when we say something similar to "I feel like you..." we are sending a "you message" in disguise as an "I message"!
A few basic feeling words
Positive
Comfortable
Accepted
Acknowledged
Appreciated
Loved
Lovable
Desirable
Happy
Aware
Satisfied
Supported
Encouraged
Optimistic
Respected
Safe, Secure
Peaceful, Relaxed
Motivated
Focused
Free
Independent
Confident
Competent, Capable
Proud
Worthy, Deserving
Excited, Energetic
Fulfilled
Validated
Connected |
Negative
Uncomfortable
Rejected
Ignored
Unappreciated
Resentful, Bitter
Unloved, Hated
Unlovable, Undesirable
Angry, Sad, Hurt
Unaware, Confused
Unsatisfied, Frustrated
Unsupported, Squelched, Thwarted, Obstructed
Discouraged
Pessimistic, Hopeless
Disrespected, Insulted, Mocked
Afraid, Insecure
Tense, Frustrated
Bored, Lethargic, Unmotivated
Lost
Trapped, Controlled, Forced, Obligated
Dependent, Needy
Nervous, Worried, Scared
Incompetent, Inadequate, Dumb, Stupid
Guilty, Embarrassed, Ashamed
Unworthy, Undeserving, Inadequate
Depressed, Numb, Frozen
Empty, Needy
Invalidated
Disconnected, Isolated, Lonely |
See also, "Common Negative Feelings"
Footnotes
1. Emotional Intelligence as Zeitgeist, as Personality, and as a Mental Ability, p. 109, Mayer, Salovey and Caruso, Chapter in Handbook of Emotional Intelligence, Bar-On, Parker (Eds.) 2000
2. What is Emotional Intelligence, by John Mayer and Peter Salovey. Chapter 1, pp. 10,11 in Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Educational Implications, by Peter Salovey and David Sluyter. 1997.
Source: http://eqi.org/elit.htm
