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Our society is prejudiced against emotion. It is still respectable to be ‘objective’ – and it is OK for this to mean devoid of emotion. It is still possible to lose an argument by getting upset – even if it is an argument about something we should care passionately about.
In this situation (where we are not encouraged to pay attention to our emotions) it is not surprising that we don’t know much about them.
This leads to huge amounts of unnecessary suffering in our relationships. We know that our emotions are hugely important to our relationships: but when were we ever taught how to do a relationship well, let alone value our emotions?
Fortunately there is an excellent book by Claude Steiner and Paul Perry called Achieving Emotional Literacy: a personal program to increase your emotional intelligence, which takes on this task. It takes a ‘basic literacy’ approach to our emotions – that is: this is the kind of education that we need for our emotional lives and relationships: as basic literacy is the kind of education we need for our reading lives.
What is emotional literacy? It has three elements: understanding your own emotions, listening to (empathising with) others and expressing emotions well.
Our own emotions
For some of us (well, typical Anglo-Saxon males like me anyway) understanding our own emotions may be the hardest part. It is likely that at some level we have been conditioned to block at least some of our emotions (big boys don’t cry, nice girls don’t get angry etc). This can become a habit so that we are unaware of (at least some of) our emotions. This leads to people being read in the face, speaking with strangled voice and fists clenched insisting that they are not angry! They aren’t lying, they aren’t trying to trick us – they genuinely don’t feel angry.
There are a couple of simple things to do to get back in touch with our emotions.
1. Keep a journal. Just noting down the emotions we felt at the end of each day can lead to us becoming much more aware of our emotions.
2. Monitor your sensations. Every emotion is a collection of sensations: sadness is associated with moist eyes, fear a sick hollowness in our stomach, and anger a tensing of shoulders and arms and so on. By checking in with our bodily sensations we gradually become more in touch with our emotions also.
Listening
In my view listening is the single best thing to do to improve any relationship. And it is simple to do. What it means is paying attention to what the other person is saying and also listening for the emotion. Then, asking about the emotion as well as the content.
This means for instance, when someone (say, my wife) tells me what a bad day they have had; rather than only offering suggestions about what they could do, saying something about how bad it must have felt. (I think suggestions can usually be dispensed with. A rule of thumb: only give advice when it is directly asked for.) It sounds simple, it is, and can make a huge improvement to our relationships.
Expression
Letting others know how we feel is an important part of our relationships. The most important thing about this that I have found is to not blame others for how I feel. Saying things like, “You make me feel . . .” are rarely helpful.
These three simple elements of emotional literacy are so simple and yet can make a huge improvement to our relationships.
Emotional Literacy is a book that is well written – simply laid out with lots of practical exercises to do. It’s a gem. I definitely recommend it.
If you liked this post you might also like:
A formula for good relationships
Eight Steps for Dealing with a Deep Difference in an Important Relationship Part1, Part2, Part3
How to Listen to Someone
Would you like to feel less stressed?
Could you do with more joy in your life?
The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.
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Tags: emotional literacy, emotions, expressing emotions, listening
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