Avoidance

Let's face it - we don't like to face emotional pain. There are numerous ways to avoid it from outright denial through to suppression of emotions and just keeping very busy. We live in the world of "FINE!" Many of us have been socialized to not talk about how we feel. The teaching of emotional literacy is also not that common. Children are not given the opportunity to develop a good language to describe what they feel. As a result, the repertoire of emotional descriptors sounds like "I'm angry - happy - sad - depressed - upset- excited" or variations on those themes.   Yet there are many more complex ways to talk about what we feel.

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It is of course, more than just having a language of emotion. There are 2 other important factors - connection to what we feel and permission (particularly from self) to express the emotion. These three elements are essential for emotional literacy.

Knowing our emotions is connected to meditation. In this way, we spend time with what we are feeling. This need not be long, deep meditation but the sort that allows you to stop, connect, feel, describe and express. When we take even 5 minutes per day for this, we grow our emotional knowledge. 

Look, she said
It's there
Back there
I couldn't see it
All I could see was what was in front of me
She said, "No, No
It's over there
You have to look behind
You'll find what you're looking for back there"
But I didn't want to look back there
I was sure
That what was back there
Was terrifying
She said, "You won't know
Until you look
So look
Look
And See
See what you will find

© Peter Choate, 2016