Many of the injuries that we see daily in different aspects of life and many of the discomforts that we carry with us are caused by our inability to recognize and understand our feelings and correctly express them. Emotional literacy is the key to solving many of our relationship and work problems. This article will explain emotional literacy and introduce ways to expand it.
What is emotional literacy?
Let’s start with an example of emotional literacy. Suppose that one of your colleagues keeps throwing his work and projects at you and makes you angry with this behavior. In such a situation, recognizing the feeling you have (anger), acknowledging the reason for creating this feeling, controlling it, and finding a practical solution instead of expressing violent behaviors show your emotional or emotional literacy.
Emotional literacy is the basis of a person’s understanding of emotions, which, in the most basic state, includes the ability to identify and label one’s and other’s emotions. In addition, emotional literacy involves dealing with and expressing emotions appropriately. This term was first proposed in 1979 by a psychotherapist, Claude Steiner (or Claude Steiner). He describes emotional literacy as follows:
The ability to understand emotions, the ability to listen to others and empathize with their feelings, and the ability to express emotions effectively.
According to Claude Steiner, emotional literacy consists of 5 parts:
- Recognizing your feelings;
- having a sense of empathy;
- emotion management ;
- repairing emotional problems;
- Emotional interaction.
In addition, he believed that emotional literacy is one of the principles of forming a successful relationship, increasing problem-solving abilities, and improving the overall quality of life.
Many people interchange emotional intelligence (emotional intelligence) and emotional literacy. Emotional intelligence is a general and broader concept that consists of self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy, all of which are essential aspects of emotional literacy. Emotional literacy is a building block of emotional intelligence and has expected benefits for emotional intelligence.
Why is emotional literacy critical?
To understand the importance of emotional literacy, you need to think about the role of emotional understanding and regulation in all aspects of life. If you can’t identify your emotions, you can’t understand them properly or control your behavior. So you are more likely to get frustrated and confused and inappropriately express yourself. This means impulsive and destructive behavior as well as an inability to self-soothe.
Problems caused by a lack of emotional literacy may lead to anger management problems and make you less tolerant of disappointment. Additionally, if you are emotionally disturbed, you cannot focus on academic or work responsibilities, which makes you less successful. What happens when you are less successful? You get upset and misbehave, and this creates a vicious cycle.
Most importantly, emotional literacy affects your relationships with other people. Emotional literacy helps you to interpret the emotions of others and act accordingly correctly. This means you’ll get into fewer fights and be more likely to have more friends and popularity. In addition, being emotionally literate in social and work situations is to your advantage. Emotional literacy is directly related to the development of empathy. Understanding the emotions of others is essential for interpersonal interactions. In addition, empathic people get along better with others and seem kinder.
If you cannot identify and understand emotions, you will be in a terrible situation in life. It is not an exaggeration to say that people with emotional literacy are happier and more compatible than people with emotional deficiencies.
Challenges of increasing emotional literacy
We are not born with emotional literacy; We have to earn it in our lifetime. Of course, if we don’t increase it when we’re young, there’s a risk that it will never increase enough. This is why there is such a focus on improving emotional literacy in childhood. Unfortunately, several factors may prevent the increase of emotional literacy, some of which we will examine below.
1. Biological factors
Some children have little self-control, making it challenging to introspect and regulate their emotions. Some children, such as those with developmental disabilities, cannot also acquire emotional literacy.
2. Environmental factors
Do family members encourage you to identify your feelings and express them? Many families are indifferent to this issue and struggle to show their feelings. Some families also have difficulty regulating their emotions and have frequent arguments or anger management problems. When people around a person do not have emotional literacy, it becomes much more challenging to acquire it. This makes what happens outside the home more meaningful. Also, children spend most of their time outside the house and at school, so whether teachers promote emotional literacy or not arises.
Although some teachers and childcare providers know what emotional literacy is, it has not received as much attention as other development aspects. As a result, they may not be given as much attention as is necessary to compensate for the deficiencies in the family life of children.
3. social factors
Another problem is the nature of social interaction today. In today’s world, we’re buried in our phones, tablets, and computers and spend more time texting and cyberspace than interacting with people in the same room. As a result, we have fewer opportunities for meaningful face-to-face interactions with others.
Furthermore, our expectations of boys and girls are different. Due to societal gender norms, there is a belief that boys and men should not express their feelings. Therefore, boys have less opportunity to acquire emotional literacy, and girls are given more opportunity to understand emotions and empathy.
How to be emotionally literate?
Expressing emotions can be intentional (meaning you consciously say it) and unintentional (like when you don’t realize your body language or facial expressions are telling others that you’re angry). Developing emotional literacy takes time, like learning math, figure skating, or other skills. However, it is not a skill that is necessarily introduced and taught to us at home, school, or the workplace. Emotional literacy is something that we must commit ourselves to learn as adults.
The first step is to practice noticing and identifying your feelings throughout the day. You can use the Mood Meter app to build emotional literacy skills. Also, learn how to express different emotions in your body. For example, what are some of the first signs of your sadness, happiness, surprise, or anger? The more you do this exercise, the easier it will become to name and identify the feelings.
When you notice a feeling forming inside of you and name it, you immediately ground yourself in the present moment and stop the unconscious reaction caused by that feeling. This allows you to self-regulate, pause, consider your environment and those around you, and determine the most appropriate way to express your feelings.
Introduction of books to increase emotional literacy
1. Emotional literacy and love
Author : Claude Steiner
Number of pages : 234
Claude Steiner teaches us specific exercises with eloquent expression and fluent prose in this book. We can increase our awareness of our own and other people’s feelings and thus improve our emotional literacy. One of the exercises in the book “Emotional Literacy and Love ” is to transfer a sense of satisfaction to oneself and others in everyday relationships. In Emotional Literacy and Love, Steiner teaches us how to take control of our emotional lives by reversing dangerous patterns of self-destruction.
2. The omniscient art of competing in emotions
Author : Mark Brackett
Number of pages : 312
The book “The Art of Omniversal Emotions” is handy in increasing emotional literacy. This book talks about using the power of emotions to help you grow and flourish. Mark Brackett has shared his years of research and study results in this book, showing us how hiding and not expressing feelings can harm us and our lives. He teaches us skills to recognize and control our emotions in this book.
final word
We hope you can take a big step to increase your emotional literacy by using the solutions and resources we introduced in this article. Do you remember a situation when you got into trouble because of not controlling your emotions? Please share your experience with us and the “how to” audience in the comments section.
