How to Get Acquainted With Your Emotional Vocabulary

What have you learned about your emotions the last year?
Do you know what you feel in a nuanced way? 
Do you know how to BE with the emotions that arise regardless of which?

If you are anything like me, this is a challenge, some situations more so than others. Most of us haven’t exactly received adequate education on emotions, much less know and own our emotional vocabulary! Depending on who you are as a person, you may have had a rough time managing your own emotions throughout your life – and also handling other people’s emotions. Most of us, if we are honest, do struggle with it daily to some degree. You know the feeling ‘Ohhhh, I wish … would go away NOW!’

Suppose you are a highly-sensitive person /HSP, like me. In that case, you may have had or continue to have an extra rough time (because, well, we feel everything more intensely than others). Nothing wrong with that. It just is & demands your attention, presence, and continued awareness of your emotional vocabulary. The Emotional vocabulary is compiled by Karla McLaren and her excellent work on emotions’ anatomy, if you will. Her book The Language of Emotions is a great help in my life. And a free resource you can access right away is her Emotional Vocabulary List, download here. 

I find it helpful to start making lists of my typical go-to emotions (patterns) and see if I can notice which of those are my go-to’s. Doing this and sitting with it is a feasible step one. I invite you to download the list, perhaps brew yourself a nice cup of tea, team up with a friend or partner(!), and explore.  It will so be worth your time!

Want to go deeper?

If you want to go deeper, you can work with me on any subject, emotions, and high-sensitivity as well. Working with a coach for a while is like a speed-date with your inner resources. Every answer to any question you have is in you. Period. You might just want a little help to fish them out. Feel free to book a free 30min. Coaching Call with me here: bit.ly/30-minfreecoaching to learn more about coaching and how I may assist you, or book a session on my web-page here if you want to deep-dive right away!

More importantly, allow whatever emotion arises to fully arise. This will leave you more engaged with what is going on instead of trying to suppress and ignore it by default. Emotions fluctuate, in waves, all day, every day. Some of us are by coding, more affected by those waves than others. This affection may very well be your superpower if you learn to harness it!

Being in an engaged relationship with your emotions allows you to feel more skillful and aware, which = self-empowerment. Self-empowerment is a verb, something you do, and much more than a noun.