A Word on Emotional Fluency
Written by Marla Skibbins, Founder of LevelUp EQ
As an executive coach the biggest part of my job is helping my clients understand their internal world and to understand the feelings they are having and how they affect their behavior. This aspect of emotional intelligence can have a significant impact on their ability to lead, have meaningful relationships, actively delegate, perform efficiently, and involve themselves in innovative work. Being in touch with your internal world can make all the difference in your life and your work.
In recent years, I have been noticing a concerning trend that reminds me of the dystopian book by George Orwell 1984, that portrays a totalitarian society where personal freedom is non-existent. Orwell described the language that was spoken in the book, Newspeak, as something that was stripped of any superlative words to better limit range of thought. For example, something that might have been fantastic was now called doubleplusgood.
In that same way I am noticing both in social media but with people I work with, that they are unable to describe their emotional state. Instead, they say things like: “I am feeling all of the things…” or “I am feeling all of the feelings”. But are they able to really say what those feelings are? It has me wonder if we are moving toward a world where we will have less and less range, complexity, depth and emotional intelligence because we can’t describe how we are feeling.
It is important to quickly distinguish the difference between emotions and feelings. Emotions start as sensations in the body, while feelings are generated from our thoughts about those emotions. In other words, feelings are how we interpret the emotions we are having. Emotions are automatic, unconscious, chemical reactions, and they help prime our bodies to act in a certain way. Feelings instead are our continuous readouts of the internal state of the body and are the social, cultural, and individual interpretation of emotions.
Let’s take a second to unpack feelings which are a combination of physiological arousal, expressive behavior, and conscious experience. If we think in terms of a color wheel and primary colors which are red, blue, and yellow, then the corresponding feelings would be mad, sad, and glad. Most people can identify those experiences. However, if we dig a little deeper into each color and each feeling, we can get more nuanced with frustrated, vulnerable, joyful, etc. Can you describe the physiological experience of disgust, and how that differs from shame or hostility? Then how does the physiological experience prompt your behavior? If we keeping unpacking the pallet of feelings, they get ever more subtle. Could you also distinguish the difference between serenity, intimacy, and pensiveness? Or annoyance, jealousy, and irritability?
Being conscious and aware is the key to having the ability to feel what you are feeling and then being able to distinguish those feelings and experiences. This is why mindfulness is something I often help my clients to develop by meditating and practiving mindful breathing. It helps connect us to what is happening within our body in real time.
There are real forces in the world working against our ability of being mindful, aware, and conscious. Mobile devices, notifications, social media, being over worked, and over subscribed. If we keep opting for less clarity and emotional understanding by saying “I am feeling all of the things”, because we are too busy or two distract to be conscious of our inner selves, where will be?
It is too important to us as humans, members of society, and leaders to let go of the ability to be emotionally intelligent.