3 ways to better understand your emotions

HEALTH

Dealing effectively with emotions is a key leadership skill. And naming our emotions — what psychologists call “labeling” — is an important first step in dealing with them effectively. But it’s harder than it sounds; many of us struggle to identify what exactly we are feeling, and often the most obvious label isn’t actually the most accurate.

Anger and stress are two of the emotions we see most in the workplace — or at least those are the terms we use for them most frequently. Yet they are often masks for deeper feelings that we could and should describe in more nuanced and precise ways.

It’s been shown that when people don’t acknowledge and address their emotions, they display lower well-being and more physical symptoms of stress. On the flip side, having the right vocabulary allows us to to see the real issue at hand — to take a messy experience, understand it more clearly and build a road map to address the problem.

Here are three ways to get a more accurate and precise sense of your emotions:

— BROADEN YOUR EMOTIONAL VOCABULARY: Words matter. If you’re experiencing a strong emotion, take a moment to consider what to call it. But don’t stop there: Once you’ve identified it, try to come up with two more words that describe how you are feeling. You might be surprised to find a deeper emotion buried beneath the more obvious one. It’s equally important to do this with “positive” emotions as well as “negative” ones.

— CONSIDER THE INTENSITY OF THE EMOTION: We’re apt to leap to basic descriptors like “angry” or “stressed” even when our feelings are far less extreme. It matters in your own self-assessment whether you are angry or just grumpy, mournful or just dismayed, elated or just pleased. As you label your emotions, also rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 to gauge how deeply or urgently you are feeling it.

— WRITE IT OUT: James Pennebaker’s experiments revealed that people who write about emotionally charged episodes experience a marked increase in their physical and mental well-being. Moreover, in a study of recently laid-off workers, he found that those who delved into their feelings of humiliation, anger, anxiety and relationship difficulties were three times more likely to have been re-employed than those in control groups. The process of writing allowed them to gain a new perspective on their emotions and to understand them and their implications more clearly.

You can also use these three approaches — broadening your vocabulary, noting the intensity of an emotion and writing it out — when trying to better understand another person’s emotions. By more understanding what they are feeling more precisely, you will be better equipped to respond in a constructive way.

Once you understand what you are feeling, then you can better address and learn from those more accurately described emotions.