Emotional Granularity
“And how does that make you feel?”
This is probably the most cliche and stereotypical line we think of when we think of therapy. Yet, this was a question I struggled with. Mainly because it was difficult for me to properly identify emotions I felt.
I am someone who had and still has a difficult time labeling my emotions. When you grow up in an environment where everyone is operating from survival mode, you don’t have the opportunity to learn about emotions, let alone understand and learn how to regulate them.
Emotions are not a bad thing, they can “motivate us to take meaningful action, influence us to make an important decision, and allow us to better understand ourselves and others”.
My therapist sent me the emotion wheels to help me with identifying and labeling my feelings, see the following link:
https://humansystems.co/emotionwheels/
Feelings can be divided into comfortable and uncomfortable emotions. Comfortable emotions are: Happy, Loved, Confident, and Playful. Uncomfortable emotions are Sad, Scared, Angry, and Embarrassed.
To properly identify which core emotion you feel, reference Emotion Wheels III. Start from the outside of the wheel to identify the emotion, and work inward to identify the core emotion.
For example, I am anxious>>worried>>the most inner circle or core emotion is “afraid”.
My main “go-to” emotions were: Happy, Angry, Disappointed, Sad, and Anxious. Going through the many different feelings was a very overwhelming experience. I recognized that I lacked Emotional Granularity, which is the ability to specify the exact emotion you are feeling. I often grouped my feelings into one of the five emotions I listed above.
The link also goes through the Human System Needs Wheel. As humans we need safety, relationship, growth, and individuality. As I read through the Human System Needs Wheel, my initial reaction was sadness. I caught myself jumping to my “go-to emotions” again, so I decided to go through the exercise of labeling the emotion correctly.
After reading through the Emotions Wheel more carefully, the correct emotional label is actually “Broken”.
My heart sank and I felt a lump in my throat.
I felt broken.
The list called out the needs I didn’t have in the past and the needs I don’t currently have.
The feeling of brokenness was hard to sit with, but ultimately helped me to understand myself better. This emotion motivated me to ensure I could meet my own needs and gave me something to work towards.
Perhaps these unmet needs are the reason why I’ve felt so lost the last few years. I’ve been searching for my purpose, passion, community, collaboration…and the list goes on.
The first time I met my mentor, she said to me: “If what you’re looking for doesn’t exist, you can create it”.
Her words really stuck with me and lit a fire within me.
At the time, she was a complete stranger to me, but she saw me. She saw my passion and gave me the push I needed. When I think back to that conversation, I walked away feeling completely validated, motivated, excited, and empowered.
For the first time, I am working on a passion project and creating something for myself and it feels like I’m floating on cloud nine. I think that’s what your purpose is supposed to feel like.