How are you?
This is a common question that you ask or are asked on a daily basis.
When interacting with people in your house,
At work or social circles,
This question is asked unintentionally and responded carelessly.
Sometimes we respond that we are good,
Bad or okay.
Underneath this question is the ability to assess,
Name and express feelings properly.
And the words good,
Bad or okay are not feelings.
As many adults cannot name their feelings properly,
Emotional literacy development is an important aspect of development in children to address this gap earlier in life and could increase the emotional vocabulary range,
The granularity of emotions and the emotional expression skills.
As kids become adults,
Emotional literacy programs on adults seems to have an impact on their self-regulation skills,
According to the research.
But why not start when we are young?
According to Mark Brackett from Yale University,
A lot of research in the growing field of social and emotional learning states,
The development of self-regulating skills as foundational.
This is linked to various positive and negative cognitive and social outcomes throughout childhood,
Adolescence and adulthood,
Such as self-control,
Persistence,
Academic achievement,
Achievement and interpersonal acceptance.
Self-awareness involves identifying and understanding one's own emotion,
Including big feelings that can sometimes feel overwhelming to fully regulate the emotions.
Self-awareness also involves understanding the experience of self and the ability to recognize emotions in yourself as part of the recognition of one's physiological signs as responses from various stimuli,
The acceptance of emotions and acceptance of feeling multiple emotions simultaneously.
Emotion regulation is necessary when one's experience emotions are distressing,
Distracting or overwhelming.
Moreover,
The recognition of emotion represents the early utilization of social cues on which subsequent interpretations and behavioral responses will depend on.
The behavioral responses to big feelings and also toward others lead to the need of self-regulation development.
Self-regulation involves process of monitoring and modifying reactions in order to reach a goal,
Which can happen in the motion process from selecting situations,
Changing situation appraisals to modulating physiological and behavioral reactions.
In recognizing the signs in their bodies as emotions as part of the self-awareness component,
The ability to accurately identify them will lead to the emotional expression and the subsequent need for emotional regulation,
As well as emotional recognition in others.
At this point,
To be able to express your emotions and feelings,
We need an emotional vocabulary.
According to Mark Brackett from Yale University,
Labeling emotions with precise words can legitimize and organize our experiences.
As we attach a word to a feeling,
It creates a mental model of the world,
Which means it can be compared to other feelings one has and other people's feelings.
Moreover,
Naming emotions helps meet one's needs and others,
As the world can communicate specifically the feeling,
And people in a relationship can understand the causes of the emotion and this increases empathy among the subjects.
Furthermore,
The ability to know what others are feeling can spark helping and support in a relationship.
In addition,
Naming emotions,
The very basic ability to assign a word to a feeling,
Become a form of communication and sharing experience with others in life.
Not only to relate to others,
But also we use emotional vocabulary for our self-talk.
In this sense,
Language skills facilitate executive control and metacognitive processing to enhance our capacity to self-regulate emotions.
When people have more words to describe feelings experiences,
They are better able to understand them and communicate them to others.
And communicating feelings precisely is a pathway to managing them effectively.
So that's why naming emotions is a pathway to manage emotions effectively.
