EMOTIONAL LITERACY

Emotion is the most neglected & most suppressed domain in history of human life .On the contrary we as human beings (not human doings) have an inherent gift (which differentiates us from other animals) is that “We can think about our thinking & Feel about our feelings”!! But in real life we hardly use this valuable gift.The first step in raising Emotional Intelligence of a person is making him/her, Emotionally Literate!

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL LITERACY?

‘It is the ability to perceive, understand and appropriately express emotions & feelings in oneself & others’.

Emotions are integral part of human life. Emotions are vital to us for our survival, decision making, communication,fulfilling needs & for optimizing our relationships. They are not enemies to be rebuffed, repressed or rejected but rather allies to be accepted,honored, understood and nurtured. Becoming emotionally literate is learning the alphabet, grammar and vocabulary of our emotional life. Emotional literacy must become commonplace in order for human beings to grow, evolve and face the challenges of the future.

If you misperceive feelings in yourself, it will cause you to react in a way that will likely not get you what you really want. For example, many children confuse frustration and anger. Frustration means that something is hard to accomplish. Anger usually means that someone is trying to hurt you.What do you do when you are frustrated? Take a break, ask for help, keep trying. What do you do when you are angry? shout or withdraw. If you can perceive, understand, label & express your feelings you will cope more appropriately to these feelings & more likely to fulfill your unmet needs.

In order to identify feelings in yourself & others, you first have to have words for those feelings, a feelings vocabulary or a feeling lexicon. Many children are either happy or sad and miss all the subtle gradations of feelings in-between because they do not have labels for those feelings.