Better emotional literacy for better mental health

When we explore “poor emotional regulation”, it’s important to explore which part of emotional regulation is problematic. Is it a difficulty around processing the feelings of others, or is it a difficulty around processing one’s own feelings, or both?

Good questions to ask are….

1. Are we too “zoomed in” or fused with other people’s feelings leading to excessive empathy, over pleasing, emotional sensitivity from others, mood fluctuation, poor self esteem, excessive peer pressure, and other unintended consequences?

2. Are we too “zoomed in” or fused with our own feelings leading to impulsivity, mood fluctuation, stubbornness, inflexibility, self centeredness, and other unintended consequences?

Some of us are great at processing the feelings of others, but are not great with our own feelings.  Some of us are great at processing our own feelings but are not great with the feelings of others.  Some of us are not great with processing feelings in general. We simply don’t trust “feelings”. We may be much more data driven or “logical” in nature.  

Improving emotional literacy and learning how “to hold” those feelings “more lightly” may help. 

We don’t always to have to act on those feelings straight away.  Often, we don’t even have to act on them at all. They may be there to be observed, noticed, and processed if relevant, before taking action. 

It’s not an easy thing to do at all, but it’s super important to learn for our mental health and wellbeing.