Why Learning Emotional Literacy As An Adult Is The Hardest Thing You’ll Ever Do

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I’ve made a lot of assumptions with that title, I know. Most of all, I’m assuming that:

• you’ve made it into adulthood without developing emotional literacy (extremely likely if you grew up with the customary mindset of Western capitalism)
• you’re actually aware of that fact (most of us, surrounded by other emotionally illiterate people and submerged in a culture that encourages us to stay that way, never notice anything being amiss)
• you’d like to learn (if you’re in enough pain, you might)
• you’re willing to make the Herculean effort required (unlikely, but let’s say you’re desperate enough to try)

Is it worth it, though?

You betcha. Emotional literacy is your key to true, lasting happiness. We’re talking miracles, my friend.

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Still with me?

Wondering if I’ve gone off the deep end?

Well, I might have. It’s been over 100 days in lockdown, and I’ve been feeding myself a steady diet of books and articles on neuroplasticity, spirituality, theoretical physics, effective communication, and physical and emotional trauma recovery throughout. (Shout-out to public libraries for being awesome, and JSTOR for expanding free access during the pandemic.)

My background is in research, psychology is my special interest, and I like combining ideas from across various disciplines. This is going to get pretty woo-woo. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

What follows is an idea I’m still gestating, and have only started testing on myself. It’s a hypothesis. A puzzle with a twist. A journey, if you will. And yes, you are the hero here.

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But first, a roundup of some of the givens posited in my eclectic “literature review” that seem to consistently recur across different fields of research:

• there’s no such thing as “cold reason” (devoid of emotion, as does happen in particular cases of brain damage, reason fails, even though access to previous knowledge remains unaffected and the logical reasoning appears superficially sound)
• there’s no mind without the body (you can only think about what you perceive, and you perceive through the physical senses)
• perception is selective (you notice what you consider worthy of noticing, meaning you filter all information through emotion-based value judgement)
• the selection of what you notice and pay attention to is skewed toward the expected and the familiar (you predictably miss what you don’t expect to see, you fill in the blanks with what you consider most likely based on your idiosyncratic experiences and expectations, and — when given a range of possible emotional reactions — you tend towards the one most “practiced” — the list of cognitive biases is staggering, and living in the modern world adds more)
• thoughts are electrical signals, emotions release chemicals, hearts have electromagnetic fields (chemicals trigger electrical signals, electrical signals trigger chemicals, how we feel affects what we think, what we think affects how we feel, and all that goes into our fields, which then can interact — or interfere — with the fields of others)
• from the point of view of your body, there’s no difference between what you see, an image you recall from memory, or what you imagine seeing (the electrical and chemical signals necessary to create the image in your brain — “mind’s eye” — are the same, and any emotions they elicit release the same kinds of chemicals)
• your thoughts and emotions directly affect your physical health (unavoidably so, considering that the functioning of your body is regulated by electrical and chemical signals)
• your body gets used to its own chemical landscape, even if that landscape is fueled by distress and detrimental to your overall health (hence trauma/stress/adrenaline addictions — the body is just trying to maintain what it perceives as homeostasis)
• the mind’s job is to assign meaning (what the body perceives, the mind explains — there’s no fear unless you notice the lion, link what you see to the concept of a lion, assign a value judgement to the concept, e.g. hungry-looking and running toward you equals bad, and then assign a meaning to the body’s physical response to that judgement, e.g. fear — though in different circumstances a very similar response could mean excitement instead)

The corollary of the last two points is that:

• when you try to change how you feel, your body will fight you (it will attempt to keep releasing the usual chemicals that it considers “normal” at the levels it’s used to)
• when your mind encounters a familiar feeling (body sensation), it will attempt to give it a familiar meaning (for example, when your body notices your usual levels of the stress hormone cortisol going down and ramps them up to where it expects them to be despite a lack of stressful stimuli in your environment, your mind is likely to come up with explanations that will justify your bodily experience of stress)

So how does all of this relate to emotional literacy and why would it be the hardest thing you’ll ever do as an adult?

Because emotions have primacy over thoughts, and so positive thinking has no power without congruent positive feeling — unless you can change your dominant affect and, consequently, the prevalent chemical landscape of your body, your mind might win a few battles, but will always lose the war.

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That’s why you keep finding yourself making resolutions and never sticking to them — you tried changing your thoughts, you tried learning new habits, but unless your body chemistry comes along for the ride, you’re unlikely to succeed.

When you know better, you do better, but only when this new knowledge lines up with what you feel.

Have you ever felt exhausted but suddenly could easily rally to do something you found exciting? Have you wondered how can excitement — an emotion — produce physical energy where you seemed to have none just a moment before?

And how about this: You keep telling yourself you’re enough. You’re beautiful, smart, strong, whatever. But what are you feeling under all that? Do you feel at ease? Content? Truthful? Or do you still feel inadequate and phony as you keep repeating the tired old mantras of self-affirmation?

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That’s because your brain is stubborn, clings to what it knows, and won’t be talked into anything it doesn’t simultaneously experience at the most profound level — through the congruent signals in your own body.

There’s no such thing as willpower. The people who seem to have it are those who have managed to align their thoughts with their emotions.

Excellent news, isn’t it?

At least that’s what I thought at first, when it seemed the “fix” for my lack of energy was simply to teach myself emotional literacy, so I could get in touch with my “authentic self” and its estranged feelings, and then set life goals that truly aligned with my core values.

In my innocence, I imagined it would be enough to follow the steps recommended for young children:

• build a feelings vocabulary (particularly for the “basic” 27)
• label emotions as they come up (validate all, match and deescalate for big, overwhelming ones)
• teach healthy ways of expressing emotions (model empathy, assertive communication and self-care, and a willingness to coexist with difficult or uncomfortable emotions)
• work out self-soothing strategies before they’re needed (practice when calm, so they’re readily available when “the lid’s blown,” as a child in that state will be too emotionally flooded to listen and try new things)
• teach how to establish and maintain positive relationships with others (empathy, compassion, assertive communication, conflict resolution, etc.)
• teach how to make responsible decisions (telling apart what feels good and what’s right, recognizing and responding to boundary violations, etc.)

Seemed simple enough, except…

I’m not a child in the hands of a capable, caring, emotionally healthy guardian. Not a “blank slate,” free to re-write myself as I please in accordance with some self-compassionate manifesto.

Nope. None of that.

By now, I’m a long-established, self-perpetuating system of thoughts and emotions, unwittingly addicted to my own chemical inner world, the continuing existence of which is swiftly and solicitously explained away by my own wily brain.

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We are the devil we know, and our “system” prefers the familiarity of Hell. We keep rattling the cage, but have not tried the door, even though it’s never been locked.

Under those conditions, trying to change the way we show up and function in the world is, at best, like learning a new language: It came easily enough when we were children, but takes dedicated effort now and it’s unlikely we’ll ever speak anything new without an obvious accent.

If that doesn’t put you off entirely, and you’re considering running out right now to find the “good” crowd to learn from by immersion, that’s amazing.

Go, you!

Still, let me point out a possible — major — snag: Our perception is selective, likes to spot what it can recognize already, and often prevents us from even noticing the unfamiliar.

Here, then, is the hypothesis:

You can’t manifest what you can’t imagine.

In other words, as an adult, to experience something new, you have to hard-wire the link between a bodily state and its meaning into your subconscious first. You have to accept that your thoughts and emotions have not been properly managed until now, and so you can neither “listen to your heart” nor “trust your gut” just yet.

You cannot trust yourself.

You and I, my friend, are addicts, and it’s time we did THE WORK.

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First, make sure you’re ready. A hero’s journey is not for the fainthearted, and you probably shouldn’t start if you’re in acute distress, or completely oblivious to the demons you might have to face along the way.

Before you start

Some questions to consider:

• What is it about the current situation you’d like to change? Do you really need to rebuild your whole self to get there, or will adjusting your lifestyle suffice? (If it’s your circumstances, not your self, that’s causing you distress, start there.)
• Do you have a sufficient emotional vocabulary to name what’s coming up, and what you’d like to experience? (What’s also called an “emotional granulity” and which will allow you to pin down shades of experience more accurately and so manage them more effectively.)
• Do you have a safety net? Do you trust the people in your life? What options for support are there if you end up having to do this alone? Would you have access to professional help if the sewage hits the fan?

Step 1: Observe

It might take months. Don’t rush it. You’re getting to know yourself and, like in any relationship, patterns take time to emerge. Paying critical attention is a skill, so you might need to put in the 10,000 hours before it becomes ingrained.

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At this moment, you might be thinking that what our society needs is less self-focused attention, not more of it, but the key point here is that you learn to be critical of what you observe, meaning you track down and demystify your thoughts and emotions, and your customary coping strategies as they emerge, recur, and persist.

Grab a journal, and do this as often as possible until you notice clear patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior (writing will slow down your thought process and keep track of it, so you can be more conscious of and analytical about what’s coming up):

• write down any emotions you seem to “practice” frequently (getting annoyed by other drivers? exasperated by your coworkers? outraged by the news? dismissive of your significant other? judgmental toward friends?)
• take note of any times those emotions seem to come up “unprovoked” (and observe how quickly your thought process falls in line with your body state, and finds a “logical” justification for how you feel)
• write down any habitual thoughts (this one might be harder to pin down, as our thoughts like to hide under the guise of unassailable logic, but, with some practice, you’ll notice the “logic” is based on stories you’re telling yourself, cobbled together from incomplete information, your expectations and biases — you might be right, you might be wrong, it doesn’t matter — the point here is to notice the character of the stories you tell yourself most often)
• take note of any instances where your thoughts triggered an “unprovoked” emotional reaction (not based on anything happening at that moment in your environment, for example if you got tense imagining an interaction with someone you dislike, or felt drained thinking of a long day ahead)
• record how often you rehash events or conversations in your head (including where and when the rehashing usually takes place, and the nature of emotions that typically accompany those thoughts and images)
• notice how often past mistakes, hurts, or disappointments come to “haunt you” (including the triggering circumstances or thoughts, the strength of any accompanying images and emotions, and your thought processes or larger stories that surface in response to the memory)
• take particular note of any instances of emotional flooding (when the emotion you’re experiencing becomes so overwhelming that you panic, “see red,” cannot “think straight,” shut down — what will look like silent treatment to the person on the receiving end of this type of coping behavior — or even dissociate — what feels like a numb, “out of body” experience, and might be accompanied by selective mutism and memory loss regarding the details of the inciting event — and record any external circumstances or thoughts that were the trigger for it, as well as anything you customarily think, feel and do following the experience of being flooded)
• for extra credit (to yourself), you might also like to start tracking feeling rules prevalent in your culture (meaning, as Arlie Hochschild puts it, “the social norms that tell us what to feel, when to feel, where to feel, how long to feel, and how strong our emotions can be” — whenever you catch yourself questioning the appropriateness of the way you feel or express a feeling, you’re likely to be bumping up against such rule), and the politics of emotions (especially who, when, and how gets to express which emotions in your society)

When you can see clear patterns emerging, and have decided they do not serve you and you’d like to change them, you’re ready to move on.

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Step 2: Prepare

• treat any acute issues first (take any prescribed medication and follow any treatment recommended by your healthcare professional; if you’re in an abusive situation, remove yourself from it if you can — get to where you’re as well and safe as possible before proceeding)
• reevaluate if the problem is with your thoughts and emotions, or with your circumstance (if you’re in an abusive situation, and are trying to practice gratitude and forgiveness, you’ll keep re-traumatizing yourself instead — repeat after me, “Abuse is abuse. Non serviam.” — in the US, this goes a thousandfold for Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people, who are relentlessly tormented by the very system within which they live — under such conditions, joy is an act of defiance, the spring of strength for the fight, and should never be used to condone the suffering or to make it easier to acquiesce in the face of injustice… non-freaking-serviam)
• make note of your habitual thoughts and emotions (for now, focus on those that cause you the most distress, or are the least grounded in what’s actually happening in your life — favorite ruminations, grievances, etc.)
• if your thoughts, emotions and behaviors show signs of cPTSD, seek professional help if possible (if not, a few of the following suggestions could help — as I’ve learned the hard way myself — but please proceed with caution and be gentle with yourself, and if you are ever overwhelmed to the point of panic or feeling out of control, please stop immediately)
• brainstorm self-soothing ideas and practice while in a neutral emotional state (counting to ten, baths, and walks in the park all count, but if you need something stronger, look into grounding techniques, gather any resources you might need in advance, and practice while calm, so they’re readily available when you need them)
• learn how to communicate assertively (it’s a great skill to have when interacting with others, but comes in very handy indeed when you pay attention to how you talk to yourself)
• learn to recognize healthy relationships (can you tell a good friend? or when you’re being gaslighted? or when your boundaries are being violated? or when you’re overstepping someone else’s?)
• get in touch with your inner child (yes, you’ve heard me — get in there, find the feral little urchin, and take proper care of them, because, if you don’t, that kid is going to cause you more trouble than the panicked ego you’ll be putting through its paces next)

The preparation step can take months as well, and can be devastating.

You might discover your “friends” aren’t all that friendly. You might find there are wounds you’re carrying that are still bleeding. Your husband might take one look at your new tentatively assertive self, and hightail it outta there. (My therapist warned me it could happen. Now you know as well.)

Or you might find this is as far as you needed to travel, and you’re at a place of peace already. If that’s true for you, congratulations.

If not, let’s move on.

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Step 3: Rewire Your Brain

• make the rage conscious (most forms of anger are taboo in our society — even if you’re a man, your permissible repertoire of things to be angry about and ways of expressing that anger will be pretty limited and unhelpful at best, harmful at worst, so now’s the time to get that journal out again and write down anything and everything that might be a source of repressed rage, no matter how “inappropriate” it might seem to feel angry about some things — like having less time for yourself because of a new baby you also love with your whole heart, or your sex life being mostly nonexistent because of the said baby, or getting old, or having to look after an elderly parent you also love, or not making as much money as you’d like, or living in a system that profits from our fear and suffering… or the store being out of your favorite ice-cream the one day you could really use it)
• revisit past hurts and forgive yourself for practicing the emotions of guilt, shame, regret, fear, or anger (you didn’t know you had a choice, that you could say non serviam to abuse — even if only in your mind— so it’s not your fault those negative feelings became ingrained in your inner landscape and are now trying to run the show; the main point here is that your forgiveness be genuine — you need to feel the sorrow and self-compassion in your body until you’re able to release the unrealistic expectation that good people only experience “good” emotions; true forgiveness is grief, it’s the acceptance of the fact that something has to die for you to be able to move on — maybe the idea of yourself as a cheerful can-doer, or a perfectionist worker bee, or a stoic protector of the family, or an irreproachable pillar of community — whatever it is that your ego clings to as your shield, you can let go; you can accept that guilt makes you and your community stronger when you acknowledge it, accept your responsibility and make amends, that shame is completely pointless, that regret and fear mean you now know what you care about and would like to change or protect, and anger… well, anger’s a composite emotion that usually originates in other feelings, so you can use it to go deeper and examine what it is it tells you to fight for or against — either way, think of it as nuclear power — a source of energy for you, not a weapon against others, so accept it with the respect it deserves, and wield it responsibly)
• choose the most “problematic” thought patterns and emotional reactions and mindfully handle them as they arise (be a good friend to yourself, now that you understand what that means — when you catch yourself starting a rumination cycle, deflect with humor or self-care instead of put downs and self-shaming; when a familiar painful emotion arises unbidden, catch yourself scrambling for a logical justification for its existence, and gently remind yourself that you’re learning new emotions, and that changing the way you think and feel will affect your physical body in ways that might feel strange or uncomfortable, or even scary, and that it’s okay to feel this way, to “mispronounce” something now and then, or even to slip back into your “mother tongue” — it’s all part of the process, and it’s okay if you have to keep picking yourself up; change takes time; for me, the biggest breakthrough came when I found myself in my usual “sad place,” about to curl up on the bathroom floor, overwhelmed by the feelings of hopelessness and despair — which I’d practiced all my childhood — then, in the split second before I burst out into the usual sobs, time seemed to slow down and I could almost hear my brain scrambling like a panicked rat, grasping for a reason for the way I felt in my body; a moment later, it started throwing the familiar thoughts at me, but by then I was already standing up, laughing, “Nice try,” I told my brain, “But no dice. This is just a chemical cocktail my body serves up when I haven’t wallowed for a while. It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, but I’m not thirsty, thanks!” — and just like that, the dark abyss that was about to swallow me dissolved — but it took a long time for me to get here, and I’m nowhere near done working on this; still, it felt awesome)
• choose an emotion you’d like to experience more often, and start practicing it in a neutral state (we all have a “base” emotional state, which, in a healthy organism, is a general, diffuse sense of contentment with just being alive — if you’re having a hard time finding moments in which you’re not aroused into an identifiable strong emotion, meditation might help; personally, I couldn’t quiet my mind enough to meditate at first, so I started folding origami while I practiced letting my thoughts pass through my awareness like clouds, deliberately making myself let go whenever my mind “snagged” on something; a thousand cranes later, I’ve finally learned how to stop the chatter enough to follow a guided meditation, though I often still have to shoo my thoughts away like flies — then, once you can center yourself in your baseline neutral state, imagine what the emotion you’d like to experience would feel like in your body; start small, especially for emotions you’ve never before experienced — I’m still not exactly sure what unconditional love would feel like, so I’m not going to try just yet; instead, I’m practicing what I call “little miracles” — a mixture of happy anticipation, pleasant surprise, and amused gratitude, the last of which I imagine as wanting to high-five the Universe; the “little miracles” feeling is understated and based on bodily sensations I can easily imagine or recall from childhood, and so my mind doesn’t struggle with the concept and can come up with plenty of examples I can visualize, and then experience in my body — yes, I just sit there with my eyes closed an let the brain play me a bunch of clips until I can actually feel the sensation that I’m after — and it works, because now that my body can recognize it, it jumps for joy whenever it comes across it in the outside world, like a kid spotting their favorite thing, excitedly pointing, “Look! There it is! Do you see it?! Can you feel it?! I know it! I know it! It’s my favorite! Let’s get closer! Let’s find some more! Let’s take it home!” or like when you’ve been learning a new language for a while and then, walking through the city minding your own business one day, you overhear people talking and realize they’re speaking the language you’ve been learning and that — OMG! — you understand what they’re saying)
• work on developing your emotional palate (as you increase your emotional granularity and practice experiencing new feelings, bring up the powerful healthy ones as often as possible, so the chemicals they release can become the dominant flavor of your body’s landscape, until you acquire a taste for the “good stuff” over the familiar, bitter dregs — one technique that might work is giving yourself a hug or lovingly holding your face in your hands — it’s the pandemic, so let’s get all the oxytocin we can however we can — if you’re comfortable, do this in front of a mirror, and work on saying caring, self-compassionate things at the same time; remember, you’re your own best friend; you’re stuck with yourself for the rest of your life, so why not put in some healthy boundaries in there, and throw in terms of endearment and insider jokes as well? stop being your own worst enemy, stop being a friend for a season or a reason; be a friend for life — honest and kind, and with a wicked sense of humor; speak truth to yourself, but neither put yourself down nor take yourself too seriously)
• mirror work (OMG, mirror work — can you even look yourself in the eye? for ten minutes straight? not searching for things to correct, not finding fault with things you usually find unsatisfactory, just holding your own gaze and trying to do so as a friend, as someone who loves you unconditionally — can you imagine? if you can, then your body can experience it, and get used to what it might feel to be held in such consideration, to be appreciated for being human, perfect in every moment of our flawed existence — yes, I’m just repeating what I’ve read, as I’m yet to experience this, but I’m already exited for the day the penny drops, because I imagine it will feel miraculous)
• work on self-soothing (“blowing your fuse” is a sign of flooding, not a mature emotional reaction, but you’ve been both terrified by it and practicing it into adulthood, so it seems natural and inevitable — it is not; keep practicing assertive communication and look for new ways to deescalate; for a child, you’d match the intensity, validate the feeling, then keep bringing it down a notch and letting them emotionally match you until they were composed enough to hear what you have to say — how could you do that for yourself? use what you’ve practiced in emotionally neutral state, and tweak until your emotions are your tools, not masters; when engaging in activities meant to be relaxing, monitor your mental chatter — I’ve always maintained I liked showers and found them soothing, but for years now I’d leave feeling as drained as when I stepped in; it wasn’t until I started paying attention and recording my habitual thoughts that I realized I was spending my “relaxing” shower time having imaginary arguments and in advance stressing over the challenges of the day — fifteen minutes of that, and I felt as if I’d gone a few rounds in the ring, and, for years, I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it; remember — your brain doesn’t differentiate between what really happened and what you imagine, it just keeps serving up whatever chemical cocktail goes with the mental picture you are painting)
• whenever a strong negative emotion arises in response to another person, ask yourself what it is about them that you’re trying to suppress or shame in yourself (every time I’ve ever judged another human being, it was for something I was desperately trying to reject in myself — it was my own wound, not their way of being; I’m not talking here about harmful or abusive actions, but other people’s beliefs, preferences, or pastimes, especially when they have zero impact on our own lives — these are the wounds that need the most healing, the parts of ourselves we keep shoving out of sight hoping that what’s left will impress the people we’d like to impress, for whatever reason we’d like to impress them — as Brené Brown points out, that’s fitting in, not belonging, and it will never help us lead wholehearted lives)
• rinse and repeat until you’ve worked through all of the habitual emotions you wanted to unlearn
• keep learning the “good stuff” (build on what you know, and keep adding layers to what you can experience — life, and love, are like jazz — when it all comes together, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts, and the experience becomes transcendent… or so I’m told — here’s hoping!)
• practice positive thinking that works (instead of saying “I am xyz,” say, “I’m learning to be xyz,” because what our brains can’t believe, they reject out of hand — and you’ll feel the rejection in your body even as you say the words; then, when you visualize anything you’d like to achieve, also visualize yourself putting in the effort needed to get you to your goal, and the constructive feelings you might have as you go through all the steps to the desired result — the determination, focus, excitement, triumph, joy, whatever it is you’re after, just make sure you get the whole picture, not the payoff devoid of any real effort; focus on the feelings that are likely to contribute to you succeeding — most of us need no extra practice feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or disappointed; those are already in your “vocab,” part of your “mother tongue,” they’ll be right there if you ever need them; as an added bonus, some research has demonstrated that just thinking about practicing, when accompanied by congruent emotions, does produce the effects in the body that actual practice would have — not as much, but still; so now, instead of rehashing conversations that might or might not happen in my head, I’ve started thinking of how it felt to work with the kettlebells or doing the laps in the pool, in those gloriously reckless pre-pandemic days… and then I laugh at the irony, because — had I been able to go to the gym right now — I’d probably be spending most of my workout rehashing some hypothetical scenario in my head)

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The ultimate goal here is to internalize the experience of unconditional love. If you can get to that, then the cannibalistic, fear-driven culture we’ve been raised in will no longer keep you cornered in survival mode, where it can exploit the narcissistic tendencies of a permanently-threatened ego for financial profit.

Life will still be life, there will be pain and disappointment still, but you’ll be able to experience so much more, and accept yourself at every point in your journey.

If you can get to unconditional love, then any changes you choose to make to yourself or your environment will come from your desire to experience life to the fullest, showing up as your best, authentic self.

We’re talking miracles, my friend.