Building Your Emotional Skills

Emotions are invaluable. They allow us to be authentic, live wholeheartedly, connect with others, make decisions, and navigate the world. Emotions provide information and invite us to check-in with ourselves. Many of us have been taught that emotions aren’t okay or aren't safe to show and/or feel. Emotions are neither good nor bad, but are necessary to live fully.

Many of us weren’t taught emotional skills such as emotional attunement to ourselves, healthy emotional expression, and responding to others’ emotions. Dr. Marc Brackett is the founder of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of the book Permission to Feel. He has developed a wonderful tool called RULER to build emotional skills. 

R - Recognize the emotions of yourself and others

U - Understanding where your or their emotions are coming from 

L - Label emotions more precisely 

E - Express emotions in different contexts

R - Regulate (or manage) emotions more effectively 

Recognizing the emotions of ourselves and others can be challenging, at first, if we haven’t been attuned with emotions. Start by getting to know yourself and becoming more self-aware. You can do this through meditation, body scans, or self check-in. As you become more aware of your own emotions, it is easier to recognize how others may be feeling. 

Understanding where your emotions are coming from is key. This helps us be able to communicate or think through how we want to respond to the emotion. Ask yourself, “Why am I feeling this way?”, “When have I felt this way before?”, “What is this emotion trying to tell me?”. Remember, emotions are information. Check out our post from May 11th, 2020 to see examples. 

Labeling our precise emotions will take practice. Many of us are taught a limited or non-existent emotional vocabulary. It’s common for us to resort to labeling our emotions as mad, sad, or glad. However, there are many words that allow us to identify our emotions more precisely. Check out this feeling wheel to build your emotional vocabulary https://www.instagram.com/p/B889BwZgrXu/

Learning to express your emotions in an assertive and healthy way is empowering. There are specific communication strategies that can be developed by working one-on-one with a counselor. However, some quick strategies include using “I feel” and “I need” statements. 

Lastly, what do we do with the emotion once we recognize, understand, label, and express it? Now we need to regulate our own emotions or our emotional response to what another person is feeling. Again, it may be helpful to work with a counselor to identify skills that work specifically for you, but here are a few ideas. 

Breathing exercises: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-FY68oDWFN/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/B9y6WFLA108/ 

Meditation: Headspace and Calm are great apps for this 

Move your body: light exercise, take a walk, or stretch 

Spending time in nature, with a friend, or a pet 

Credit: Permission to Feel by Dr Marc Brackett