How can learning to name our emotions help us?
BY JAKE STIKA
Imagine building a deck, and all you had was a hammer.
It’d be a pretty wonky-looking thing since you weren’t able to cut the boards, sand them, or all of the other myriad things needed to bring it together.
The best case scenario is if you bought all the boards at the perfect size, you might be able to just hammer nails and make something functional.
It sure would be great if you had more tools though...
Now imagine you need to do some work under the hood of your car, and you still only have a hammer. You’d probably think to yourself, “this is f*cked.” Not only do you not have enough tools, you definitely don’t have the right tools for the job.
What if that hammer you’re holding represents an emotion? And that one emotion that you’re given to solve the complex situations life throws at you is anger?
When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail...
Now have a look at the Emotion Wheel below.
Image by @trainingsbyromy on Instagram
You can see that anger can often be a primary emotion, but when we scratch beneath the surface, we might be frustrated or bitter, or if we dig further, we might be jealous or annoyed.
Looking at some of the other deeper emotions, can you see that once upon a time if you felt rejected, you transformed that into anger? Or that if someone hurt you, that became anger too?
We can treat anger as a flashing warning light on our internal dashboard to look into what’s really going on for us.
Ok, fine. I’m angry – now what?
Well, great. You’ve named it, which is much better than snapping at others, flipping them off in traffic, or generally acting in ways we’re not proud of. Naming how we’re feeling is step one in learning to respond in ways we can be proud of.
Next, can you identify what the trigger was? What was it that contributed to your anger?
Was it your partner springing for that expensive want when it wasn’t in the budget? Your kid lost another thing they needed for school? Did your boss pile on a bunch more work on your plate when you already can’t finish what you have in a week?
Is the helpful response yelling at your partner about how they always do this to you? Threatening your child that if they keep being irresponsible, they’ll lose out on other parts of your support? Walking around the shop talking smack about your manager?
Probably not. That’s a quick way to damage your relationship, scare your child, or lose your job.
At a deeper level, you might see that you feel disrespected by your partner when you put in the work of pulling together a budget, and they don’t take the time to consult it when at the store.
You might look at your kid and realize – “hey, wait, I’m not even mad about this. I’m disappointed or even worried that they’re not being set up for success in life with these habits”.
Finally, you could sit with the reality of your increased workload and think – “it’s not personal, after all, it is my job to do this work, but I’m stressed and overwhelmed nevertheless.”
This is about distinguishing others' actions (trigger of our anger) from our evaluation of their actions (the root of our anger). For example, if my friend is late to meet me, I'm not mad because they’re late; I am mad because I made a judgment about that behaviour (i.e. they don't respect my time).
If you can resist swinging the hammer of anger, look at the emotion at hand, and match it to what’s in your toolbox, you can fix anything!
Learn to skillfully connect: Register for our upcoming Emotional Literacy Workshop to learn to name and explain emotions. Healthy relationships begin with communication.
You can reach out for the level, sit with your partner and say, “Hey, when you buy things unexpectedly, our family finances tip and we get off balance. When this happens, I feel frustrated and worried because I need stability and really value consideration. Would you be willing to ____” (return the item? Consult the budget next time you're considering a significant purchase? Etc, make a specific ask about the behaviour that would be most helpful to you).
You can look at your kiddo and think, “are they getting the support they need?” You can rummage around and find the clamp to help stabilize all the moving parts in your kid’s life. Hold them – build a check-in to reassure them that you’ve got their back as they build habits to remember what they need to succeed at school.
Finally, bust out that voltage tester and book a one-to-one with your boss. Let them know that you’re a live-wire right now, and if they don’t check in with you before adding new work to your plate, they might get unexpectedly shocked, so it may be good to test stress and workload levels.
You’ll have to forgive the overridden metaphor, but you get the point. Sure is nice to have a well-kitted workbench…
So, join us on April 1st for another workshop in the Emotional Literacy series! We’ll dig into why it’s important (and helpful!) to learn to name our emotions, get grounded, and look inward. This workshop is part of an ongoing series, but don’t worry, you don’t need to have attended the first workshop to attend this one.
This blog was originally published on MEN&. Check them out to access free counseling if you’re a man in Alberta.