Decoding Emotions: My Journey to Emotional Literacy

I created several feelings routines as part of my journey to emotional literacy.

During the 2020 quarantine, I had big feelings but was at a loss for the words to describe those feelings. I worried that I was emotionally illiterate.

One of my autistic traits is that I have a weak feelings decoder. The medical professionals call this alexithymia (the inability to differentiate between, identify, or describe your feelings).

People with alexithymia are not heartless. I would feel things but lacked the language to describe what I was feeling in any moment. I would have to decipher my feelings days later with the help of patient therapists.

When I said “I feel,” I actually meant “I think.” Especially when followed by words like: that, like, as if, pronouns, or someone’s names.

There were moments when I would “feel attacked” or “feel ignored.” But those were interpretations hiding a real feeling. “Feeling good” or “feeling bad” about something were too vague, and also hid a real feeling.

Step 1: Increase Awareness With a Feelings Log

Here are the daily rituals I used to discover the range of feelings.

I converted Dr. Gloria Wilcox's Feelings Wheel into my daily reflection log

Source: Calm

Each day, I would answer the prompt: “I mostly feel _____” and force myself to enter a feeling. It felt exciting for me to put a name to a feeling.

But after a month, I saw that my emotional range was still only a handful of feelings. I felt judgmental about my emotional intelligence. As Krishnamurthy said, “The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”

Step 2: Try On Unfamiliar Feelings

So I picked some feelings that were unfamiliar and played around with feeling those for a day. I would try to find moments to experience that emotion. The more I practiced this, the greater my range became.

Step 3: Use Storytelling to Reinforce Feelings with Others

The more I developed words around feelings, the more I wanted to share this with my kids as a gift.

We launched story circle. I bought a pillow with the emotion wheel on it. Before bedtime, the kids would spin the wheel, and wherever the finger landed, we would tell a story about the emotion.

Cheeky had some fun stories. Disgust also had some fun stories. Most evenings we would stay out of the Fear section. But even sharing stories about fear and hurt brought us closer together as a family. And everyone’s emotional literacy has been on the rise.

Looking Back

Going back to my feelings log, what has looking back taught me?

I can observe that in 2022, I started with anticipation, and seeking out moments of joy. And as I have matured my skills over the years and gone through some personal growth, love and trust seem to be on the rise.

I am still decoding feelings. I don’t have a barometer that works in real time yet, but I’m getting better at understanding how to communicate about feelings and what are actually feelings.

The journey to emotional literacy continues.

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