In the next 30 seconds, I want you to name all the emotions you’ve been feeling over the last day…
__________________________________
How many did you come up with?
Did you name more than three emotions?
According to a study of more than 7000 adults who were asked a similar question, they could only name three emotions on average: happy, sad, and angry.
It’s hardly surprising that studies tell us that identifying specific emotions helps us navigate and learn from them. Surely we can do better than three emotions.
For example, there are differences between shame and guilt, jealousy and envy, or hope and inspiration. Accurately naming your emotion is a starting point for emotional intelligence, or EQ, and it seems most adults could polish up their emotional literacy.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise, understand, and manage our own emotions, as well as to perceive and influence the emotions of others. A high EQ is a key component of success in professional and personal settings and is linked with better relationships, greater job satisfaction, and improved mental health.
However, despite the importance of emotional intelligence, children aren’t taught it at school. And the vast majority of adults struggle with identifying and managing their emotions, as demonstrated by the study mentioned above. A lack of emotional literacy can lead to poor communication skills, which strains our relationships, and difficulty coping with stress because we don’t really understand the true essence of our emotional experience.
One powerful technique to improve your emotional intelligence and enhance your ability to manage your emotions effectively is the mindful pause. This mindfulness exercise involves taking a moment to pause and focus on the present moment without judgment. By practising the mindful pause, you can learn to identify and understand your emotions, allowing you to communicate more effectively and lead a more fulfilling life. And although it is not easy, the more you do it, the more you can rewire your brain to find calm more easily - even if and when you are in a heightened state.
The Emotion Wheel
Take a quick look at the wheel visualisation below, which identifies six root emotions:
Fear
Anger
Sadness
Surprise
Joy
Love
More nuanced descriptions emerge from these six emotions until 102 second- and third-order emotions are listed on this emotion wheel. I love looking at the nuances of these words, and the wheel can be a helpful guide for exploring emotions and understanding the complex interplay between different emotions.
For example, imagine you're feeling ‘meh’ and can’t pinpoint why. Looking at the emotion wheel, you might identify that you're feeling a combination of neglected, isolated and hopeless. You may go further than the emotions outlined in the wheel and realise that you are bored and have lost your creative spark. Perhaps you need a hobby and more community and social engagement. An art class might help get rid of the blahs.
This tool can help you better understand the root cause of your emotions and develop a more targeted approach to addressing your emotions and meeting your needs.
Mindfulness also offers a useful tool to enhance your emotional intelligence and improve your ability to manage your emotions.
Heightened emotional state… Meet: The Mindful Pause
The Mindful Pause is a simple exercise that involves pausing and focusing on the present moment - without judging it. Take some breaths and just allow and accept the experience - even if it is uncomfortable. I want to stress that the more uncomfortable the emotion, the more valuable the pause. As Viktor Frankl famously said, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
And although it’s a relatively simple practice, actually doing it will require some work.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to The Mindful Pause
Think S.T.O.P
Stop - find a space to sit comfortably, or if you can’t leave, imagine you are ‘going within your body’.
Take a few breaths - try to let go of tension in your body and really notice your breath as you inhale and exhale.
Observe your experience - without judgement. Notice any thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations that arise. Without judging or reacting to them, observe these experiences and let them pass by.
Proceed when you feel ready to respond, not react to the situation and bring your best self to the moment.
If you’d like to do an audio meditation focusing on the mindful pause, listen to my R.A.I.N guided meditation on the Insight Timer app.
Finding that space isn’t easy when we are in a heightened state. To give a ‘surface level’ example, my first instinct is to yell when I'm feeling angry. But ‘angry’ is just the root emotion. If I take a few moments for a mindful pause and then start thinking about what’s actually coming up for me, sometimes the answers are surprisingly valuable as I can understand my emotional experience more accurately.
What really comes up for me at these moments can be several triggers, like…
I am feeling frustrated that I am not being heard
I feel disappointed my efforts are unseen and thankless
I feel that I am being misunderstood
I’m feeling worn out because ‘my cup is empty’
I know that yelling is illogical and serves no good purpose. It makes me feel worse during the moment and terrible after. It’s a habit I am trying hard to shift. But if I don’t get deeply aware of what my experience tells me, I wouldn’t be able to communicate my needs, let alone meet them, so when I find the space and uncover the reason behind my emotion, it makes me more able to calmly communicate what I feel and what I need at that moment instead of yelling.
A tip for doing a deep dive mindful pause: Don’t just stop at the first emotion that comes to mind. Keep asking yourself ‘why’, ‘why’ and ‘why’ and you’ll learn much more about yourself.
Is it really anger you’re feeling? Or is it frustration, shame, fatigue, fear, or anxiety? Humans aren’t simple creatures. We are complex individuals with blueprints of behaviour patterns from childhood, unique inbuilt temperaments and often, deep-rooted triggers based on our experiences and our fears.
Getting to the heart of the issue allows us to gain a deeper connection with ourselves, articulate our feelings, define our needs, and then communicate them with others. And at the very least, a mindful pause helps us to take a moment to calm and restore our mood. Finding your chill is much better than falling back on our often kneejerk reactions like yelling, silent treatment, sulking and name-calling.