How the power of words has an impact on our emotional state
Your emotional vocabulary can have a direct impact on your emotions itself and on your stress level. And other Monday Morning thoughts on my dopamine detox, the Oscars and co-existence.
🏷 The role of your emotional vocabulary
Over time, we started using fewer words to express our emotions. The term ‘happy’ is often used to represent all our positive feelings. We use it to describe our emotions when we are content and ecstatic. While being content with having a calm, careless day is something completely different than being super excited about your birthday party. How do you describe your emotional state when you are feeling inspired, energized, optimistic, confident, joyful, powerful,…? Big chance many of these are replaced by ‘happy’.
Often we do the same with negative emotions. Feeling sad, depressed or having burnout have also become umbrella terms for negative feelings. The result is that nobody knows the exact meaning anymore. Think about it, what do you say about yourself when you feel vulnerable, bored, lonely, indifferent or powerless?
Okay, but does this really matter? It does. In her book ‘Why Has Nobody Told me This Before’, Dr Julie Smith talks about the latest scientific research on emotions.
There is an association between a higher level of depression and having fewer words in your vocabulary to express negative emotions. Especially when you are coping with stressful life events. The more words and terms you have to describe your emotions, the more your brain can make sense of all life events and the emotional reactions to them. So, when you have a more precise label for emotion, you can regulate your feelings easier and have less stress as a result.
If we call everything ‘happy’, we’re putting our expectations for life also higher. In order to live a happy life, we expect our days to be as happy as our birthday party. Similarly, if we label all of our negative emotions as ‘I’m sad’ or ‘I feel depressed’, we talk ourselves into a depression. Life is supposed to have ups and downs. So, it’s normal we have different gradations of emotions.
Some tips on labelling your feelings:
Get specific: try to dig deeper: f.e. analyse more when you feel ‘sad’. What makes you feel that way? Can you describe it? Are there any physical sensations?
Combine multiple emotions: f.e. I feel nervous and excited at the same time
Use the media you consume as inspiration: f.e. you can vibe with specific words or quotes from movies, songs or books. Use them as a reference when you feel a certain way
Use tools such as the Feelings Wheel. f.e. Use it while journalling or just in your daily life to understand yourself better
😍 My Favorite Things of last week
🍿 Movie time: Every year we’re doing a prediction on which film will win which Oscars. In the meanwhile, the Oscar Nominations for 2023 have been published. So, we’re catching up on watching some of the big blockbusters. I will keep you up to date on my predictions!
📰 This post - “You can be Both“: while I talked about labelling emotions above, it’s very important to remember that we are not defined by a single emotion or characteristic. Like almost everything in life: both can coexist:
☕ Dopamine Detox: I realised I was reacting quite automatically to certain things in a stressful situation such as drinking coffee, eating something sweet or checking social media when feeling stressed. So, I started a dopamine detox last week: I cut on coffee, alcohol, sweets, fast food and social media for a while. Very curious about what the results will be other than the crazy headache I’m getting now. I will keep you up to date!
🗨 Quote of the week
“Worrying does not take aways tomorrows toubles. It takes away today’s peace”
by Randy Armstrong
✏ Visual of the week
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