The Need To Develop Our Emotional Vocabulary

The need to build up our emotional vocabulary is key to improving the quality of our relationships. This includes knowing how to express ourselves and how to defend ourselves; To do this in harmony with our own needs and those of the other, to be able to express feelings in words, to generate empathy and to form connections to others on the basis of respect and assertiveness. Very few challenges are as important in our everyday life as these.

When we talk about this dimension, it is often customary to focus attention on the children. Both families and teachers now know how important it is to acquire these skills early on. Indeed, strengthening emotional competence and strengthening one’s relationship with language are two areas of great interest that can produce highly interesting results.

For example, studies like the one conducted by psychologists Irina Kumschick and Luna Beck at the University of Minessotta in the United States have shown how improving language skills in children can teach them how to do it in their early years their school days, express and recognize feelings better.

So it can be said that there are many benefits to strengthening this type of challenge in the youngest children. But what about the adults? For example, what happens to those people who are unable to communicate their fears, needs, or frustrations to their partner?

Not every adult had the opportunity to experience successful socio-emotional development as a child. Nor do all of us have mechanisms for regulating emotions or communication skills that enable us to put our emotional knots into words and to resolve the labyrinths in which our emotions are often trapped.

How can we develop our emotional vocabulary?

By strengthening our emotional vocabulary, our general vulnerability also decreases. Because being able to put a feeling into words means making ourselves visible.

It gives meaning to ourselves and to others. The main thing is to be able to shape and share our sensations. This can help us to resolve inner confusion and to harmonize the chaos within us with simple words in order to understand others better and to be understood as well.

There is also a certain amount of magic in this process. For example, we all experience realities every day that we cannot transfer very well to other people. And that’s only because our language often doesn’t allow it.

In the Tagàlog language, a dialect spoken in the Philippines, there is a beautiful word called “ Kilig” . It expresses the feeling of joy we experience when we talk to someone we like to love.

In Dutch there is again the term “ uitwaaien” , which describes the experience of enjoying the wind and also includes the sensations that arise from it.

Having suitable words that enable us to integrate these realities into our language usage is extraordinary, yes, you can even say, cathartic. But what happens very often is just the opposite of that.

Not only is it impossible for a majority of people to find the right words to catalog what exactly they are feeling. Nor do they know exactly what is actually happening to them. 

The lack of emotional competence leads us to suppress our feelings because we do not know what else to do with them.

So let’s look at different ways that can help strengthen our emotional vocabulary.

Awareness of emotions and face recognition

Charles Darwin already spoke in his day of an “ emotional expression ” and defined this as an inner state that you feel yourself and by means of which you can express yourself.

Therefore, the first step is awareness: to connect with this physical state in which the emotions make their first impression, which in many cases seems neither pleasant nor rewarding. This is the case with emotions such as fear, sadness, anger, disappointment, etc.

Every emotion has a physiological counterpart that we must first accept so that we can understand and finally name its message (what do I perceive as anger, what do I perceive as envy, …). There is no point in trying to suppress or hide it.

In order to strengthen our emotional language on the other hand , it is necessary to know how to recognize the needs of others in their language. We have to be receptive and empathetic to this; sensitive to the emotions of others in order to be able to adapt to their reality and in this way to achieve better communication.

The emotional vocabulary and the verbal power of expression

Many experts in this field recommend alphabetizing the emotional-anal vocabulary. We have to use what are known as “emotional verbs”. This is a very effective mechanism for conveying emotions and also for demonstrating honesty and openness.

An example of this resource are verbs like: I feel, I want to, I am happy about, I am afraid of, I want to, I feel uncomfortable because, I envy, …

On the other hand , in addition to using this strategy, it is necessary to train our verbal fluency.

There are people with great oratory skills, good communication skills, and the ability to make great speeches, but who lack verbal fluency in emotional matters. What does that mean?

It means that basically these people do not know how to express how they feel and what they need. They are also unable to speak to other people about sentimental or personal aspects of their life. We have to observe this kind of eloquence in order to develop our emotional vocabulary.

The emotional narrative

Each of us generates different types of narratives. We tell ourselves a lot every day as we process our experiences and experiences.

We are all a story, our own story. Doing this in the best way can make us respect ourselves more, care more about ourselves, and appreciate ourselves for how we deserve it.

One way to do this is with the help of emotional intelligence. Getting to know ourselves better, offering ourselves what we really need, practicing self-pity, assertiveness, and empathy allows us to tell a story that is more respectful.

All of this will be reflected in our self-image and so it will be possible for us to communicate better with other people.

We are all emotional beings who at a certain moment learned to verbalize these emotions. Better management of this inner universe makes pretty much all the affairs of our lives easier for us. It is therefore particularly important to develop our emotional vocabulary.