I have taken three language courses in my lifetime. I passed all of them. I remember none of them.
In tenth and eleventh grades I studied the French language. All I can remember is une chaise lounge, which is not very impressive (sorry, Mrs. Gandy). In college, my sophomore and junior years, I studied the Ancient Greek language, for Bible translation purposes. All I can remember is en theon, which is the root for enthusiastic; also, not very impressive (sorry, Dr. Worley). In college, in my senior year, I studied the Hebrew language; again, for Bible translation purposes. I can remember none of it. I never really learned the alphabet, which makes it really hard to learn the language. I am not at all certain how I passed that class (sorry, Dr. Joines).
Languages are hard. But they are not impossible.
As I mentioned in my December 2019 article, Not Head-Colds nor Old Westerns, emotions are meant to inform us. They are, in fact, a language. Only they don’t speak to us in a linear way, with letters that turn into words that are used in sentences and paragraphs to convey thoughts and ideas. Instead, the language of emotion is an experiential language; its meaning is conveyed through an experience, a presentation. Because it is not in English (nor any other typical language, including Klingon), we have to go searching for what the presentation is about; we have to discern the meaning. Fortunately, it has three components that help us to determine what the experience is representing, so we can know the point it is trying to make.
The first component of the language of emotion is the feeling itself, such as anger, sadness, happiness, fear, disgust (to name a few). The feeling, or internal experience, represents the territory or arena that you are in—what topic our emotional system is detecting. Every feeling represents a different type of experience, or potential experience. We will talk about the meanings or territories of each feeling in a later article, but here are a couple of examples: anger is about injustice. Anger shows up in our bodies when our system (body) detects the presence, or the possibility, of injustice, imbalance, unfairness. Anxiety is about not finishing. Anxiety shows up when are system (body) detects the presence, or the possibility, of not being able to finish something we are doing, or are going to do. So, when a particular feeling arises, we know the territory that our system is in because of the specific feeling that is present.
The second component of the language of emotion is the intensity of the feeling; how strong you are feeling your feeling. Now intensity could be one of two things: first, it could be the vicinity of the injustice, to use anger as an example. A low grade anger is frustration. Frustration being on the anger scale, at a low intensity, suggests a distant vicinity, which says that the injustice or imbalance or unfairness is not close; it is still some distance or some time away, and perhaps you still have some time to address the injustice. But if the anger is rage, a high intensity anger, well, watch out—it suggests a very close vicinity, that the injustice or imbalance or unfairness is upon you or even slightly past you, and that the time to act is now or even yesterday (ahhhhh!).
The second option regarding intensity is that it could be backlog. In this sense, imagine emotions as postal messengers, trying to deliver a letter message. Now, if they don't get to deliver their message, these faithful messengers will try again. And they will keep trying, until they are able to deliver their message. But each time they try to deliver their message, they knock a little louder, and a little louder, and a little louder. That being the case, frustration could turn into rage over time because we never answered the door. So do your emotional system a favor: when it first shows up, answer the door, so your messenger can do what it came to do and then move on back to the central office. (A side note—we talk a lot about getting past our emotion. Our emotions will move on past us once we learn to listen to it and receive its message.)
The third component of the language of emotion is an image or memory. Sometimes when we have a particular feeling, an image floats up into our brain of something that happened in the past. Unfortunately, when that happens, we often think, “Oh my goodness, have I not gotten over this yet? Why am I still so emotional about that moment? What is wrong with me? I’ve got to get over this!” Again, most of our emotional work is less about getting over or past the emotion, but rather in listening to it. To listen to this component of the language of emotion is to consider this image or memory as your personal metaphor. Remember, all language is symbolic. In emotion, the symbol is an experience. All experiences turn into a memory; collections of experiences turn into symbols. In the past, when something tough happened, we often spent time reliving it in our minds. In reliving it, we often had ghost conversations around how we would or could have done it differently. Our system remembers these conversations, so when it detects the possibility that something similar is happening again, with perhaps a different set of characters, it reminds us of that scene or collection of scenes (memory or image/symbol) because we are about to get a chance to do it again, but this time with the invitation to do it differently, much along the lines the way we would have preferred to have done it the first time. Maybe you are still ticked off about that past event; more than likely, it is a chance to put your realizations of the past to actual use.
This third component is hard, because we are so connected and often enmeshed with our emotions. It is difficult to get enough distance or objectivity to see it symbolically or metaphorically. We will talk about how to do that in another article this year. In the meantime, consider your emotion as language; consider these parts. It is hard; it may even feel impossible. But you can do it; you can learn to see and use and master emotion as information.
But what do I know; I “failed” three languages.
To talk further about learning the language of emotion (or detecting its components), please consider LifePractical Counseling for your counseling or consultant needs. Contact us today.
Paul Johnson is a professionally licensed marriage and family therapist and professionally licensed counselor in the state of Alabama.