Emotional Self Awareness - Positive Psychology & Storytelling - Module 1

 

Module 1 : Emotional Self Awareness :

VIDEO 1 :

You can also right click to watch the Video on YOU TUBE

https://youtu.be/1tG62HQyoRU (Links to an external site.)

 

 

 

STORY – Lions Whisker: Emotional Self Awareness ( A folktale from Ethiopia - adapted version)

Story Based Reflection Tasks : write in your journal for your own reflection.

1. Draw the part of the story that stood out for you.
2. What feelings did the story bring out in you? What did you feel drawing it out? Write about it.Listen to the story again.  
3. Take Moments from the story and make a list of feelings that you experienced while listening to the story. What you felt when you heard the young girl had no mother, or when the young girl refused food from the new mother, or when the old woman threw the whisker into the fire.
   

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Know your Emotions:

Read this chapter in

 https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/10-1-the-experience-of-emotion/ (Links to an external site.)

Emotions are a complex construct. In the 1990/91, the term Emotional Intelligence was first coined by Scientists Dr. Peter Salovey and John D Mayer. Their work was keenly followed by Daniel Goleman a science journalist and author from Harvard University who went on to write the now famous book Emotional Intelligence. There have been many studies to identify, name and classify emotions.

Primary / Secondary Emotions : In the article above you can read about Primary and Secondary emotions. Primary are the emotions that we become present to in response to some event/ thought/ belief. Secondary emotions are your underlying emotions that attach themselves to the Primary.

( From the story : Think about Alisha's primary and secondary emotions. Think of Makeda's primary and secondary emotions)

eg 1: We can feel Happy for a friend who has received an award in the same field as ours (primary) yet there could be an underlying envy that one may feel if we are honest with ourselves (secondary).

 eg 2 : you may be afraid and scared of going inside a dark bathroom (primary emotion); when you feel ashamed to feel this way, then shame is called a secondary emotion.

Mixed emotions : These are conflicting emotions that one feels simultaneously. Like when we choose to ride the roller coaster and have a sense of exhilaration and fear at the same time. (eg: What Alisha felt towards her step mother was mixed emotions - she felt anger and distrust.)

Meta emotions – are the feelings we have about our primary emotions. What do you feel about getting angry?Do you feel guilty? Is it right or wrong? What is your emotion / feeling about certain emotional expressions like feeling shy or jealous or envious? So what are your Meta – emotions?

If you have never heard of Meta emotions then do watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Iy10Yzuqw (Links to an external site.)

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Mild to Intense: Pleasant to Unpleasant Emotions  : 

In more technical words : Emotions may also be described according to our Arousal as Mild to Intense or according to their Valence as Pleasant to Unpleasant.

(If we look at the biology of emotions, the limbic system categorizes  our emotional experiences as pleasant or unpleasant mental states , where the neuro-transmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenaline are actively involved. This means our mind interprets emotions as pleasant and unpleasant according to the type of neuro transmitter that is stimulated.)

What you call as negative emotion is actually an unpleasant emotion. The intensity of this emotion may vary as Low intensity or High intensity.

Eg: Irritation is low intensity and will be felt in the body as a mild change, perhaps a slight pain in the head or a sweating of the palms, while Rage is high intensity and immediately shows in the body as a clenching of fists and racing of heart beat.

All emotions have a role to play and even while studying Positive Psychology, we need to understand our Unpleasant or Negative emotions as much as our Pleasant or Positive emotions.

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Psychologist Dr. Lisa Feldman Bartlet in her book How Emotions Are Made – The Secret Life Of The Brain brings us a very new perspective to emotions. Emotions are much more complex than we thought of and doesn’t come automatically from a pre-set formula stored in our limbic system. Emotions according to this theory is actually created by individuals in response and in the moment. These patterns have been carried from one generation to another, and assigned a name by us as anger or fear. So emotions according to this theory are constructed by several regions of the brain and also is influenced by the person's previous experiences, giving us a more holistic view of emotions.

What does this mean and why is this important?

We cannot use blanket terms to name our feelings – I (that is me), when I am angry, look and feel different, very different, from when You are angry. It is not just the way we respond, but even the idea we have within us about what this experience of angry is different. So, we all have different ways of experiencing angry.

Eg –let me give an analogy using colours:

My Brother-in-law knows only one colour of blue, but my sister can tell you that there is a light blue, dark blue, greenish blue, turquoise blue -and so on.

A person who is able to identify the little differences in colour or the nuances very well, will also experience these colours very differently.

It is the same way for emotions too.

This concept is called Emotional Granularity by Dr Lisa Barret who said, a person who is able to give name to their feeling and describes it accurately will be able to know and  manage them better. She went on to work on scientific and brain-based evidence for how emotions are made.

How many emotions can you accurately identify and name for yourself?

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Know your Emotions:

Plutchik’s wheel is a handy tool to understand. Created by Dr. Robert Plutchik (2001a), it is shaped like a flower. Emotions change from mild to intense towards the inside of the flower and the colours also show the change in intensity from Dark red as rage and lighter pink as annoyance. It is useful to identify an emotion keeping intensity in mind.

According to Plutchik's Psycho evolutionary Theory of Emotions, there are 8 Primary Emotions. The are placed around the center of the wheel. The inner most circle shows the feeling of high intensity, while towards the edges, emotions of milder emotions are milder.

They are also placed in such a way that opposite emotions are diametrically opposite to each other. So Joy lies exactly opposite to Sadness, Trust is opposite to Loathing etc. So every Primary emotion has a polar opposite ( Williams 2013).

The emotions lying next to each other can interact and form combination emotions, such as anger and anticipation results in aggression, surprise and fear results in awe, etc.

 

  

Plutchik's Wheel is a fascinating study and if you are interested you can do some extra reading here

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Motivation_and_emotion/Book/2014/Plutchik%27s_wheel_of_emotions (Links to an external site.)

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 Psychologists such as Dr. Lisa Feldman Barret (Emotional Granularity) and Dr. Susan David

 ( Emotional Agility) have done fascinating research on emotions.

 For lighter reading you can take a look at this book:

Book Of Human Emotions By Tiffany Watt Smith: In this book the author walks us through 154 emotions from around the world that are unique to their land of origin and not found elsewhere. Emotions such as Nakez, Saudade, and Abhiman have been given their due credit and described anecdotally.

eg:  The Hindi language speaks about 3 kinds of pride: ABHIMAN (pride that comes inner conviction), GARV (pride of accomplishment), GAMAND (arrogant pride) each have a different meaning, but if we look at the English language – they all are translated as Pride!

All these show us that "By enhancing our emotional vocabulary and awareness, we can learn to manage and navigate them better".

Disclaimer : (Managing emotions is beyond the scope of this module)

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Highlights of this Module :

• Emotions are complex
• We can classify emotions as Primary , Secondary, Mixed and Meta Emotions
• Understanding emotions according to their intensity and to see them as Pleasant and Unpleasant
• Plutchik's Wheel is a way to identify and understand different emotions according to intensity.
• We can learn to identify finely nuanced emotions by using local names. This helps build emotion vocabulary.
• By enhancing our emotion vocabulary and awareness, we can learn to manage and navigate them better.

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Draw OR Write out your Emotional Weather :

 Like the weather keeps changing, so do our feelings! Draw it out – Make a morning to evening cycle of feelings that you experience.

  pic @shilpasrinivasan

 

OR

Create a Daily Emotions chart

  

• Draw 9 boxes on an A4 sheet and write the feelings you experience everyday (top 6 boxes)
• The bottom row, 3 boxes, fill in feelings that you wish to experience everyday
• Which emotion do you want to experience more and which do you want to reduce the volume every day? Journal these answers and post on Discussion Board

Here’s a way you can begin to tune into your emotions to see how much they help you make decisions and to trust yourself and others.

 

Research:

pic  ; By Machine Elf 1735 - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13285286

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion (Links to an external site.)

 https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/10-1-the-experience-of-emotion/