#377 Snippets of wisdom: Enhance your emotional vocabulary.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
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00:02 - Agi Keramidas 
You're listening to Personal Development Mastery, the podcast that empowers you with the simple and consistent actions you need to create a life of purpose and fulfilment. This is another snippet of Wisdom where I select my favourite, most insightful moments from previous episodes. Today's snippet comes from my conversation with Chess Edwards, who is a spiritual teacher and meditation guide. It is about enhancing our emotional vocabulary and I hope it is as insightful for you as it was for me. Before we dive into the snippet, if you enjoy listening and appreciate what we're doing here, the simple, quick favor I would like to ask of you is to click the subscribe button Now. Let's get started. 

00:54 - Chess Edwards
Yeah, this is a really fun tool and powerful. I use it in my retreats a lot when we go around in the morning and check in with everybody how are you today, where are you right now? It's day three of a retreat. Where are you right now? We start to recognize I think everyone will relate to this the answer to how are you. Hey, buddy, good to see you. How are you? I'm good, I'm not so good. 

01:29
What a beautiful thing it is to take a moment to be more contemplative. I find that becoming emotionally fluent is very much supported by having a good journaling practice. When somebody says to me, how are you, I'm often answering based on what I was journaling that morning. Yeah, I've done myself reflective work in the morning. I actually pondered and looked into and felt into how am I doing, became more aware of that, and then later on in the day someone says how are you? And I'm able to say, oh, that's funny, I was journaling about that. This morning I am feeling this. 

02:13
So the emotional vocabulary builder has two sides of the sheet, as you're aware. On one side it's the quote positive words that we might describe. At the top of I think it's four columns, might be five columns and the top is a common word I'm doing good. But then underneath that there's all these nuances how are you? I'm happy, I'm joyful, I'm excited, I feel alive, I'm mischievous, I am feeling very childlike. What a beautiful thing to bring in that more depth. And then we notice that with others it builds intimacy. Because if I ask you, aghi, how are you doing today? And you say, hold on, let me be with that. How am I feeling? I'm feeling kind of devilish these days or mischievous, I can guarantee I'm going to lean into that conversation. Oh, wow, really, tell me more. And now you're telling me about you, about what's going on within you. On the other side of the sheet it's got the words that might describe a sense of self that is more challenging. So I'm feeling fearful you know fun words. I'm feeling befuddled, I'm feeling absolutely lost. I am feeling like a victim these days. That's getting honest. It's really getting into how we are feeling. So we start to learn about ourselves by exploring in the morning, doing some journaling, pulling out the emotional vocabulary builder and saying how am I feeling? Let me find a word on here that actually gets close to describing what I'm actually feeling, and then journal about that and explore that a little bit. And now, later on, I'm having conversations with people and my conversations are deeper, they're more honest, they're more intimate, they're more vulnerable. And we also notice, augie, that If, if I'm not doing that type of work and you ask me how I'm doing, I say I'm doing good, and Then you might say, oh good, what's happening? 

04:53
And instead of telling you what's happening within me, most people immediately go to well, why am I feeling good? My relationship is going well, I just got a couple of new clients, I bought a house you know the, you know or I'm not doing good. Why aren't you doing good? Well, I lost the house and the relationship just broke up and I just got fired. We immediately talk about what's happening out there. What if one were to say how are you? I'm doing really good, yeah, what's happening? I just got fired, my relationship just ended, right and and this other thing's going on and people like, well, and you're saying you're doing good. 

05:30
Yeah and I'm alright, I'm doing good. This is the freedom to recognize that our inner state of being doesn't necessarily have to be so dependent on what's happening in our lives. Or I can say how are you feeling? I'm feeling really sad these days. I feel a melancholy. Oh, there's just this melancholy these days. Wow, that that sounds like really bad. No, it's not bad, it's just melancholy and that is there. 

06:05 - Agi Keramidas
Thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the full conversation in episodes 81 and 82. The link is in the show notes. If you've enjoyed this episode, can you find someone you think would find it valuable and share it with them? Not only will it help the show grow, but you will be adding value to people you care about. Thank you so much and until next time. Stand out, don't fit in !