Tools For Helping To Name And Listen To Them Accurately
Once of the most popular and well used tools in the Be Braver toolkit is the emotions wheel. Sometimes we can feel like we are the mercy of our emotions but with the right tools we can have more control than we think.
There are of course thousands of words in the English language alone for labelling your emotions. Very often we only use a handful of them. Yet the power the words we use carries a huge amount of information. Can create opportunity. Or limit it.
Whether it is thinking about your own, or what you think other peoples emotional responses might be (though the best way to know for sure is to do this exercise with them of course), pausing to consider whether you have correctly labeled them offers valuable data and information.
Take sadness. Then frustration, disappointment or rejection. Then think of a situation you have found yourself in. Consider how the courses of action. Who where power, influence and responsibility sits with each. The different types of conversations each might create. The different intentions and outcomes you might seek.
Print the wheel off and have it somewhere handy as a reference tool. Use it as a sensor check.
Another tip is to make sure you aren’t saying to yourself ‘I am frustrated’ ‘I am sad’.
To create space between you and the emotion, so that you would say ‘I notice I am feeling’. This allows space and perspective to observe, sit with and understand the information we want to extract and work with from the emotion.
It prevents it from running wild and us feeling powerless and at its behest.
For further reading on the subject Susan David has done some brilliant work on how our emotions carry data.
The real transformation in this space come when you integrate your emotional literacy with the values work we do in Finding Clarity.
If you want to explore this further as a practice, unpack how this relates to management and leadership, Be Braver designs and develops bespoke training solutions. Fit to the culture, values and behaviours you wish to see in your team or organisation.
