Friday Musings—13/10/23

If you haven't read it yet, in this week's post we discuss the remarkable therapeutic effects that water has on our brains and bodies, and how we can develop practices to tap into our "blue mind". As always, share any insights or questions you may have in the comments, or send me an email—I'm always happy to chat. You can also book a free call with me.

Now onto my weekly musings 😎

Emotional literacy

A few days ago, I met with my coach MJ to discuss the results of my emotional intelligence assessment. The results weren't too bad, although I have plenty of work to do on how I perceive myself, my self-actualization, and my optimism levels. MJ also pointed out that low scores in these areas contribute to my general sense of fatigue and affect my overall well-being.

What I found particularly useful was learning to describe my emotions, sensations and needs more accurately. We're often used to expressing how we feel in a few basic words, e.g. "good", "bad", "tired", "angry", "happy". However, there's an entire vocabulary for us to learn in order to truthfully pinpoint and convey what we're going through. We began by using the "uncomfortable emotions wheel", and I found myself going through over one hundred words, finally understanding and effectively conveying how certain experiences made me feel. We then utilized the sensations and needs wheels to better discern the sensations that preceded certain emotions and identify which of my needs had been ignored.

Just last week, I actually got to experience this emotional vocabulary richness in one of my theatre classes. The teacher provided us with an extensive list of emotions and then randomly assigned each of us one emotion, without disclosing who received which. In fact, he later revealed that the choice wasn't entirely random; he assigned emotions he thought would be challenging for us to portray. He then gave us random lines of text and asked each of us to go on stage and recite those lines according to the emotion we were assigned. The rest of us had to guess which emotion was being portrayed. We were all somewhat taken aback by the number of emotions on the list, and it wasn't easy to either express or guess them with such precision.

The more emotional literacy we acquire, the better we can understand what we're experiencing and effectively communicate it to others (or represent it on a stage!). You can find an example of the emotions wheel here. Incidentally, when I was 18 I was told by my therapist I had alexithymia, just like the author of the medium article was (unlike his therapist, though, mine didn't do anything to help me better understand or express my emotions, but that's a story for another day).

Be more bonsai

I've been reading Be More Bonsai: Change your life with the mindful practice of growing bonsai trees by Mark Akins. The author describes how he fell in love with the ancient art of tending to bonsai to the extent that he decided to open a bonsai retailer and nursery in the English countryside.

In his book, he shares how this practice can teach us patience, focus, mindfulness, and many other qualities that can be beneficial in our busy, challenging everyday lives. I particularly appreciated the metaphors Akins used, such as the bonsai shedding its leaves to illustrate how we should learn to let go of material possessions, and the idea of carefully tending to the bonsai's roots as a reminder that we should also care for our own core by implementing self-care basics for our body, mind, and soul.

Akins emphasizes that we can't delay tending to a bonsai, as it'll wither in just a few days. But how often do we put off properly caring for ourselves?

Quote of the week ✍️

"When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life". (Tara Meyer Robson)

That's all from me today. Don't forget to share this with someone who might be interested, enjoy your weekend and TTYS

ML