BR AIN POWER
Emotional Granularity EXPANDING OUR LEXICON TO DESCRIBE HOW WE REALLY FEEL BY MICHAEL C. PATTERSON
M
y wife Judith and I recently completed our first real vacation in years. It was a road trip that took us from our home in Los Angeles, across the Mojave Desert, through southern Arizona and Utah and into Western Colorado. Our primary goal was to visit Zion National Park and then spend time with close family friends in the small town of Paonia, Colorado. Over 12 days, we drove and hiked through some of the most spectacular geological wonders to be found on planet earth. It was awesome! The drive in California includes long stretches through the Mojave Desert, which is spectacular in its own way, but is much the same mile after mile. To amuse myself, and to avoid being mesmerized by the Mojave, I told Judith about an interesting concept I had just learned, called “emotional granularity.” The term and practice were developed by psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD. Dr. Barrett argues that emotions are learned, and that most of us are only taught to identify elementary emotions, like
10
3rd Act magazine | winter 2021/22
HAPPY, sad, and ANGRY. We are, in other words, emotional illiterates. Dr. Barrett’s groundbreaking work encourages all of us to enhance our emotional intelligence by expanding our emotional vocabulary. The more ways we have to describe subtle differences in emotions, the more ways we can learn to express ourselves, and the better we can interpret the FEELINGS of others. Rather than experiencing our spouse as being simply MAD, for example, we might ask politely if he/she is irritated, annoyed, MIFFED, injured, af fronted, appalled, disgusted, IR ATE , outraged, FURIOUS, or ballistic. The answer will help us determine whether to fight, flee, or freeze. I recognize the need to enhance my own emotional literacy and have started researching lists of emotion words. Some of the more interesting lists include foreign words that have no equivalents in English, such as the German word SCHADENFREUDE (pronounced shaa-duhn-froy-duh), which is the pleasure we feel at someone else’s misfortune. Another favorite is www.3rdActMag.com
