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Emotional literacy (EL)
is the ability to recognise and understand our emotions and be able to manage and regulate them. Managing our emotions teaches us how and when to express them and how to do so in an appropriate manner.
It is also the ability to recognise other people’s emotions and to respond to them with sensitivity and respect. It is about developing empathy and learning how to be kind to ourselves.
Emotional literacy is essential for our personal development, but even more importantly, for our mental wellbeing as managing our emotions improves our personal power and our lives. When we aren’t emotionally literate a dimension of our life is missing.
Being emotionally literate makes us autonomous. This means that we will be able to solve our own problems and make informed decisions without having to rely on advice or direction from other people.
When we are emotionally literate we don’t have to measure ourselves against others. We can choose how best to lead our lives and take positive steps to achieve our goals. That is autonomy and everyone can achieve personal freedom through emotional literacy.
Think about EL. It can be yours by learning a simple process starting with recognising your feelings. Feelings are energy so we need to use them – they motivate us.
Each stage of our early development
has tasks which need to be achieved in order to stabilise and complete that stage ready for the next one. We need the stages to be as complete as possible as these are the foundation blocks on which we build our lives.
Sometimes there are deficits in a stage due to unforeseen circumstances during our development but stages can be revisited so that gaps can be filled. This can happen through a variety of chosen activities and healing can begin. This is where my work begins.
Throughout the course of our lifetime it is natural for us, unprompted and unplanned, to revisit themes and issues of earlier stages giving us new opportunities to grow through them. This growth often happens in a much more sophisticated way.