Emotional Literacy:  A Preventive Tool

by Ilene L. Dillon, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.


Like many people who become therapists and counselors, my childhood was emotionally challenging.  Incidents of loss, grief, abandonment, of physical, verbal and sexual abuse, and of physical injury and shame all characterized parts of my childhood.  In addition, the continual moving of my military family rendered me emotionally disconnected and shut down.  Not only did I not show my feelings, I often did not know (until weeks after a particular incident), that I had felt angry about something that had occurred.  As a mass of anxiety, jealousy, fear, hurt and anger, I was afraid to have anyone look me in the eye for fear they might discover what was inside of me that I, myself, did not know.  Of course I believed that whatever was inside of me had to be bad (shame).  When I sought help through psychotherapy, I was told that the kind of emotional wounding I had experienced could never be healed.  The concept of “emotional literacy” had not yet been recognized.
The person who lived that tortured life is, gratefully, a person in my past.  The replacement now easily and comfortably is her opposite—confident, nonjudgmental, open, loved and loving, happy, no longer fearful of loss, death, attack, change or rejection.  She is a person who seeks opportunities to be alone or with others, without experiencing loss or loneliness or overwhelm in either situation.  Now utilizing my emotions as signals for directing my life, I work to epitomize emotional balance to the extent that others now consult me for help in becoming emotionally balanced themselves.  Even the license tag on my car reads “EmotBal.”  Though scars can still be seen, and some healing still occurs, the deep wounds themselves are no longer operant.  I have had the good fortune to learn “emotional literacy” and move from being a “recovering angry person” to an “emotionally balanced person.”
By just looking at the changes I have made in my own life, it is clear to me that achieving “emotional literacy,” when applied to humans as a group, is a cultural, personal and social revolution of unimaginable scope.  When a sizeable portion of the parents in the world are able to raise children who recognize the earth as a giant school, where each experience is an opportunity to learn and following their emotions provide navigational tools for life, then the problems and travails in life as we know them today can no longer exist.  Instead of violence, drug abuse, hatred, fear, war, misery, jealousy, pain and loneliness, human beings will be free to live successful, happy, supportive, growth-filled, intimate and loving lives.
But it’s going to take a lot of work!  Now, however, our work can create incredible and heretofore impossible change, not only on a personal basis, but on a cultural and worldwide basis.  For the first time in human history we are fully conscious:  we know that each of us creates our reality and that by changing the beliefs in our heads, the “self-talk” we repeat, and by working with our emotions as tools and friends, we absolutely can positively and permanently improve the quality of our individual lives, while collectively doing the same for our world.  
As we learn how, and as we work toward achieving this state of emotional balance, we can also teach what we are learning (preventively) to “new arrivals,” our children.  As each of us does his or her part in accomplishing emotional literacy, the pieces of the human life-quilt will be placed in a new pattern, providing each of us with a new sense of identity and supporting us in working lovingly together.

How Do We Initiate the Change to Emotional Literacy?
Start in your everyday life.  Because of the principle “That to which you pay attention, you tend to become,” paying attention to your emotions will bring them to the foreground.  Once they come foreground, you are free to explore them and learn about each emotion.
Learn about what causes anger (a violation of what you think “should” or “should not” occur), or jealousy (a mental computation that someone else is getting something you can’t have).  Face your fear of loneliness, identify the source(s) of your shame and allow yourself to know and pass through feelings of grief.  Explore each emotion.  Learn what it signals to you.  Learn how to work with it so that the emotion teaches you, and then without judgment, passes through and out of you.
Mentally go back to the origin of each emotionally-charged event and release the emotion, rewriting each experience for yourself as an affirming and empowering one for you.  If this work is too difficult or frightening to do alone, seek help with a therapist, counselor or clergy.  Before you stop, identify (by asking yourself what you might possibly be trying to learn from each emotionally-charged experience) the lessons/signal this emotional response offers you.  Finally, learn the lesson and set a new course of action for “next time.”  
Only now—after you have fully explored and learned from your emotional reactions—are you ready to share your emotional learning with others involved.  When you do so, think about how you can share whatever you have experienced, seen and learned, without blame, manipulation or retaliation. Here is a format you can follow in sharing your learning with others:
1.	This (describe in 3 sentences or less what it was) was my experience in relation to you.
2.	When I had this experience with you, I felt ______ (insert your emotion—be careful not to use the word “that” because it is usually followed by “you” and will be blaming)
3.	What I would like to experience next time is __________ (keep to 3 sentences!)
4.	If things can be done differently in this way, the positive benefit to you is ______.
5.	Will you help me by changing the way you do things, as I change ________ in myself?
By communicating your observations, feelings, needs and requests in this way—but only after you have completed your own emotional processing—you will be encouraging those in your life to become your growth partners.  They will help you heal emotionally from your past, while you simultaneously help them to heal from theirs.  This, after all, is how the “relationship system” is designed.  Relationships are not about finding someone and holding onto them—they are about growth!
As you become increasingly emotionally literate through identifying, processing and sharing your feelings in this way, you will learn to accept whatever answer your growth partner(s make to this fifth step.  S/he will be free to answer “Yes” or “No” to your request for behaving the way you would like, next time, even if it is an answer you don’t like.  Emotionally responsible, you are then free to decide what you will do, based on their clear response. Together, you will help each other to grow emotionally, thus improving the quality of your life.
The idea behind “emotional literacy” is eventually to be preventive in helping people develop so they do not have to undergo years of emotional healing.  Right now, however, enough of us have been emotionally under-educated and damaged that we cannot bypass the healing.  We are charged with the job of using the knowledge, concepts and skills of “emotional literacy” simultaneously for both healing and for parenting/educating our children, the “new arrivals.”  In the meantime, we can collectively envision a day when emotionally literate people joyously experience, encounter and use their emotions, sharing them openly and responsibly in their quest to use them for personal and social growth.  Our emotions will resume their rightful place as tools for navigation of a loving, joyous, empathetic, peaceful and full life.
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