The Power of Language
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Have you ever had a conversation with someone in your life and walked away feeling completely misunderstood? If you are like me, I bet you have! Similarly, it is likely that you’ve had conflicts that resulted in not understanding the perspective of another.
These “misunderstanding” moments happen all the time based on interpretation and subjective processing. Your perceptions come from the experiences you’ve had, the sources you believe and the emotions you feel. From these vast differences, problems are sometimes likely to arise.
When it comes to communicating our emotions, human beings don’t always get that right either. Our lack of ability to name and describe our emotions limits our ability to get our needs met.
For instance, if you are high in reason and logic, you may lack empathy and a deeper understanding and language of emotion. If you are emotional, you may struggle with irrational emotions, affecting how you speak your mind (which influences the outcome).
Your ability to language your emotions, thoughts and needs can be a key to understanding others — and for others to understand you. When you can access the right words, it helps you heal, learn and connect better. This requires you to share your feelings accurately and skillfully, promoting problem-solving and solution-making. A lot of times a person’s skills fall to one side only (i.e. being skilled at emotion or skilled at logic).
As a clinician, I often mentor clients in the “Wise Mind” framework to help them understand and address problems. This approach originated from Dr. Marsha Linehan in Dialectical Behavior Therapy and was made popular in the early 1990s. She describes three ways to approach any problem:
Reasonable mind: Ruled by facts and logic; cold and task-driven (absence of emotion)
Emotional mind: Ruled by moods, feelings and urges (absence of logic)
Wise mind: The combination of reason and emotion working together in rhythm
The Wise Mind method is not a compromise between emotion and logic but rather a collaboration of them. It is about using both sides — regulating back and forth — because both are important to the process and outcome. The emotion side is essential to connection with self and others. The logic side is important to staying calm and driving solutions. When you are able to marry these polarities, you have a formula for cultivating creative connection, which drives resolve.
Learning how to understand and speak to your emotions takes effort. I recently read that most people use about three or four emotion words in their internal dialogues and in communications with others. Yet some researchers have identified that there may be up to 150 different emotions! Most people do not really understand the unique differences among the many feelings they have, nor can they define or share them properly.
Let’s apply this. Imagine having a very difficult day. Based on your circumstances, you might not have to even imagine this challenge. Let’s say that you worked hard on a stressful project last week, wasting 15-20 hours because you were given inaccurate information. You looked less than competent in your work meeting because of this error. As a result, your anxiety has escalated and you vent your frustration to a colleague. The underlying feeling you have is embarrassment, but the expressed emotion to your friend is anger. How does expressing anger differ from sharing embarrassment? Does this message of anger affect how you feel, think and manage the situation? Does it affect how your friend responds to you? It might even influence how much effort or time it takes to resolve the issue. This spiral happens all the time. Having a conversation about disappointment is very different from venting anger for both participating in the conversation. If you don’t understand your feelings accurately, you cannot express them well. Your language about what you are feeling and how you interpret the challenge affects your relationships and the outcomes you seek.
Let's consider these two language examples — identifying helpful and harmful ways of communicating emotion — using the scenario above.
Hurtful self-talk: “This project was so stupid! I work with such incompetent people and now I am deep in the hole and don't have time to fix this. This is all their fault. I hate my job! I am so pissed off!”
Helpful self-talk: “I am very disappointed that I spent many hours working on a project with the wrong information. I could have focused on other items and now I am behind and have to start over. This is not going to be easy. I am going to have to ask for help.”
Hurtful communication with others: “______ really screwed this up. I worked so hard last week and no one appreciates all the work I have been putting in! This job is killing me!”
Helpful communication with others: “I am confused about how this outcome happened. Could we sit down and go over where the mix-up occurred so that we both learn from this for next time? That would help me resolve my disappointment.”
When you take time to ask yourself what you are feeling, exploring the deeper emotions underlying your initial reaction, you can better speak to your needs, learning lessons from the struggle. When you are clear about how you feel, you have a better chance to be clear with others about what you need from them, holding to a helpful mindset. The Wise Mind tool is helpful because it covers both elements of the resolve process. Instead of operating from your strong side, it encourages balance from the other side. This inclusive approach will help you focus on your strength and exercise your growth at the same time.
Stress is something we all experience and struggle with in our lives. We will always have it.
By working emotions and logic together, you can help your relationships with others and resolve problems skillfully. Keep working on this emotional literacy so you can work through our emotions and direct solutions to your most difficult moments. This effort will produce healthy results!