The Transcript: The one about Emotional Literacy
🎙Listen to the episode on: Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple podcast or Google podcast.
Vera: The Everything Else, is powered by Inc. and Abstracta.
Mer: Hello? Hello. Welcome back. Thank you for tuning in to the everything else podcast. We are excited and a little bit nervous because this is… what? Take 170. We had a couple of technical issues. And so we are recording for the second time after having recorded.
So also a little frustrated. Yeah.
Vera: But also grateful that we have a second chance and hopefully our sound is better at this time.
Mer: Good. All right. So how are you guys feeling on the other side? Happy, tired, relaxed, pissed off?
Vera: All right. Take a few seconds to check in on yourselves and see what’s going on inside you.
Ready good. Because this episode is the one about emotional literacy. All right. So I didn’t say ‘hello, anyway
Mer: Hi Vera All right. So, you know, every time we do an episode on something, something happens related to that. So today all of our frustrations and our fears are mixed up in this emotional literacy. We’re going to see how it turns out.
So emotional literacy, you said, right? Emotional intelligence we’ve heard a lot about, and today we’re focusing on this close relative, maybe a cousin, emotional literacy.
Vera: Yes. This episode we’ll be discussing what emotional literacy is, how to get more literate and why it’s relevant to talk about this.
Of course, we’ll give you some hacks on how to embrace the complexity of emotions to connect with yourselves and others.
Mer: All right. So let’s briefly go over what emotional intelligence is first.
Vera: All right.
Mer: Can you help me out?
Vera: Yes. Last episode, we talked about purpose and the traction it has gained. Right? So something similar happened 25 years ago with emotional intelligence, Daniel Goldman’s book was a best seller and it was everywhere, right?
Mer: Yeah. Everyone was talking about it. And in education, Howard Gardner had also implemented this view in the eighties to challenge how we saw or thought about intelligent people. Right? So it put the topic on the table and it made many people change how they viewed themselves and others.
So instead of taking “intelligent” People as the ones who had good grades, the ones who were good at math or language, and therefore the ones with high IQ scores.
Vera: Exactly. So intellgience became these more varied field where we were recognized as for our other strengths. This was a paradigm shift. Right. And you know, that means that some people take this today as obvious, totally integrated to their life views and others are still getting there.
Mer: Yeah. And when people say, oh, he’s brilliant. What does that really mean? Right. So these paradigms, like you said, they still co-exist. And the thing is that the relevance though, of interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence has been thoroughly studied and discussed. Right? There’s no question about it
Vera: Yes. And very, roughly speaking to you guys, but we could say that these two intelligences that Mer was just mentioning interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence in Gardner’s words, is what makes out Goleman — what Goldman defines as emotional intelligence.
Mer: Hmm. But we said that we were going to talk about emotional literacy.
So… what is that?
Vera: So that is a term that was coined by Claude Steiner and used extensively, since the end of nineties, it refers to the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions, how they play out in you, and then being able to read emotions. And figure out how they are feeling to empathize with them.
Mer: So to quote Steiner to be emotionally literate is to be able to handle emotions in a way that improves your personal power — I like that — and improves the quality of life for you. And most importantly, the quality of life of the people around you. So in other words, if you understand your emotions, their are varying degrees of intensity and where they are rooted. You’ll be able to manage them because you understand them. Piece of cake or what? that’s done! Finished! Episode’s through.
Vera: Just do it. Right. So the difference between emotional intelligence, this term that we have heard so many times before, is basically the understanding that emotional intelligence refers to the innate dynamics, right?
This personality dynamic like you are intelligent or not. And the term emotional literacy places, the emphasis on a skillset on strategies that we can have, to understand emotions and that this can be trained. And improved.
Mer: Good. And that’s why we like this term so much, because it means that we can learn, you can still do it. And that is literacy. Like we learn to read and write and how learning that opens so many doors to us. And like with literacy, if you can do this in more than one language, it gets to open more doors for you even, and like a language it is a process. I want to take a second here. It’s a process and it might take time, or it will take time.
Vera: It will take time
Mer: Exactly. It’s a question of starting, right?
Vera: Yes. Reading emotions, our personal emotions and other people’s emotions is a basic tool. And I say basic again because human brains are wired for this. Not because it’s easy.
Mer: Not because it’s easy. Of course.
Vera: Think about this, the human brain is the only living organ that reflects about itself …human brain, pfff…. but we don’t only reflect on us. Right. We also do this about others because we have always been trying to figure out what’s going on. Why do people do people do this? Why do these things happen? Right. So many areas of knowledge are revolving around this. And we will keep trying to figure out because some things are difficult to understand.
Mer: And although this view has changed throughout history, it’s now believed that we can learn to regulate and co-regulate our emotions
Vera: Co- regulate.
Mer: So co-regulate means that we regulate them with the help of others.
Vera: ahhh That’s interesting.
Mer: It’s been, that term has been thrown around a lot lately, so dealing with them in a healthier way, right. Even if we suck right now and discipling our emotions and how they affect others and vice versa. Right. We can learn, we can learn.
Vera: sure thing we can learn… recognizing emotional literacy, then, as a core skill allows us to believe that we can understand more heal and change. And the implications of that are pretty monumental aren’t they?
Mer: humongous. So lot of talk about emotions, right? So what are emotions anyway? What is that? So we
Vera: So Wikipedia..
Mer: that was an easy one.
Vera: Right? Wikipedia defines emotions are biologically based, psychological states brought on by neurophysiological changes.
Mer: Neurophysiological.. that was really clear. Thank you.
Vera: Okay. Biologically based psychological states that are brought on by neurophysiological changes.
Mer: All right. Biologically based psychological states. All right. Yuval Harari, in a definition that absolutely blew my mind and changed my perception, says that our emotions are algorithms… Whaaaat?!
Vera: you are out of this world. And you have this ability to summarize the ideas that… like nobody else. In a comprehensive definition. I think we should consider how emotions are basic reactions of the brain. And that’s why he says algorithms …because these are basic — these are wired in the most primitive parts of our brain and
Mer: What’s it called?
Vera: the amygdala,
Mer: the amygdala,
Vera: and that from the very beginning of our lives, if not before we start giving meaning to them, so that’s where the cultural part becomes, right?
So we go through this culture in the broadest sense of the world, right? We interpret everything from our worldviews that we build on with our lives. Now, through these lenses that we see the world, and as we’ve mentioned in previous episodes, those lenses are influenced, by the time we live in, the culture, we live in the language that we have experiences that we have life story, et cetera, all these are relevant in people, like the relevant people in their lives. Everything leaves a mark,
Mer: but they’re still involuntary biological processes..
Vera: Yeah. You know what I felt like you were saying. Yeah, yatta yatta yatta but these are biological processes..
Mer: because it changed my perception of it. right? When, I mean, it’s something that is involuntary and biological and we give meaning to it, but it’s still something that we can not control in the sense that it’s going to come up anyway
Vera: Exactly. But it’s AND, and that’s the key word here. It’s biological AND This other thing. But as Mer says, the fact that it’s biological.. it’s that we can’t help it, right? Feelings are feelings. This is a phrase that we’re going to repeat a lot because of this precisely thing, precise thing that we were mentioning of how these are biological processes.
Now we need to acknowledge them, respect them and not judge them so hard. Freud with his theories made it very clear more than hundred years ago that we are not complete rational beings, but emotional beings. So that feelings are part of our lives. Whether we like them or not.
Mer: It’s part of life. It’s shit we have to deal with.. no matter who you are
Vera: Very technical..shit you have to deal with.. I like that.
Mer: It’s one of the most human things that we can talk about, right? Whether we like them or not. Now, sometimes we get a little hooked on negative emotions, and I get the feeling that sometimes the negative emotions are expected to be suppressed in our culture. Don’t you think?
Vera: Totally. Dr. Susan David, she talks about toxic positivity as a thing of our time, right? All this talk, you know, about managing our emotions has led people to feel, even shame of their feelings and feelings, again, are feelings.. so by acknowledging them, I mean, accepting that we all have different emotions and by saying positive or negative, we are implying that some are desirable and some others are not.
Yeah. and we all have positive and negative emotions, all of them Positive and negative and emotions. You know, our thermometer, like last episode, we were talking about this. There’s a huge range of emotions. And then each emotion has different levels of intensity. It’s not the same, for example, to be angry than being furious, to be happy or being elated, apprehensive, or terrified. In pain or in agony.
Mer: Yeah. I think we’ve spoken about this before, how language shapes how we see the world, and it seems like a good place to start, don’t you think? Thinking about how we talk about our emotions, the words that we use,
Vera: Ahh, the words… language matters.
Mer: I think I’m going to get various t-shirts — feelings are feelings, language matters
Vera: language matters, words matter! They make a difference. Choosing the closest words to express how I feel- it’s at the heart of building the bridge to connect to others.
Mer: Yeah. And in this journey inwards, this is a good place to start. Find the language to say what you mean. Marshall Rosenberg, a man who I have become a huge fan of, a clinical psychologist, just like you…he is the founder of the Center of Non Violent Communication. He encourages people to study lists of emotions so that they can learn to identify how they’re feeling. Exactly how they’re feeling, right?
Vera: Or as close as possible
Mer: Yeah. We’re going to leave a link, uh, to an inventory of feelings in the blog, precisely from the center of NVC so that you guys can check it out.
Now, I know I — I’m a little rational, but this is too much, even for me, right. That studying, a list of emotions seems a little bit rigid, but it’s the beginning of literacy.. finding words to talk about how I’m feeling.
Vera: It’s like the building blocks to have this conversation. Right. I remember having many of these conversations in class, teaching English as a foreign language, actually we dedicate a lot of time to differentiate one word to another, defining them, or even trying to translate them to our own language.
Mer: Sometimes it’s not even possible
Vera: Yeah, because sometimes you mean different things with the same word. Each person has like a different image of what that means. And that is one of the many benefits, for example, of learning a foreign language: you reflect on the words. Still, like Gardner says, the level of focus on the.. on the nuances of language is more developed in some people than for others
Mer: Yeah. There’s always going to be that person who says, who cares. It’s just angry and that’s enough. Right. I don’t need anymore.
Vera: Yeah. We all know somebody saying that. And maybe at that point it was us, but more than one language is very enriching for literacy and for emotional literacy even
Mer: It’s like we have more tools, more worldview to build those bridges we were talking about. To express what’s going on and to connect with others.
Vera: Yes, we have. I always quote this very clear example of the word in Portuguese “saudade”
Mer: Saudade
Vera: you got to love that word, the depth of what it means to someone who uses it is not translated by using an equivalent in other language, like words like feeling nostalgia or missing. They don’t fully grasp what is described as saudade. It’s those words that are difficult to translate.
Mer: Saudade…I get the feeling when you speak Portuguese, you always have to move a little bit…saudade.. all right. So this in this place is where all the challenges of communication and interculturalism come into play. Right? Because they become really important to bear in mind.
Vera: Yeah. And we discussed these at length, as you can imagine, in episodes three and four of our first season. So you can go back there. Yes. To find more insights and hacks and how to work on those core skills.
Mer: So.. emotional literacy is our ability to read and express emotions in ourselves and in others. Let’s talk a little bit more about why we should learn more words to talk about them.
Vera: All right. So we were circling that idea, but let’s just say that by talking about our feelings, by putting them into words, the closest words — we give room to them. We acknowledge that they are there, that they are part of our psychological reality instead of suppressing them. Because the pressing emotions it’s like sweeping under the rug, you know.
Mer: they’re going to come out eventually. Right. Even if you try to deny them, it’s going to be channeled either internally or externally, but talking about emotion. Is not the same as solving them or trying to fix it.
Vera: Yeah. Not necessarily, at least not directly. And I can’t highlight this enough when people tell you how they are feeling. Many times you can’t do too much about it. And that’s okay.
Mer: Yeah. You don’t have to go into: “it’s going to be fine”.
Vera: No. And you don’t have to go solving the other person at their problems. You don’t always need to do something about it. Sometimes it’s just feeling and having someone else navigate through that with you.
Mer: mmm..It’s very important. And let’s clarify that this is for everyone, right? We’re not just, I know… I don’t even know how to go about this without bringing out the red flag of patriarchy, but it’s had a terrible effect on men and emotions.
Don’t you think? And despite being the core of who we are as humans, a lot of times emotions are sort of referred to as girly, right. Boys didn’t talk about emotions and I dare say that even today,
Vera: boys don’t cry, you know
Mer: Boys don’t cry. Yeah. It’s still ingrained in our brains and even today we’re taking it back by seeing bawling his eyes out after a match. Right? How how many videos did you see of that
Vera: How many reflections about that…
Mer: Yes. Or Obama breaking down in his speech about gun control. Men expressing and talking about affection. It’s a rare sight. It’s not something that most men allow themselves to do. And it is core to our wellbeing. And guys, you know, if nothing else convinces you in 1921
Vera: (laughing) 19 21, we weren’t even alive there!
Mer: (laughing) it’s because I can’t believe I’m talking about this shit in 2021. All right. So at this day and age, it’s, you know, being attunded to your emotions is sexy!
Vera: And being articulate about them sexier still!. So maybe I just, uh, I would just like to say here,
Mer: How sexy it is?
Vera: No! let’s recap,
Mer: So literacy in a very basic and literal definition is the ability to read and write, right? And this is strongly intertwined with language obviously. My kids have some books that talk about yellow is joy, blue is sadness, right? There’s a song about putting all your emotions in little jars, you know, putting them in the right order. It’s like inside out.
Vera: Songs books, everything!
Mer: Yeah, everything. But it’s kind of like inside out, really in, in a sense, right? At the end of the day, I feel after all of this investigating, I took a couple of courses. You know, it’s, it’s pretty much inside… it boild down to that, doesn’t it?
Vera: It boils down to that. But that, especially for young kids, works, because like in the film Inside Out, as we grow up, these basic emotions are there.
Now, as we grew up, as I was saying. These basic emotions become tangled. And if you haven’t watched Inside Out, go ahead and watch it. Now, ambivalence makes an appearance when you’re older, right? Yes. Happy. It’s mixed with sadness, angry, scared, and there’s more than one at the same time. And our vocabulary therefore needs to expand so yeah…And these are not in jars.. so ..the jar thing, no..
Mer: But finding words to describe them is just one step of this, because this is very dynamic, right? These words are not meant to be labels. This is something that I think are really, it’s really important.
Vera: So I’m going to quote again, our friend Dr. Susan David.
Mer: Hi Susan..
Vera: Hi. If you’re listening to us, we really admire your work. She mentioned ..she coined this word… this term of emotional lit — uh — sorry, emotional agility,
Mer: emotional agility. There’s another buzzword, agility,
Vera: agility… exactly. And taking that buzzword to emotional states puts the emphasis on the importance of embracing these variations and not judging them so harshly trying to understand, but not self imposing what you think you should be feeling,
Mer: (sigh) we’re always circling around the same issues.
Vera: Mhm..
Mer: We’re so stupid though, aren’t we?
Vera: We said no judging!
Mer: It’s so difficult no to judge! because it seems like it’s something that’s so easy to do, and yet it’s so difficult.
Vera: Yeah, and we get angry at ourselves for not being able to do it!
Mer: Exactly! All right… so there’s the judging again, right. In what you said and what I said, the labels and expectations that we put on ourselves and on others.
I remember once. You pointed out to me in a moment where I was, I must admit, heavily judging. And you said in Spanish, “no somos.. estamos.. it’s untranslatable right. “
Vera: Like saudade
Mer: it’s untranslatable, it’s something like, it’s not that we are…it’s that we are being at that moment. Right. And that stuck on me, the concept of flowing, of not categorizing.
It’s really hard, like we said, right. Our brains are obsessed with categorizing and labeling. Oh, you know, he’s aggressive, she’s violent. So -and -so is nurturing, so -and- so is positive and it’s hard to escape. And I think that there’s a certain inclination towards..there… there has to be a certain inclination towards some types of emotions, or are we not getting into that?
Vera: (laughing) Some people need more of these degree of certainty. They feel more comfortable where everything falls into a category. It makes them — it makes things easier to understand. Yeah. And we, you know, in a way we all kind of feel comfortable when that happens. Now, as we always point out, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift towards complexity and learning to surf through uncertainty.
And that is one of the skills we need for the future as well. So I know it’s muddier, it’s more difficult to sort things out, but come on, let’s do it. These are core skills. People talk about empathy, resilience, vulnerability as very easy things to do. And they all rely on recognizing, understanding and dealing with our emotions in a healthy way.
And that means that not being okay is okay,
Mer: because it’s okay not to be okay. Okay. I want to go back. Cause you mentioned something about these skills being the skills of the future, right? Empathy, resilience, vulnerability. And we’ve heard this in many talks, Yuval Harari, another guy that — Yuval… we’re going to talk about you a lot today also.
Um, but they’re talking about how these skills are — becuase we’re in a context of complete change, constant change, in a much quicker pace than we’re used to…being able to have these skills and this emotional literacy is going to pave the way for resilience in a sense. And resilience is THE skill that everyone is saying that we have to have -no matter what you do. It’s the only thing
Vera: getting back again,
Mer: getting back up. And you mentioned vulnerability, and I think that this is… this is another point. A lot of people are talking about vulnerability, but the difference between being strong and being vulnerable-
Vera: Exactly, because staying always strong is rigid.And something that is rigid, it brings us to the point of breaking and resilience and vulnerability.. they rely on accepting our fragility and that is not weak.
Mer: Yeah. Like the bamboo metaphor in Mulan.
Vera: Yes.
Mer: You have to bend so much because of the wind, but not, not breaking.
Vera: I’m moving as you say that
Mer: I can see she’s dancing. She’s doing the bamboo dance. I’ve heard of people referring to feelings as clouds, in this thing that you were talking about because they, they dissipate ..
Vera: or sometimes they get on you, right? Like a backpack cloud
Mer: and they follow you around well… but you have to …you can dissipate them, right?
Yes. And many of us spend a lot of energy trying to push feelings out in that sence, right? Not paying too much attention to them if they are uncomfortable. But when we see feelings for what they are, energy just passing through, waves of sensations that are not permanent. It takes a lot of pressure off it.
I did a meditation once that I, I always try and remember when I’m feeling like intense feelings, that they asked you to think about the feeling that you had. Right. And try and visualize it
Vera: Register it
Mer: Right, right. And they asked you: what’s the texture of it? What’s the color? And so like in your brain.. the more you focus on trying to describe it, the more it dissipates, like clouds, like it starts to disappear because it’s like you said, you acknowledge it and then
Vera: you put words into it and..with that process, the energy starts lowering the intensity of it starts lowering. That’s why speaking in therapy happens. And that is why also agility is such a good word. It’s accepting that we are — we were not there before, and they will not be there forever. Just like, like clouds, even if they are dark clouds.
Mer: Yeah, it’s gonna rain, there’s gonna be a storm… or a tornado
Vera: And I’m not saying it’s pretty to go through that . But then they will dissipate.
So let’s recap when we take feelings as a chance to understand, to identify them, to figure out how we are interpreting them, what story — to think about the story we’re telling ourselves about them, it’s a great opportunity to actually come out more resilient of things, of situations.
Like.. Okay, so this is what I’m feeling. Okay. What am I feeling? Oh, anxiety. All right.
Mer: Hello anxiety…. So we meet again.
Vera: Let’s let’s do this
Mer:, but it’s not a duel! That’s not the right tone then, it’s not. It’s like, oh, hi. Hi. It’s you again..I missed you
Vera: or not so much
Mer: But it’s recognizing what it is and why you’re feeling it, and trying to not say it’s fine. I’m fine.
Vera: Or I don’t mind.
Mer: I don’t mind. No, I do mind. Yeah, I do mind. Fuck it. I’m pissed off. I’m nervous. I’m disappointed. And that’s fine.
Vera: I don’t want to fail
Mer: and it’s not going to last forever.I’m afraid.
Vera: Yes. I’m afraid. I’m afraid…
Mer: It’s not that bad.
Vera: I really care about this…
Mer: yeah There is this feeling that you have to try to not care about things in order to…
Vera: let go.
Mer: Yeah. Not be hurt, maybe.
Vera: mmmm…
Mer: All right. Okay. Go on…
Vera: I really think that we need to be very explicit about these things so that we acknowledge all together that feelings are ambivalent and that is understandable. Right, but this makes sense.
Mer: And that we all feel them and, and that it’s okay, and that we don’t have to push them out, like you said. In a lot of meditations and mindfulness courses, when you do them, when they talk about emotions, they talk about being, well, okay, not judging and being kind, but also finding dignity in your emotions. And at the beginning, I was really surprised. The word dignity, like, why? It’s related to what you said before about shame, right? Why would I have to find dignity in an emotion?
Vera: Because we are bombarded with this toxic positivity that Susan talks about. All this talk about happiness, but this tone of entitlement, you know, as something you deserve, that you came to experience and you know, life is tough. Sometimes life is complex.
Mer: mm… I feel we circled around this conversation a lot in our special episodes, especially the one about parenting
Vera: yes.. the idealization of things, right? Yeah. Now, that is the beauty of how these topics also are discussed also in all our common episodes.. but anyway.
This is good news, because if we deal with this better as adults, we will make things easier for future generations. And that is why also they are intertwined. Right? More mature.
Mer: Now you said feeling something doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to act on it, or at least I interpreted this
Vera: Right. Let’s get back to that then.
No, it doesn’t mean that you have to act on them. Feeling is not the same as doing- another t-shirt for you!
Mer: This is, um, all right, this is like a central part to this regulation part that we were talking about. I want to talk a little bit more about that space between the stimulus and the action, right? as your friend, Victor Frankl says. I’m guessing this space is important to stop being reactive, uh, which in essence is a way of regulating my emotions, right?
Vera: Yup. Identifying feelings is necessary to consciously choose what to do with them, because we can choose. We can always choose.
Mer: I got goosebumps witht that,
Vera: Hmm. And remember you don’t go dismissing Viktor Frankl as naïve — he’s a concentration camp survivor. He says that it is that space that protects us from our more self destructive emotions
Mer: This space between what I feel and what I do
Vera: Exactly. And this is what is at stake when people just react, right? Not choosing consciously what to do with these feelings they’re feeling. You take actions, that can be even definite actions for momentary situations… because emotions are momentary.
Mer: It seems very basic, but it’s very profound, right? You’re taking actions that can be definite for momentary situations, or momentary feelings.
Okay. So when talking about managing emotions, I think we also have to admit that there are varying degrees of intensity, and this might be where the difficulty of finding that space between the stimulus and the action might be, right? Um, this not only depends on the situation, but also on the purpose -on the person.
What triggers different states of arousal in your body varies from person to person from their context, their history of trauma.
Vera: Totally. It’s the intensity. It’s like the volume, you know, some volumes are very hard to deal with.
Mer: I was interested in a neuroscience term, the window of tolerance, a term that was developed by Dan Siegel.
And you can visually imagine this window as a band above it is hyper arousal and below it is hypo arousal. Now, when a person is within their window of tolerance, and this is different in every person, they can effectively process these stimuli. You can think rationally and make decisions calmly without feeling.
Feeling, it’s not that you’re not feeling emotions, right. You’re feeling a range of emotions, but you don’t feel overwhelmed. And when you’re outside of this window above or below this band that we’re referring to you can’t process stimulate effectively. The thing is.. that everyone, as we said has different windows, so some are more narrow or wide. And if you window is narrower, you might feel that your emotions are a little more intense and difficult to manage.
Vera: that’s the word right? Manageable. Or too much. It’s not like, here, it’s not like less is more. No, no. We’re talking about manageable fluctuations. Sometimes the peaks or the peaks or the lows are too much. And then… we need help. We need help from others who can make it more bearable, you know, and this is when therapy or even meds come in as great help
Mer: Yeah, so that you don’t feel like crushed under it, right. Either to take the weight off of it.
Vera: Exactly. So I know I don’t need to be promoting therapy here anymore, but I can’t stress enough how great it is to have a space where you can revisit the story we are telling ourselves about ourselves, where we feel really safe and not judged. And the other person has tools to reframe those stories that are doing more harm than good. If you don’t doubt that story at a point… if you don’t doubt that inner voice, there is no way of shutting it down.
Doubt is actually good. Hearing yourself is key.
Mer: You know, that I was thinking about that film Lucca.
Vera: Yeah. I haven’t watched it yet.
Mer: The guy has a voice that speaks to him in his head that tells him that he’s afraid. Right. And he’s like, callate Bruno. And he calls it, like, a specific name.
Vera: I remember in a beautiful mind, it’s a more extreme case, but in a beautiful mind, it’s, it’s not realistically depicted, but it’s beautifully depicted, right? Like, okay. You’re there. Okay. But I’m moving on anyways.
Mer: Yeah. And you mentioned something that I think is key also, uh, the story we’re telling ourselves,
Yuval Harari has talked extensively about our story telling capacities, as humans, right. And our story, believing capacities. I feel people don’t focus on that. And it’s pretty amazing.
Vera: Ah! he makes a great point about this. Yes.
Mer: Now we are really fucking good at making up stories and believing them. Throughout our existence as human beings, we’ve made up the wildest stories.
We have built movements around them because the stories are. And we are inclined, we are wired, like you said, to believe these stories, it’s part of what makes us human. Right? So we understand that, when we’re talking about, you know, religions and movements, but sometimes I think we underestimate the power of the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves and about others that we end up believing.
Vera: Yeah. Brené Brown also talks about this. These are very elaborate stories that we make up, right? This is unconsciously- we end up believing sometimes things that end up becoming truths to us. And that in itself, as you were saying is a very powerful statement. We should always check with ourselves the story we are telling about a situation about another person about ourselves.
And I, because we were talking about literacy and how we can change these things, we can reframe those stories. Take perspective. You never know who can reframe it for you though therapy, for sure, but sometimes in someone you don’t even know.
I’m going to illustrate this with a story. My husband and I spent many years trying to get pregnant and it was a hard process and he definitely had different moments, but I was once in a dark place, you know, like self pity, grief, mellowing in it.
I just couldn’t get out so easily out of it. So I took a trip with a friend to change air. And I was telling this story to someone, some random person, I didn’t know much in the hostel. And I was telling this story, and you know, when you talk and you tell a story, you always tell it in a way that’s very similar to the way you’re telling it to yourself…
So I was telling, yeah. Like, you know, in this very mellowy tone, like self pitying, and the other person goes, “oh, really? You’re starting a family”. That is so beautiful! That was..
Mer: where you not even listening to me?!
Vera: Ad that was was mirroring to me what I was not seeing. You know, the other person, the perspective this person was taking, moved me directly from where I was standing. And then we moved on to another topic. But for me, that was huge. So, thank you. If you’re listening.
Mer: Thank you random person who didn’t understand what I was saying.
Vera: And that’s exactly the thing. He did not understand exactly what I was saying, but he showed me a different perspective. Right. So instead of focusing on what was not happening, this person helped me see what I was not focusing on. A change of focus. That is a very good way to illustrate that.
And you know, that magic is like a super power. Yeah. We can all be heroes. We can all change lives. We can all help each other.
Mer: Thank you for sharing that reframing is also important because it reminds us of the different views, this otherness, right? The fact that our reality is nothing, but the story that we tell ourselves and everyone tells themselves a different story.
It’s like, we’re all in a parallel movie, or in parallel movies or hallucinations or something, that sometimes touch and feature other people. It’s like you do a cameo. I do a cameo in your life. But really ..
Vera: each of us see things from our own perspective and our own psychological reality.
Mer: But the issue that I find here is that because we’re so good at believing them, that we think that that is the reality. My reality is what is.
Vera: Right. Exactly.
Mer: I was thinking, as you were telling your story, that it’s not only the story, but the intention behind it, right?
Like you said, that, that tone. And that inevitably brings me to the conversation of not only what we tell ourselves, but how we talk to ourselves. How do you talk to yourself? What do you call yourself? What tone do you use? Would you use that tone with other people?
Vera: Would you tolerate if other people use that tone with you?
You know, this is a huge issue. Self-talk. Being aware of this is a game changer. Look at Simone Biles in the Olympic games, we all see this amazing athlete and she hears demons in her head. She says that at least. And I think it’s very brave of her of saying it.
Anorexic people, they see somebody disgustingly fat and we see skin and bones.
Depression: they see somebody not worthy of being loved and they are so convinced of that, like we were talking before, that they eventually end up pushing others to try to convince them too.
Mer: When talking about PTSD, we tend to think of huge trauma. Like a lot of times –
Vera: what is PTSD?
Mer: Post traumatic stress disorder, right? And we, we tend to think of huge trauma, like people with, with, um, more difficulties tragedies, and many people respond to trauma with that pity look, right? Tilting your head to the side. “Oh, so sorry”. Right. But we all go through our own battles and it’s not always about what happened, but how we experience it
Uh, we could even say that we come into a trauma filled world, right. With a history of unresolved collective trauma. But the deal is, it’s not exactly what happened, but how you live it, right? The story that you tell yourself about it.
Vera: Yeah. You know, the more I hear people’s lives stories, the more I connect to the feelings of admiration and compassion.
Mer: Yeah. Both of them. And a lot of times we don’t know where these feelings are rooted. We don’t know what the baggage, the other person is carrying, is right?. We never ever know..
Vera: Well, but if we listen, we can know a little bit more for listening we need to give the other person time and space to do so, you know.
Mer: Time and space, but also not judging because, um, when you listen to the other person’s story, it might not seem — if you just listened to the story with your own, uh, view — and judging, it might not seem like it’s a big deal
Vera: thing to stop your own inside voice, right?
Mer: Yes. Yes.
Vera: And for not judging something that it’s very important to connect. It’s the feeling of compassion, because we are doing the best we can with what we’ve got and only, you know, what that is
Mer: That seems key here because sometimes. We, we want people to move or to do something. And sometimes they don’t… they can’t.
The idea that everyone, every single person is doing the best they can is revolutionary for me. I didn’t believe it before. It took me some time to understand that when the first time I heard the concept, I was like, fuck no! There are some people who are not doing the best they can, right? Um, but yeah, it took me a while to understand.
In Non-Violent communication — I’ve done a couple of courses and I found it to be really life changing — as I mentioned before- so I’m going to be bringing it up a couple of times. Marshall Rosenberg divides emotions into two categories, right? Feelings when your needs are satisfied, and feelings, when your needs are not satisfied, right?
Not positive or negative, but the underlying understanding here is that there is a basic human needs that is universal, right? Some basic human needs that are universal to all humans across cultures. Needs like connection, physical wellbeing, honesty, play peace, autonomy, meaning, right? Like every single human and every single country has these needs. When these needs are met, they trigger emotions. So in essence, all of our emotions have a met or unmet need behind, behind them.
So in observing ourselves deeply, and this inward looking we’re talking about, we can try to identify the needs that we have, right? What’s behind it. This, where it’s rooted? Meet the need, as Rosenberg says.
Vera: I, I, you know, I find this very humanizing because we can all relate to these needs. Could we, could you repeat them please?
Mer: There’s a lot, but I mentioned: play, uh, honesty, autonomy, meaning peace.
Vera: Connection
Mer: connection. Yeah, connections is another one.
Vera: So we can have conflicts surrounding the strategies that we can use to meet these needs. But we all have the same needs and finding out them, finding out about them, what the driver of an emotion is, the reason of my, my algorithm was triggered in the words of Yuval, Noah Harari. Yes. This, uh — even understanding why my need is not met, this can help me understand and come to terms with the emotion a little more.
Mer: It’s the same with the emotions you mentioned before. I don’t have to solve them. I can have a need and it can not be met, but understanding is already paving the way right
Vera: you said providing some dignity, having compassion about it, giving it time for you to process what you’re feeling right. But not feeling pity.
Mer: not pity. That’s exactly it, in self-compassion we look to ourselves, but we don’t judge ourselves.
Vera: Yeah. Well, it starts there. Right? Self-compassion how you’re talking to yourself. What you’re saying about yourself, because we are with others. Right? So improving our relationships with ourselves, inevitably results in better relationship with others. So we can all be agents of change. If you think of it like that.
Mer: That’s beautiful. So to recap, to improve this relationship with myself, awareness of my own emotions, the reasons behind them, and self-compassion, it seems from this, that empathy and compassion for others won’t happen until we can give it to ourselves first.
Vera: Exactly. And then interpersonal part has a lot to do with understanding, reading what is going on in others, you know, sensing the tone. Yes. That is fundamental for empathy, but even more essential is not judging, not just seeing the other, but not judging them. You know, sometimes it feels like it’s as simple as let it be..
Mer: let it be,
Vera: but it’s not so simple, right? So for leading, empathetic listening and empathic leadership is not mushy, soft or less… it’s core. We need it to connect with others to build bridges, to lessen the loneliness. And this has again to do with sometimes proposing a different way, a smile, a gesture. So the other person feels safe. You know, we can establish intimacy, even in large groups, like a wink at a student, a comment so the other person feel seen, even if he or she is feeling blue, that they feel heard… or even making it safe when you see the person, how they get upset or not taking it so personal or dramatic,
With Lu, one of my colleagues and teammates at Abstracta, we have developed lots of inside jokes to mention when either one of us is not having a good day, like through humor — humor that we both agree on- we’re not, we’re not pulling each other’s legs
Mer: what? It’s funny! No.. It’s not funny if it’s only funny to you.
Vera: Exactly. So this is our third culture. We can say at the time we aren’t going through this and we can have a short check-in in every meeting that we get together. And with these key words, we already know where each of us is standing. Right? and that is great. Things don’t build up there. We don’t dedicate lots of time interpreting one another. We] minimize the noise, because remember, feelings are feelings. Sometimes you net you need to let them be, not act upon them, not solve them. Just let that space between stimuli and action happen to make things clear, to see things clearer,
Mer: take your time so that it happens
Vera: as a friend of mine used to say a lot. Sleep on it,
Mer: Sleep on it. Now hearing what you said, hearing you say that though, got me thinking about how reading the other person has a lot to do with face-to-face interactions… the details, right? The tone of voice. The volume, the body language. Um, I think it’s a huge challenge for remote teams and asynchronous communication.
Don’t you think it’s much harder to read people’s emotions through zoom in general, but also without the camera on? Speaking through text messages or audio, sometimes it’s a little bit easier, but when you don’t have the other person there to inter- that it’s not interpersonal.
Vera: Yeah. But it’s like with everything in communication, right? We need to.. both parts need to be willing to build the bridge. So whether it’s on zoom or not, if the other person is not willing to build the bridge, it’s much harder.
Mer: So in conclusion, this is my, my conclusion. The more I read, and the more clearly I see that the pathway to rescuing our mind many times can be the body. We’ve talked a lot about this, right? About how it’s biological, how you have to look at your cues from your body. Meditating, mindfulness, exercise, breathing, even vision, the way that we intentionally look at things, it seems to be the path to rescuing,
Vera: Yeah. I’m going to add some suggestions of my own.Like my, my combo is music dancing and sun exposure, you know, channeling emotions, endorphins and vitamin D. Which is not really a vitamin and it does magic.
Mer: I love the quote by Andrew Huberman who puts it as it’s futile to try and rescue thinking with thinking.
Vera: Ooh, can you repeat that again, please?
Mer: It’s a great quote. Isn’t it? It’s futile to try and rescue thinking with thinking sometimes, right?
Vera: Yeah, because we are afterall, body mind and spirit.
Mer: many times the same biological reactions that are set off in our bodies through our thoughts can be reverse engineered through the control of our body, which then controls our brain..
Stop the story, feel the body they say
Vera: another t-shirt
Mer: All right. So we’ve rambled on for quite a bit. She’ll we go to the hacks?
Vera: Yep. Let’s do that.
Vera: Know yourself. This is still a good advice after all these centuries. Know yourself and know your body cues, your physical cues, register them.
Mer: Yeah. Um, we, we mentioned in, in the other episode how, um, some people think that algorithms know ourselves better than we know ourselves and that’s gonna play out really strongly in the future.
I think what we have to remember is what, what algorithms are doing and what they’re going to do by measuring our, I dunno, biometrics, is it they’re paying attention to the cues that we’re not paying attention to. It’s not that they know us better. It’s just that we’re not paying — we’re not focusing- on the things that we should be focusing.
So this brings us to the second point, right? Connecting to your body. As you said, finding out how emotions show up for you. Right? Is it, um, did you get goosebumps? Did your eyes swell up? Did you do your voice sort of get cut off because you were emotional? Is your volume really high? Ah, do you feel pain in your chest? a throbbing and your legs?
Pay attention to those things. Go to therapy, use grounding tools like meditation, mindfulness hypnosis, yoga EMDR, even. And remember, at some point, as Huberman says, it’s futile to try and rescue thinking with thinking. So take care your biology sleep well. Eat well. Exercise. Many of the answers are there.
Vera: Hack number three. Let it be. Paul, are you there?
say how it feels to you? Don’t fix it, be there. And if somebody opened up to you, honor the intimacy that’s important. You know, not just when they open up afterwards too.. follow up, reliability, you know, is very important to build trust.
Mer: I like that. Number four. Press pause. Before you react, check in on yourself, what are you feeling? Where does it come from? What is your need? I did a mindfulness course with Oren Jay Sofer and he had this great tip. Right? When you think of an interaction that you had, that didn’t go well, observe what happened and how you felt and why you think that was. And in that last question ask yourself, what would I have liked happen in this interaction, right? What would have been a positive outcome and then ask yourself if I had that, then what would I have? And then again, if I had that, what would I have? And then, go ahead and continue asking yourself that question until you feel that you’ve gotten to the core of it, which Rosenberg would say is this universal human need, right?
Vera: Yeah. That, that is a great exercise because making those hypothetical questions through language allows us to imagine different outcomes and try something new, like trial and error. Keep trying.
Mer: Yes. Number five, ask for help. If you’re not feeling that you can cope with your emotions or that too many times they become unbearable, right? When the volume seems too loud. I like the metaphor that you used ask for.
Vera: Yeah. Ask for help. Psychological tools, you know, are hard to master at first it seems counter-intuitive many times. It takes active effort. You need to be brave to face these things. Sometimes you just want to sweep under the rug, but then after a while they become part of your skillset. You know, it becomes a part of your new year. That version of you that you intentionally work towards to feel freer, you know, in John Paul Sartre’s words, feeling free is what we do with what was done to us.
Poof, I’m very light today!
Mer: I always thought Sartre was wonderful. Um, yeah, and I think it’s important that, you know, small tweaks sustained in time are like rain, you know, that eventually erodes the rock. Uh, you, you can change small things. It doesn’t have to be huge. This, the new you, that you mentioned, doesn’t have to be radical change.
Vera: No, it won’t be. For it to be authentic. It won’t be, these are not, there are no easy fixes for it. It’s a process.
Mer: All right. That, my friends, is a wrap.
Vera: So our sigh… Mer, how are you feeling?
Mer: Well, I’m not feeling frustrated anymore. Cause I think it went well, nothing turned off or broke. I’m feeling a little ambivalent. I’m. But a little bit exhausted. This was intense, wasn’t it?
Vera: Yes.. It was intense.
Mer: What about you guys on the other side? How are you feeling right now?
Take a moment to explore it and listen to yourself. Hopefully your inner voice says “I’m inspired. I’m loving the shit out of this podcast.”
Vera: If that is the case, remember to share it with others.
Mer: All right. Thank you so much again for honoring us with the gift of your time. We will be back in a month and meanwhile, remember to focus on the everything else.
Bye
Are you following us on social media? Join our community. This is an ongoing conversation. We are the everything else podcast on Instagram and Twitter. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from.