When I was in 7th grade, my junior high school required all students to take one quarter of 4 different languages: Spanish, German, French, and Italian. Learning new languages after the age of 10 is an incredibly difficult process that requires months or years to be able to speak it competently. Learning languages has major benefits on brain development and can improve your brain’s neuroplasticity, improved executive functioning, improved cognitive flexibility, and better memory storage and retrieval.
Unfortunately, I did not put in the work as a young lad necessary to master a new language (although I speak un pequito Español). However, my personal work in therapy over the past 10 years has helped me to become competent in another language: the language of emotions. Emotions are the body’s method of communicating vital information about how we are experiencing the world around us. When we learn to truly attend to our emotions, they can give us insight into what we need to feel secure in our environment.
Learning the language of our emotions also has major benefits on brain function. Actively working to identify and understand emotions exercises the Anterior Cingulate Cortex, a brain structure in the Limbic System of the brain, which is responsible for emotional regulation and impulse control. This is incredible because this means that just the act of identifying emotions helps in regulating them! This is a difficult process though because it forces us to attend to unpleasant emotions that we would often rather ignore to avoid the discomfort they bring. Try paying more attention to your emotions and see the benefits that learning this language can bring!
Here is a brief list of common difficult emotions and what they mean:
Sadness: The body’s response to loss or disappointment
Hurt: What is happening to me is not good for me and something needs to change
Anger: The body’s response to emotional threats to self and injustice
Guilt: What I did is not in line with my values
Shame: The false view of self in response to guilt (commonly in the form of negative beliefs)
Frustration: Putting more energy into a situation than you are receiving back
Loneliness: The perceived lack of connections (including a connection to yourself)
Learning the language of your emotions can be difficult but you don’t have to do it alone. If you want help learning the language of your emotions feel free to reach out to one of our therapists today!
