Gemma Spake

And they're like, cool, this is a great way that I don't have to ever feel any of that.

I can just be mad and mean.

this is something a psychologist friend of mine said to me a few weeks back.

I was talking to her about this episode.

She says, she said to me, so often our emotions pair up, like they come in pairs.

There's the real emotion and then there's, it's like bodyguard who we see and feel first.

Like the thing we have to do is push past the bodyguard to see what's actually behind what

the bodyguard and see what the true emotion is, which often is quite a vulnerable emotion and quite a weak emotion, hence why it needs the bodyguard.

So I think part of processing our emotions is just initially asking ourselves, is this what I'm really feeling?

It's like this anger, this jealousy, this outrage, this shame, is this really what I'm feeling or what am I trying to hide from here?

What's the bodyguard covering up for?

Another good way to do this is just a quite simple,

expand your emotional vocabulary beyond just happy, sad, angry, even just fine.

We all use these words a lot.

I use these words a lot, but I bet you like quite often these words don't actually properly describe the emotional state that you are in.

Giving yourself more words to work with to correctly identify what it is you're actually feeling is so helpful.

Literally, you can go online right now, find a massive list, copy it into your notes app,

When you're angry before bed, whenever you need it, find the word that you actually think best matches what you are sitting with rather than just, I'm not good or I have to be numb because I don't have the words.

Psychologically, this is tied to a concept known as emotional granularity, which is your ability to identify and label emotions with precision.

Emotional granularity is actually, it's a really new term.