Jefferson Fisher

So having increasing emotional capacity for that vocabulary is going to help.

Number two, I would encourage you

rather than saying things that criticize him for not expressing his emotions, I would encourage you to use open-ended phrases that would help him kind of go on this fact-finding mission of what exactly he is feeling.

A phrase that we like to use and a phrase that I love to give people is this question, what's coming up for you?

What's coming up for you?

It's a very nonchalant, non-offensive, non-defensive way of saying what's happening inside of you right now.

And I would even say some baby steps to take is see if he can even begin to express his

the feeling without trying to tie it to emoting it.

So if he was able to say, I'm feeling sad right now, even though his face doesn't say sad, or if he's feeling angry right now and he's not able to express that anger, just saying it is at least giving you more of an idea and comfort because it's actually comforting him knowing that they are sharing this feeling.

They're just having a hard time expressing it.

And three, I would encourage you to take it slow.

Emotions are not things that can just be turned on like a switch as much as we would like them to be.

And so how do you do that?

Some with a lot of patience and knowing that

it's gonna have to be developed.

If there was other questions that I could give you other than what's coming up for you, it would be what emotion can I best help you with?

Or are you feeling emotions right now?

Is there something that you are feeling?

And if he's not able to name it,

It's kind of this, you have to take it baby steps.