David: Welcome to the Sage Solutions podcast, where we talk about all things personal growth, personal development, and becoming your best self. My name is David Sage, and I'm a self-worth and confidence coach at Sage Coaching Solutions.

Anna: Today's episode is not exactly a part two, but it does build off of the information we shared in our previous episode. So if you haven't had an opportunity to listen to the last episode, it may be helpful in order to fully understand what we're doing today.

David: And the last episode was Emotional Awareness, whereas today's episode is on Emotional Expression. And if you're new to this podcast, the other voice that you're hearing is one of my recurring co-hosts, my sister, Anna Sage. But before we get into it, our goal with this podcast is to share free, helpful tools with you and anyone you know who's looking to improve their life. So take action, subscribe, and share this podcast with them.

To give a quick recap on our episode on emotional awareness, let's start with a definition: Emotional awareness is the ability to recognize, understand, and label your own emotions and the emotions of others in real time. It involves moving beyond basic feelings like good and bad to identify specific emotional states, such as frustration, anxiety, or gratitude, and understanding how those emotions influence thoughts, behaviors, and physical reactions.

Some of the core components are self-recognition, identifying what you're feeling as it happens; emotional literacy, having the vocabulary to differentiate subtle feelings, such as distinguishing anger from underlying hurt; understanding triggers, recognizing why a specific situation or thought caused an emotional reaction; and empathy, tuning into subtle visual, vocal, and situational cues to recognize what others are experiencing.

Emotional awareness forms the core foundation of what's often referred to as emotional intelligence or EQ. It's very hard to manage or regulate an emotion if you can't first realize what you're even feeling.

Anna: One of the resources that we've been referencing throughout the last podcast and will continue referencing in this podcast is the work of Dr. Marc Brackett, specifically in his book Permission to Feel. In the last episode, we talked about two useful frameworks that came directly from his work: the first being an emotional grid in which the specific language of emotion is correlated with emotional states. So it helps you to be able to identify what emotion you're feeling by analyzing the degree of pleasantness and energy that's associated with that feeling.

David: It's formatted in a grid that ends up being color-coded into four different quadrants.

Anna: The bottom left quadrant is the blue quadrant, and this is associated with feelings that are both low energy and low pleasantness, such as sadness.

The upper left-hand part of the quadrant is the red zone, which is associated with high energy feelings, but also low pleasantness, like anger. When you feel angry, you feel high energy in your body, but you also don't feel good.

Then, the upper right-hand corner is the yellow zone. That encompasses the feelings we have when we have both high energy and high pleasantness, things like excitement. You feel high energy in your body and it's a really good feeling.

And finally, the green zone, the bottom right quadrant, is associated with feelings that are both high pleasantness and low energy, so things like peaceful, restful, good, calm, chill—any of those feelings that feel good, but don't really feel high energy in your body.

David: Just a reminder, a couple important words that we talked about and will continue to talk about in this episode were emotions, which are the objective words that we use to describe our response to a stimulus; drives, the motivations that are generated by our needs and desires; sensations, the physiological responses that are experienced in the body; and feelings, the subjective accumulation of experiences of our current emotions, drives, state, and sensations.

Our emotional state is basically roughly where we are on that graph: how positive or negative are you generally feeling, how high energy or low energy are you generally feeling, and all of those other things contribute to the state.

Then we have our moods, which are like underlying persistent emotional states or a state over time.

And lastly, we have our emotional affect. This is a long-term mood or disposition that we have over a long period of time—weeks, months, possibly even years.

Anna: Again, both the quadrant or the first framework that I outlined and all of the different words associated with emotional awareness are discussed far more in-depth in the previous episode, and we're just sort of reviewing them just to be—

David: Yeah, just a quick catch-up.

Anna: Yeah, so that as we mention them casually throughout this other topic, you have this background knowledge. Now, the last little piece of background knowledge we need before we can really jump into emotional expression and regulation is the second framework that Dr. Marc Brackett includes in his work, which is the framework that he presents as an acronym: RULER.

The R in RULER represents recognizing emotion, the U represents understanding emotion, and the L represents labeling emotion, which are the three parts of awareness that we went over last week. In this episode, then, we are focusing in on the E of that acronym RULER, E being express.

So, the next step in RULER is express. But it's important to note here that express doesn't just mean let it all hang out and just go berserk, right? There's a difference between expressing your feelings and just blindly feeling loudly. This is a lot of times where we see breakdowns in relationships, where we see harm being done, is when people express in a way that isn't actually helping them or helping the people around them to understand what they're feeling and how they can help them or how they can show up.

David: So how, in a practical sense, do we express these emotions, these feelings, effectively?

Anna: Well, there's a few different things here. Dr. Marc Brackett talks about how you need to really consider the situation that you're in in the moment that you're feeling these feelings. It's important to stop and consider: Is this the right place to be expressing what I am feeling? For example, if I am walking to go pick up some of my students from their classroom in the hallway, and I have something trigger some grief from thinking about something with John, it may not be the most appropriate time or place for me to just break down and sob, right?

David: Fair enough.

Anna: Yeah, so that is a huge part, is considering where are you, is this the time and place to appropriately be expressing things? Also, think about who's around you. Are the people that are around you safe and appropriate to be expressing this to? Same thing, when I'm at school and I have kindergarteners in front of me, I'm not going to just start bawling and talking about my grief. They're not the right audience or the right people to be sharing that with, or if I am sharing it, I have to consider how I can share it in a developmentally appropriate way that would be appropriate for them.

David: Sure. So obviously, there's some appropriate and inappropriate ways to share or express your emotions with children, but also it sounds like there's social context, like maybe don't express a bunch of your emotions to a random person that you're sharing an elevator with for 10 seconds.

Anna: This actually happened once, can I share? Will and I were getting a sandwich at Jersey Mike's, and the lady said, "How are you doing?" And I was just overwhelmed and overcome by so much that was going on in life, and I was like, "Well," and I just started sharing, and she looked at me like, "Oh no, what do I do now?" So yeah, maybe don't just, like, unload everything you're going through to the lady that's making your sandwich.

David: I had a similar, but reverse, thing happen, where at work at the forum, on my way to my floor, I was like, "Hey, how are you today?" and it was somebody I'd never talked to, never even seen there before, and she was like, "Terrible," and then she basically just started telling me, like, hyper-intimate things about what was going on with her and her boyfriend's—

Anna: Oh, my.

David: —and how she wasn't sure if he was cheating, and I was just like, "I don't know what to do with this. I'm also only in this elevator with you for the next 20 seconds. I don't know how I could possibly help you."

Anna: Right! So actually, this is a perfect example of the other piece that I was going to get into: You need to consider your situation and your audience, but you also have to decide what your goal is in sharing what you're feeling and expressing your emotions. If your goal is to get support, have somebody understand what you're feeling, getting some resolution to move forward from whatever caused you feeling that emotion, all of those things would be appropriate to do with the right person in the right time.

The lady in the elevator is likely not going to get resolution for all the things going wrong in her day from some random guy she sees for 20 seconds. And by just blurting out everything going on, she's overwhelming the listener, so she's definitely not going to get her goals met, whatever they may be.

So, I guess starting with decide what your goal is in expressing your emotion, and once you have that determined, along with what you are feeling, what caused it, then you can decide the most appropriate way to express it to try to meet that goal.

Now, I fully recognize that the way I just laid that all out sounds so super and great and ideal, and oversimplified almost. And you're not always going to be able to step back, have the awareness of what's going on within yourself, be regulated enough to be able to go through all of those considerations. I just admitted I did it, too. I was that lady! I was in a moment where I didn't regulate enough to be able to realize, "Hey, sub lady doesn't want to know that I just lost my stepdad," and, you know?

But this more so maybe once you've developed some awareness and, as we'll talk about later on, some regulation first, maybe before you share with the person, stepping back, having these thoughts and determining this, and then going into a conversation after the fact of the huge emotional expression in that moment.

David: Right, and real life is messy. You're not going to be perfect. We're all human.

Anna: Sorry, I'm just remembering the sub incident. Will was horrified.

David: God, I kind of wish I was there, but I also kind of wish—I'm glad that I wasn't.

Anna: Poor guy. He's like, "I still want to date you."

David: But I think what you're getting at is more almost like the ideal. This is what you're aiming for. These are the skills that you're building. It's not always going to be perfect. Don't beat yourself up for not being perfect. Like, it's a process. We have to build the muscle.

Anna: Mhm. Yeah.

David: Are there ways that we can express our emotions without verbally expressing our emotions to other people?

Anna: Oh, for sure. And before I go into those nonverbal communicative ways of expression, I do want to highlight that expressing our emotions can be a form of relationship currency. And by that, I mean when we do it in a way that is with the right person, under the right circumstances, in the right setting, it can help deepen your connection with people. It invites others to be able to support you, to be able to connect with how you're feeling and understand you better. And when we express our feelings clearly and respectfully, our relationships generally improve rather than suffering.

Now, some people listen to that and go, "No, if I share, they're going to be freaked out." Well, maybe it's because you did it in an inappropriate way. It's all about finding the right way to do it. And when you do, it's actually the opposite: You actually tend to deepen things and improve your relationships with people.

David: So this is like vulnerability, basically.

Anna: Absolutely.

David: This is where the power of vulnerability and its ability to connect you to other people comes from. It's this showing of imperfection, and that often connects other people to you because nobody's perfect, and they've felt these things before, too, usually. Once again, in a socially intelligent manner.

Anna: Right. And I mean, when I was younger, I would always rely on being able to talk to you or to my mom or to my best friend to process through and share and express. And eventually, I started to feel a little bit like a burden because they were always listening and always there, and I didn't want our only point of connection to be when they're supporting me or allowing me space to process.

So I sought other avenues to be able to express and get what I need fulfilled, like journaling. I have a journal that I write in that helps me just process through and express what I need to, and then kind of move to a place of thinking through, okay, what do I do from here without having to have that be on another person all the time, at least, right?

David: Mhm.

Anna: Other things I might do is put on some music and dance. Sometimes I don't know exactly the words or what I need to say, but I just I know what kind of song will help me feel the way I'm feeling and make me feel seen and understood and give me permission to express through movement.

David: We're also going to touch on the fact that expression can be a form of regulation, but we'll get there in a second. So, it sounds like you touched on some of these other nonverbal ways of expressing your emotions. You can also think through them in your head because you may not have a great situation to be journaling, granted you could do it on like a note in your phone or something. But there are times where you just need to give yourself maybe 30 seconds to just process through and feel that emotion internally because there's just no real external way to express it, and that's obviously suboptimal, but it's better than nothing.

Anna: Right. So, something worth noting is when expressing emotions, there are societal display rules that vary among different cultures, different societies in the world, but they all have different unwritten rules that are widely agreed upon, widely understood in that society, and they act as guidelines for how, where, when, and in whose presence we can express our feelings.

David: And a lot of these are not explicitly stated. They're more implicitly understood.

Anna: Mhm. And that's why I mention unwritten, right? It's not like it's a rule book we all follow. It's just if you weren't to follow them, people might look at you weird, like the lady at the sub station, or you talking to the lady in the elevator being like, "Uhh," you could sense discomfort if you're not following them.

David: Right.

Anna: And something else to note here is that there's many different nuances and factors, not just societally. This also includes your gender, your race, your age, your social status, your relative power—for example, like a teacher versus a kid, there's a power differential there.

David: Right. Another example would be a boss and an employee.

Anna: Right. And all of those things interplay in what those display rules are. So, something really interesting that Marc Brackett notes in his book, Permission to Feel, is an example of how those display rules play into effect when we express emotions publicly versus privately. Keep in mind that this example, much like many of the examples I give, is in the context of education since Dr. Brackett typically works with applying these things to the field of education, but it's also relatable in any context, any work, right?

So, reading directly, quoting directly from the book, he says: "In public settings, I'll frequently ask educators, 'How many of you are in the yellow or green or green quadrant?'" And remember, those yellow and green quadrants from the tool he presented in his book are those high pleasantness states.

David: Yeah, the high pleasantness quadrants. The yellow is the high—is the high energy version and the green is the low energy version.

Anna: Sure. So when he's asking publicly, "How many of you are in this high pleasantness state?", nearly everyone will raise a hand. And then he tells that same group that in the confidential surveys, people report being in the red or blue quadrant, so those quadrants with low pleasantness states, roughly 60 to 70% of the time. So it's fascinating to think mostly positive feelings are reported when asked in public, and mainly negative are reported when the question is posed privately.

David: So this starts to get into the way that we naturally answer when somebody says, "How are you doing?" and we say, "Good, fine, I don't know, living the dream, can't complain"—that's one of my favorites. What is actually happening there is less so about wanting to know somebody's actual emotional state often, it is just like a quick little social check to see if somebody has the baseline social awareness to know what the appropriate response is—all subconsciously, of course.

I do think that this also starts to bleed into the concept of emotional labor. And this is really just a form of emotional conformity.

Anna: Yep. So connecting these concepts, display rules are part of emotional conformity, which is the pressure to perform and fit in a way that would be emotionally acceptable. And emotional conformity relates directly to emotional labor, which is describing the effort that's required to manage the way we express our feelings. So emotional labor is the effort needed to be able to perform and fit that pressure of emotional conformity.

David: And so the labor comes from both internal resistances around the emotions and external forces such as conformity or specific social pressures from individuals around you, as opposed to like an overall social conformity. You really do need to think about other people's boundaries when you are expressing your emotions.

Anna: Right.

David: Just like vulnerability can connect people, trampling on somebody's boundaries can repel them. In general, you may not explicitly know random people's boundaries, but we can make safe assumptions that the random person that's never talked to you before doesn't want to be emotionally dumped on. We can assume that they have that boundary because almost everyone does, and therefore choose to not violate random people's boundaries or even clearly set boundaries of other people.

Anna: Yeah, I totally agree, because we need to remember that communication and expression with another person is a two-way connectivity, right? We have to both honor what our listener and the other person we're engaging with needs and honor what we need ourselves, and clearly communicate that.

So that could also look like setting some boundaries off the bat before you start sharing. Let's say I decided I need to feel understood and that's my purpose in sharing with you. And so maybe I start the conversation with establishing that: "Hey, do you have a few minutes? I probably need about 10 minutes of your time. I just need you to listen, and I just need to feel like I'm being understood."

David: Sure. You're not looking for them to solve your problem, you're just looking for them to listen.

Anna: Yep. And that can prevent a conflict right there. Because I know sometimes, especially people that take pride in being somebody who's a problem solver, either in their work or in their relationships, they can just automatically go into, "All right, how can I help you? How can I get this resolved? Let's fix this," and you may just be wanting to be heard and be acknowledged and understood.

David: And this is a little bit stereotyping here, but if you do look at male and female psychology, in general, men tend to be quicker to jump to solving problems. And women tend to, once again, statistically speaking, tend to be better at just actually being there and listening. And so for the men listening to this, it might be hard for you to not want to just solve it—I feel that, too—but if somebody tries to set that boundary and you try and solve it after they've set that boundary, you are making it worse. You are not actually helping.

Anna: Mhm. So establishing, "Hey, here's what I need." Maybe even things like, "Can you please just put your phone away? Because I really need to just see that you're listening to me right now." Even small things like that can make a big difference, so that you aren't getting upset with somebody if they're looking down at a text message, but you never established, "Hey, that makes me feel like I'm not being heard," you know?

David: Yeah. No, I mean, that makes perfect sense. And I'm going to make one last little note on vulnerability before I forget. Vulnerability does leave you vulnerable. So that means you do have to think about whether the person that you're sharing with is going to be safe to share with, or if they're the type of person that might take advantage of something like that or use it against you. I'm not saying you should always be guarded, but there are situations where it is not a good idea to be vulnerable with certain people or certain people in certain states or whatever it happens to be.

And the other note I want to make on vulnerability is that we've talked about like the social intelligence of sharing it and whether that kind of makes it vulnerability or not. But also, there sort of has to be a little bit of a feeling behind it. This was something that I stumbled upon from Mark Manson recently, where even if it sounds like you are factually sharing many intimate details about your life, if you are not having any emotion behind it, that may not actually be vulnerability.

Anna: Mm.

David: You can share lots of things, but if you're closed off and not in it, you're just sharing it like it was something you were reading off a paper, that may not actually be vulnerability, and it's not going to come with the connection that comes from vulnerability.

Anna: Mhm.

David: So it's just another thing to think about. That's why it's expressing emotions, right? Not just telling facts.

Anna: Yeah, and this is something that came to mind for me, too. On the other hand of it, if somebody comes to you and is expressing to you, it's important to honor the fact that they may be being vulnerable, and that may come with a lot of discomfort if it's something that they are not used to doing. Maybe they're taking a huge risk. Maybe they've tried being vulnerable to somebody else and got completely shut down or rejected, and this is their first time opening up again and knowing that it could result in the same response.

And in that case, you not only have to consider your intention in listening to them, but also how you're showing up, so that you aren't accidentally sending signals to them of, "I don't care," or "I'm not listening to you," or "This isn't important to me," right? And I think this is especially important when it comes to phones and work. I'm totally guilty of this, almost everybody is: It's so easy to be so caught up in multitasking and doing six things at once and somebody's sharing with you, and so you're just like, "Yes, I am listening, but I also have my phone in my hand because I'm scheduling this," and that, even though your intention may be, "I am listening. I'm showing up for them, I'm just also doing other things," the signals you're sending is, "Yeah, this isn't important enough to take up all of my attention right now."

David: Mhm.

Anna: And so, when somebody is sharing with you, what can you do to signal to them, "I'm here completely. I'm listening, I'm considering what you're saying," with your body language, with your face, with your tone, right? With even how you're thinking while you're listening. A lot of people get in the mindset of they're listening, but they're listening with the intention of, "Okay, what am I going to say next?" rather than just giving them space to hear and thoughtfully consider what they're saying, and honor that, like, there may be gaps of uncomfortable space or gaps of just quiet while you consider, "Okay, how do I respond?" And that's okay.

David: Yeah, this reminds me a lot of when we talked about listening in several different episodes, specifically probably starting with the mindfulness episode that Mom did, where she talked about mindful listening, where you are present and you are approaching with curiosity and non-judgment when you're listening. We also talked about slightly different, but very similar, in the curiosity and critical thinking episodes, we talked about listening with curiosity.

And we talked about active listening, I think during probably that one, and also the one on how to win family and deal with difficult people, how active listening is one of the best things that you can do for your social interactions, because most people just want to be listened to. And if you can increase the amount of questions that you're asking about it and responses, hence active listening—you're not just listening, but you're showing that you're engaged—that can really help as well.

And there's also a difference between having follow-up questions, which show that you were listening, and thinking about your follow-up questions instead of actually listening. We made a pretty clear distinction between hearing and listening: Hearing is the physiological, sensory intake of sound, and listening is actually comprehending it, bringing your attention to it.

Anna: Yeah, I think that's an important distinction to make. So when you're in this vulnerability conversation, when you're either the listener or the person sharing and being vulnerable, I like how you mentioned to listen with curiosity and not judgment, to really be in a place where you're listening first before you are actively engaging with questions and things that dig deeper. And in doing so, you're empathizing, and you're trying to understand situations in your own life where you might have been feeling that feeling to help them really feel understood.

But one important consideration here, both as the person listening and as the person sharing vulnerably, is that what you share or what someone else may share with you could provoke something negative in the other person. It could make them triggered or make them experience something that they're not prepared to deal with or control yet. And it's important in those scenarios to be mindful of that and accepting of there may be a point where they have to set a boundary and saying, "I hear you, I care, but I just can't talk about this right now."

David: And this is often what people mean when they say, "I'm feeling triggered." And I want to double-click on the fact that you said that this applies both when you're thinking about how somebody else is receiving you, but also for yourself: You may get triggered by something somebody else is saying, even though that wasn't their intention.

Anna: Right, and you saying, "Hey, I want to be there for you, but I can't continue this right now. It's just it's too much for me," isn't communicating, "Oh, I don't care, I don't want to listen." It's also okay for you to care for your emotional well-being and set a boundary if that's what you need, too. It should be mutual.

David: And being triggered a lot of times is related to traumas that you may have experienced in the past. That's not the only reason, but it's definitely one of the most common reasons why somebody would get triggered. And then I just want to quickly and softly touch on "triggered" is another one of those words that does sometimes get a little overused, so if you're going to use it, make sure you're using it consciously and with good intent, not just anytime you don't like something.

Anna: Agreed. Agreed. And reflecting a little bit more on this, if that is a scenario that you're in, it might be helpful to, at least some extent that you're comfortable with, give some context of, "This is reminding me of blank, and so it's just in this moment I need a little bit of space," or even to offer, "Can I take some space and come back to this with you?" so that they know it's not like you're just shutting them out, you're just also honoring what you need.

We're in a space where it's appropriate to share, with the right person that's safe to share to, you've explicitly set some boundaries of what you're expecting or hoping to get out of this and what you need from the other person—

David: Assuming those are necessary, right? Some of the time it's you can just share.

Anna: Sure. I mean, with my best friend, we may have already established this a long time ago, we already are very comfortable sharing and know what the other person typically needs, but you might need to clarify, "Hey, normally I approach you like this. Today I just need you to hear me," or, "Normally I just need to be heard. Today I really need you to help me figure out what do I do from here?" So once you've established those things, it's important that you're mindful of how you are communicating what you are feeling, too.

David: Yeah, let's get into some strategies of how to express your emotions. We talked about some nonverbal ones, but like ideally, the best way to do this is verbally, right? So I know in therapy, there is a lot of talk of "I" statements, and I think when they are done correctly, they can be incredibly helpful. Even just shifting from things immediately starting with "you" to "I", even when they're done incorrectly, at least it shifts the focus from entirely on another person to starting with you.

Anna: So for example, rather than saying, "You made me feel so angry when you—" you may start with, "I am feeling really angry right now."

David: So an incorrect "I" statement could be, "I feel really angry when you—", which is still better than just "you you you you you", right? But it's not much better, right?

Anna: "You did this," yeah, but it's still blaming. No, because it still feels like, "Okay, so you're telling me how you feel, but you're still blaming me for your feelings?"

David: Yes, but the point is, whenever possible, focus on "I" and not "you". That's a really good starting place.

One of my personal favorite strategies, and we've talked about this before, is like taking the fact that we know that we are narrative thinkers: We are constantly telling ourselves stories about things, and just blatantly calling it out and saying, "The story that I'm telling myself is—"

Anna: Yeah.

David: —and it might be about the other person, but you've now made it very clear that this might just be a story and it might not be true, which pulls the defensiveness way down because they can just tell you, "That is a story you're telling yourself." And this is especially useful in relationships. It's hard to argue what story you are telling yourself.

And another framework that can be used for communication in relationships, especially during a stressful situation, is the SEW framework: S-E-W, like sewing a hole in your pants, I don't know. It's meant to be unarguable communication, meaning you are doing everything in your power to make the statements that you're saying true statements that can't be argued, which helps prevent arguments from happening.

Anna: Mhm.

David: So let's start with the S of SEW: First, describe specifically just the sensations that you are feeling in your body, okay? We're not even to emotions. We're starting with the physical sensations that you are feeling. They can't argue whether you're feeling tightness in your shoulders. You're feeling tightness in your shoulders!

Anna: Mhm. No, yeah. And some other examples, like right now I just did a kind of body scan reflecting on and applying this first strategy, and I'm like, okay, my cheeks feel really warm, my heart is racing a little bit, my shoulders feel a bit tense. Yeah, I guess that's where I'd start.

David: Then, when you've gotten through the sensations that you've felt in your body, we move on to the next step. But why do we even do this step? Why does S, sensations of SEW, even exist? Couldn't we skip right to the emotions? Well, sensations forces you to get in tune with your body. It takes you into the present moment of the sensations that you're experiencing and out of your head. And because your body and your emotions are so linked, this puts you in a prime state for the rest of SEW.

Anna: But quick question for you, 'cause I'm imagining myself applying this in a real life context, right? Wouldn't it be a little bit awkward and weird to be like, "Hey, take a seat. I really need to talk to you, I need to feel seen and heard and understood," right? They sit down. Do you still start with that sort of boundary setting there? Because I wouldn't just be like, "Hey, David, my cheeks are warm and my—" Like, how do you do it in a way that isn't awkward?

David: Remember, SEW is not the go-to model for expressing your emotions anytime you are expressing your emotions. This is like the sledgehammer. This is the when you're experiencing extremely intense emotions, especially if there's a conflict involved. This is one of the best ways to express your emotions, especially if it has to do with the other person, right? If you're expressing emotions that don't have to do with that person, you might not need to use this method, because you're not worried about arguing with that person, so it doesn't have to be unarguable.

Anna: So would this be more like before you even engage with the other person, you pause, do a body scan and determine the sensations within yourself first, and then you could open the conversation with like, "Hey, I just checked in with myself. Here's some things that I'm feeling in my body," and then move forward? Because it would be a little bit weird, I think, otherwise, to just, like, walk up, and let's say it's a really heated moment, something just happened, and you're like, "My face is warm and my heart is—" Like, it would just, you know what I'm saying? How do you do it in a way that isn't—

David: No, no. Remember, for SEW, you're doing it when you're in a little bit of a conflict, when you're in a high emotional state and you're trying to prevent argument, and you wouldn't just say, "My cheeks are—" You would say, "Okay, the sensations that I'm experiencing right now are this," and then you would start listing them.

Anna: And you list them out loud to the other person, or is this something you do internally?

David: If this is somebody who you know intimately, you would be doing this out loud, because this is helping them empathize with those bodily sensations to put themself in like an empathetic state with you.

Anna: Okay, that's fair.

David: Once again, this is the method that we're using in much more extreme situations with people that you are close with, and especially your partner.

So I guess moving on from sensations, we then move to sharing your emotional state. Now, we're combining frameworks here by making this a step in RULER. If you've already been doing RULER, then you are already aware of your emotional state because you have recognized, understood, and labeled it. Now, it gets a little interesting here, because ideally you would be labeling it or saying out loud the specific, as exact of an emotion as you can, to the other person so that they understand as well as they can, including sort of a definition of it, or the actual feelings surrounding it, not just that word.

Not everyone has a huge emotional vocabulary, so it might, depending on the person, behoove you, or, you know—

Anna: Stop! You just said "behoove"? What?

David: It it might serve you—

Anna: "Behoove." Sorry. Go on.

David: I know. I couldn't help myself. It might serve you to use one of the base emotions, and then describe it much more specifically. So instead of using the term "indignation" that somebody may not really know what that means, you can say, "I am feeling angry," and then you describe the angry that you're feeling to have indignation or whatever other feeling it is actually encompass that they still understand.

Now, this is like a worst-case scenario. Ideally, you would share the exact emotion to make it clear, because when you do have to default to something like "angry" when all you're feeling is "irritated", you are making it sound like the intensity is stronger, even though you might be describing that it's not as intense. Just the fact that you're using that intense emotional word doesn't necessarily help.

Anna: So just to clarify and make sure I'm understanding this E step of SEW correctly, that emotional state: You said that it's important to identify and label the emotion you're feeling, and to explain it. Do you mean tell why or what's causing it as part of explaining it, or do you mean like—because I could see how it would feel almost condescending to be like, "That means—" and then like defining it for the other person.

David: No, no, no, no. I'm sorry, I can do a better job of this. So, you are naming it, and then you are describing your subjective experience of that emotion—the feelings you are feeling surrounding it. Remember, feelings are your subjective experience.

Anna: Right.

David: So even though we may be in the same emotional quadrant, our individual subjective experience of that emotion is different based on our everything: personality, upbringing, perspective of reality, focus, whatever it is—different situations, temperament. By expressing this range of emotions that you are feeling in a way that is not talking about the other person, whether it be some combination of emotional states and subjective experience of feelings, you are putting the other person in your shoes without truly keeping it to "I" statement-type, like, thinking.

Anna: Yeah, keeping it about you and what you are experiencing and helping to bring them into it.

David: And then, from a point of resolution, we move to W, which is what you are looking for. So this is how we then take it to what you are looking for from the other person. They can't argue what you want; it's what you want.

Anna: Right, so this is where I had kind of misunderstood this before, where I was like, "So how do you get into the whole sensations first step? Do you start by setting the boundaries of here's what I need?" No, this would be a little bit different. If you're using SEW specifically, you would do sensations and emotional state first, and then move into what you're looking for and setting those boundaries so that you can have a more productive conversation after.

Now, if you don't need to use SEW because it's not a—

David: Situation that calls for it.

Anna: Yeah, situation that calls for it, you could pretty much just go right into, "Hey, here's what I need," and then start from there. So don't feel like, "Oh gosh, if I don't remember all three of these steps and whatever, there's no other way that I can communicate how I'm feeling or any of that."

David: Right. This is just a tool that is very useful for important relationships in high emotional states.

Anna: And keep in mind, telling what you need can also look like some of the other tools that we've shared. This could look like, "Hey, I need to talk to you for a minute. I'm telling myself a story in my brain right now, and I just need to share it with you so that you can tell me if this is actually what's happening in reality, or if this is a story I'm telling myself and it's not even how you're perceiving this." And then going into, "The story I'm telling myself is blank," right?

David: The idea is that you are expressing regardless of what method you're using. It is going to come with using the correct emotional state, or, if necessary, a simplified one that you are then giving the context towards the right one.

Anna: All righty, so bringing it back to RULER: We have recognized the sensations in our body, we've understood what has happened to create this sensation in us, we've taken the time to label our emotion and feelings accurately, and we've evaluated whether or not this current circumstance and who we're around is appropriate to express what we are feeling.

David: So we've covered a lot of ground in this podcast talking about emotional expression and what it is, giving a quick little recap on the parts of RULER that make up emotional awareness. We discussed a series of different frameworks, tactics, strategies, and methods for expressing your emotions, including doing it internally, journaling, "I" statements, "the story I'm telling myself", and setting expectations or boundaries when necessary.

We discussed how emotions, the expression of emotions, and boundaries interact, both when it comes to other people's boundaries and our own. We talked about the social aspects and norms of sharing emotions and how it's different from culture to culture, and we discussed how emotional expression plays into vulnerability. In our next episode, we'll be closing out this kind of sub-series on emotions by talking about emotional regulation.

And remember: You are enough, and you deserve to fill up your inner cup with happiness, true confidence, and resilience. Thank you for listening to the Sage Solutions podcast. Your time is valuable, and I'm so glad you choose to learn and grow here with me. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on more sage advice.

One last thing: the legal language. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. No coaching client relationship is formed. It is not intended as a substitute for the personalized advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.