Introduction
Have you ever been in a position where you felt like you could label everything that you’re going through but you can’t really feel it? It’s frustrating when you know the words but can’t have the physical experience of the emotions that you are going through. This has something to do with having too much emotional literacy. Emotional literacy is the skill of recognizing emotions deeply and being able to articulate it well. Having a sufficient amount of emotional literacy is a good skill to have. But, sometimes, knowing too much without being able to do anything about it becomes a problem. This is the paradox of having too much “emotional literacy”. In this blog, we will delve into this exact paradox and how it feels like to have the words for your problem but not the experience for it.
The Double Edged Sword
When you are emotionally literate, it is possible that you can understand why others feel the way they do. You might be able to navigate through conflicts easily and know why you’re feeling a certain way. But that’s not always a good thing. Sometimes, you might realise that your awareness about your emotions can’t really be switched “off”. Every feeling or emotion might feel familiar to you, something that you always saw coming. You might feel taken advantage of for your ability to empathise with others most of the time, even if you do not agree with them.
How Burnout creeps in
Being excessively aware about your emotions can bring out a sense of exhaustion every time you face a situation which brings up a lot of emotions or a deep conversation with your friend. Emotional burnout can manifest in different forms. Some of these forms are-
- Cognitive overload- this occurs when you constantly track your feelings and emotions and analyze them beyond reason which finally leaves no time for mental rest
- Meta-emotion spiral- this materializes when you feel bad about having a certain emotion that you didn’t want to have. Since you are so aware of your emotions, when they occur, you feel like you should have control over them. And when you can’t control them, separate emotions come up in order which usually surround around guilt, sadness, anger etc
- Empathy fatigue- usually occurs when you’re carrying a lot of emotional baggage for emotions that aren’t even yours. Considering that you’re aware about your own and others emotions’, you might sometimes be excessively empathetic and understanding for others because you know where they are coming from. If this might come at the cost of your own feelings, it will cause fatigue
Role of cultural pressure
With the advent of therapy culture and its portrayal on social media, there has been an increasing societal desire to be “emotionally woke” and “self-aware” about your emotions. This causes emotional intelligence to be another unpaid job where you try to spend excessive amounts of time to decode your and others emotions. Soon, before realising it, emotional awareness becomes a performance rather than a skill which leads to excessive amounts of guilt during situations when you are aware of your emotions but cannot regulate them for some reason. Therefore, societal pressure around being self aware and emotionally literate is something to keep in mind if you find yourself wanting to dig deeper into your emotions solely in order to fit in with others.
How to protect yourself?
To keep your emotional literacy from slipping into exhaustion, it’s important to set boundaries around how and when you engage with your feelings. Start by practicing selective attention by choosing moments when you don’t need to analyze every emotion in depth and just let yourself be present. Use empathy budgeting to decide where your emotional energy goes, saving it for the relationships and situations that truly matter to you. Make room for emotional rest by doing things that don’t require self-reflection such as playing a sport, cooking a meal, or getting lost in a craft. And most importantly, give yourself permission to feel raw emotions-the unfiltered, “first draft” version of your feelings,before you rush to interpret or label them.
Conclusion
In the end, emotional literacy is a skill that needs to be valued, but overdoing it can lead to harmful consequences. It’s important to recognise when to use the skill and when to step back and let yourself truly feel the emotions without trying to decode it all the time.
