"Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt."
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, 1921)
Roughly translated, he says "[t]he limits of my language mean the limits of my world." Imagine the walls around us when our vocabulary is not as expansive of our experiences. Emotional granularity is our ability to differentiate the specificity of our emotions, which is positively correlated to our mental and physical well-being.
Wittgenstein also argued "God" has different meanings in different communities that requires understanding context and the experiences of the user within the linguistic community. Are we even talking about the same thing?
Rice is a big staple in many Asian cultures, and therefore, many of the Asian languages have numerous words for rice, from the various types to the various stages of the rice production process. However, in English, rice is limited to one word (albeit differentiated by adjectives like brown or white).
In addition to vocabulary, context is a big factor. During my time in Asia, I learned that although many Westerners think that sarcasm doesn't exist in Asia, it is a lot more subtle than the American version. Even my mother and cousin (stone skipping (part 8)) always seemed to miss how my father and I communicated with our sarcastic banter (full circle (part 5)).
When he recently asked me what I thought he felt when his ex said something to him, I thought he was asking me to guess his response, rather than that he struggled to find the description to the emotion he was feeling. He could only distinguish it as 'not feeling good'. From his musings, it seemed to me like saudade (part 1), a Portuguese word that doesn't have a direct translation to English. I recently struggled to explain my love for surprises with what seemed like a disproportionate amount of giddiness at the experience, that somehow was perfectly defined as pū'iwa in the Hawaiian language.
Our ability to properly identify emotions equip us in not only sharing our experiences with others but also with allowing us to properly regulate them. Identifying the accurate positive emotion would enable us to replicate it while identifying the wrong negative emotion would completely throw our body and nervous system in the wrong direction.
For most humans, our main emotions are happy, sad and angry. Language doesn't just carry the emotions but it changes it for us, in how we navigate it in our lives. Even emotions like shame and guilt or anxious and overwhelmed seemed to be used interchangeably. Yet, guilt is understanding that what someone did was wrong while shame is believing that your whole being is wrong. Processing the former may take us to learn from the mistake and apologize, knowing it was a mistake that doesn't define someone, while the latter tends to take someone into deeper insecurities and 'shame cycle' that can result in allowing it to define us.
At the top of a taste of heaven, it took my breath away. When I have epiphanies like saudade (part 6) or experiences like sound healing, similar behaviors like tears of joy, difficulties catching my breath, or goosebumps and feeling small and connected to the world. Yet, one is awe, where I step back and let it unfold before me while the other is wonder, piquing my curiosity to want to learn more, often a sign of positive reinforcement from my higher self that I am at the right place at the right time.
When we tell ourselves that we feel 'overwhelmed', our body tends to shut down, making us incapable of making good decisions. Brené Brown (stepping out), who has spent decades researching shame and vulnerability, notes that this emotion is one of many in the 'things are uncertain or too much category' and rather than letting it shut us down, we should take a moment to better define the true emotion whether it is stress, dread, fear, vulnerability, etc.
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| Source: Atlas of the Heart |
"Merry Christmas, I'm so thankful for your friendship and guidance through my shit, I'm excited to turn the corner and make this year my bitch/heaven on earth...😘😘. You are amazing and I hope you have a great day with the family. Love you too!"
To be told that someone resents you, especially in a romantic relationship...well, it's the first time for me. I watched how resentment over seven years destroyed a loving one as it was so deep that couple's therapy couldn't heal the deep scar tissue. He did things for her because he loved her. From her point of view, she never asked him to make such 'sacrifices' and thought he just 'wanted' the same thing. In the end, they were his choices that he never communicated/narrated his process nor treated her as a partner-in-crime so that they could make the decisions together. He resented her for not appreciating all the things he did. In the end, they failed to understand his love language (words of affirmation) and failed to treat each other as 'us'.
It still is unclear to me what I am being resented for...that we enjoyed each other's company so just hung out a lot or that he loved me and doesn't want to. When someone asks me to come over or 'what are we doing for dinner', I took those as invitations of someone wanting me to be present. I wasn't aware of any 'sacrifices' of not hanging out with others, for example, and it came off as if somehow he was blaming me and/or angry at me for it. Coupled with his request for me to role play 'goth', including incorporating an ad-hoc choker, only to be asked if I wore it out in public.
'Resentment' falls in the category of 'we compare'. Marc Brackett, founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, maintains that resentment is part of the 'envy' family, rather than the 'angry' family. With the situation of my friends in the seven-year relationship, his anger was more at himself for not being able to 'ask for what he needed and acknowledge his limits'. Unfortunately, this was projected onto his partner.
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| Source: Atlas of the Heart |
Buddhism has a term of 'near enemy', which in its original context, is about a behavior that seems to be for a spiritual purpose that because of intent, in reality got in the way of one's spiritual growth - like grand gestures of acts of service being done more for the acclaim and attention rather than to give back to the world (tonight) and pay it forward. In the context of emotions, the view that jealousy equates to love which reared its ugly head during my first relationship (reclaiming the cunt (part 5)).
Attachment is the near enemy of love...the conditions of someone loving another because of the person loving in return, or because something is needed by the other, or condition of changing the other person, something I've always resisted in my relationships (me love you long time (part 7)). Attachment grasps, fear, and possess while true love allows, honors and appreciates. The near enemy of connection is control, and trying to control one's emotions rather than just feeling and being. Trying to control when or how one may love another seems to separate us from ourselves and understanding our inner map, holding us back from truly connecting to others.
I can only own my understanding of my inner map and emotions. The limitations of someone's vocabulary in their emotions makes it more challenging to believe their communication (or hunch with the overlay of my experiences) as to their experience. Applying my recent learning of detachment and ATTUNE-ing (saudade (part 6)), rather than feeling the various 'Empathy Misses' that one could easily get caught up in the hurt of judgment, blame and disappointment, compassion and understanding requires me to be more inquisitive, the real question to him is ... 'What do you need that you're not asking for?'
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