Mood Identification

 "If we can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health."-Fred Rogers

For some of us Mr. Rogers and his neighbor taught us a lot about how to treat ourselves and others while entertaining us too. If I was home sick from school Mr. Rogers is what I would request to watch. This last week I started to take an online college course and the quote from Fred Rogers was in the class notes. It really stuck a cord with me and set me to thinking about how we teach our students about feelings.

I recently started reading the book Maybe You Should Take to Someone, by psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb and she also talks about the topic of how we address feelings. She states that often times women have the advantage over men when it comes to talking about feelings. She states that this is due to the fact that young girls are taught that it is alright to feel while young boys are often taught to be tough. 

Today, as we learn more and more about the human brain, we learn that we need to teach our children how to talk about feelings. There is a saying in psychotherapy "you have to name it to tame it." Simply put, if you want to understand and better handle an emotion, you need to know the name of the emotion you are feeling.

In his book, Permission to Feel, Marc Brackett a professor at Yale, introduces us to the Mood Meter. This graphic is a great way to start introducing feelings and talking about which we are experiencing. 

The X axis is the Pleasantness of the feeling and the Y axis is the Energy of the feeling. When we are low on pleasant and low on energy we are in the blue zone feeling; tired, bored, lonely, glum, etc. As we move up in energy but remain low in pleasantness we begin to experience; livid, angry, annoyed, peeved, etc. We can notice that once our pleasant feelings increase we enter the yellow and the green, depending on our energy.

The more we explore this graphic, the more we can name a feeling. Once we name a feeling we can decided to either sit with the feeling or shift the feeling.

Mindfulness teaches us to accept emotions as valid and real; no matter what zone they may be in at the moment. Practicing noticing feelings also shows us that feelings do not define us or our day; but rather can be seen as as plot point on our day. 

After we look at the mood meter we can ask ourselves "Is this emotion I am feeling helping me?" This question can help you see if you should sit with the feeling (usually those in green and yellow) or shift the feeling (usually those in red and blue). 

When helping your own student learn how to identify and talking about feelings take some time to show courage and identify your own. Remember studies show us that humans respond to the emotions of others. This means that if you are angry, you will speak from a place of anger, and thus your student will in turn experience anger and relate back to you in anger. 

Give the Mood Meter a try this week. Talk about feelings and validate them. The are real and present. Share your feelings with your student and allow them to share their feelings with you.