One of the hardest tasks in my consulting work¹ is the assessment of the emotional landscape in a given room at a given time. It’s always a mixed bag: Firstly, my own emotions, secondly, others’ emotions, thirdly, emotions arising from the interaction, and fourthly, leftover emotions lingering in the space. There’s the pride I experience when a chosen method works like expected, there’s the passion a client brings about growing their business, or their envy of a competitor’s recent marketing success, there’s (almost always) the greed to get more done than can possibly be squeezed into the allotted workshop time, and there’s (quite often) some unused anger littering the workshop room’s ugly carpet. Seeing, sorting, and purposefully including (or excluding) these emotions is heavy lifting, over and over again.

As a society, we have developed a strangely schizophrenic attitude towards emotions². On the one hand, overcoming the more traditional attitude that saw emotions as something to be reigned in and controlled, we have pulled our emotions out in the open – to a point where how people feel about something has often become the most important criterion for decision making. Marketeers sell feelings, not features; the fact that I personally like (or dislike) ginger cookies makes me feel entitled to expect ginger cookies on offer in every roadside kiosk – or campaign for a global ban on ginger cookies; by and large, being passionate about something has become the sole reason to pursue that something, regardless of skills, opportunities, or rational arguments. On the other hand, most of us are strangely reluctant to truly own our emotions – let alone resonsibly hold those of others around us³. Just this morning, I blamed my son for my anger because his five pairs of dirty socks randomly lighted my fury; over the holidays, we all expect our families and friends to care for our comfort – ideally, without having to tell them what we need in order to feel cozy and cheerful. Companies hire feelgood managers to fuel their employees’ (positive) emotions; and they instruct their social media departments to avert their customers’ (negative) emotions. Pointing out that something “just doesn’t feel right” (or that it does) has become a universally accepted reason for dropping (or picking up) tasks, leaving (or entering) difficult situations, fighting against (or for) universal issues, manytimes forcefully engaging in external action – but rarely in internal dialogue with our emotions.

Like with action and reaction⁴, Buddhism has some useful concepts and tools to offer when it comes to emotional literacy. Tried and tested over more than 2,000 years, they, too, are certainly worth investigating. To begin with, the Buddhist teachings know of 84,000 emotions⁵. This vast array provides a vocabulary that is a lot deeper and richer than what many of my clients come up with in warmup reflection rounds where feelings range at best from a cautious “curious” to a solid “good” with a high point at a euphoric “excited”. Then, beyond monastic discipline and stopping short of tantric practices, there’s the core idea of the bodhisattva, the human being walking the path of the Buddha⁶. In a nutshell, the bodhisattva’s job is to read, reflect on, and finally compassionately deal with their own as well as others’ emotions. The starting point for this is simple: People like presents, so the best way to enter their emotional spheres is to give – firstly, simply stuff; then, freedom from fear; in the end, access to the truth. Beyond giving, there are other practices that can help: Self-control, patience, effort, and focus – to name just a few of the very first entries.

It has become pretty much universally accepted that language literacy – being able to read and write – makes human beings more successful in their lives. Billions of euros, dollars, and renminbi have gone into supporting literacy programs around the world. Wouldn’t it be amazing if that same attention and funding went into building up emotional literacy beyond the small spaces of therapists’ offices and coaches’ classrooms?

You can guess my fifth wish for 2024: Let’s boost emotional literacy!

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1. This is the fifth of six posts in a micro-series on wishes for the year that is about to start. The posts are neither scientific nor fictional, so anything written here could be completely wrong or absolutely real. The photos illustrating the posts are taken at the coast of the Baltic Sea, in or near the small village of Ahrenshoop where I happen to spend a short winter vacation. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the posts. ↩︎
2. A couple of years ago, I wrote a longer blog series on this topic. You can find these posts under the hashtag #emocracy. ↩︎
3. As a reading recommendation on this topic, it is worth to go back to Daniel Goleman’s “Emotional Intelligence” (1995). ↩︎
4. See yesterday’s post here: https://bucketrides.org/2024/01/01/six-wishes-for-2024-4-6-action-reaction/ [retrieved Jan 2nd, 2024]. ↩︎
5. For a first glimpse into this wide universe, see Paul Ekman’s “Atlas of Emotions”, here: http://atlasofemotions.org/ [retrieved Jan 2nd, 2024]. ↩︎
6. For a classic description, read Shantideva’s “The Way of the Bodhisattva” (ca. 700), the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra. ↩︎