Strong Women in Literature Author Interview Sunshine State Book Festival...

Is Emotatudology Real? What is an Emotatude?

Promoting emotional agility is the aim of the Emotatude children’s book series.  The science of Emotatudology is purely fictional, although many of the concepts proposed by the fictional character Dr. Kich are based on the science of emotion and recent discoveries by scientists, energy healers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.   Even though we have no evidence to support the notion that we can concretely touch, see, feel, hear, smell, and taste feelings, this concept helps children contemplate how feelings operate in their lives. Dr. Kich has been invented to personify the scientist in all of us who learns how to make sense of our emotional world through hypothesis testing, observation, theorizing, and drawing conclusions about the world around us.  While Emotatudology  as a revered established science is fictional, the concepts of how to deal with emotions are based on research. There has been growing research in the past decade by teams of scientists that is promoting scientific inquiry around emotions.  This is evident in the list of publications and organizations that are emerging in this field. The stories depicted in the Emotatude series may be lightly based on real events.  The names of the characters have been changed to protect the innocent.  I have used artistic license to explore how emotions appear, feel, smell, move, and even sometimes taste.  I invite all people to do the same.  Often in our society we tell each other how to feel, or what to feel, or what the experience should look like.  These books are designed to give the reader an artistic license to explore their own feelings in their very own way.  So below we include an artistic license that can be cut out and used whenever you feel you need permission to feel the way you feel. These books help children develop  the “ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior.” As [art pf the CASEL social emotional competancies ( CASEL The Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning, 2017 Core Competencies http://www.casel.org/core-competencies/) is an organization that is working to building SEL (social emotional learning) in school systems around the country.  It is my hope that children who read this series with their parents will have fun discovering how different characters in these books deal with their emotions or ‘emotatudes’ as they are described as in this series.

The Emotatude series demonstrates coping skills to guide young readers through difficult moments. In the series Emotatudes are vibratory beings that reside within all of us. They help children 'show up' as Susan David Ph.D. the visionary behind Emotional Agility  explains.  She says "When we show up fully, with awareness and acceptance, even the worst demons back down. Simply by facing up to the scary things and giving them a name, we often strip them of their power." This is the core of what my Emotatude series is about.  By giving our feelings names and paintin pictures of what they might look like the journey of coping has begun.  The emotatude series gives children and parents space to ask questions about feelings outside of our every day experience.  Do we hold things in?  Do we go over them in our mind over and over again? Or, do we accept situations and embrace them with all our being. It is my hope these books will promote what Susan David calls "showing up." Hopefully this book will give you ideas on how you process your emotions. So after you read this book, I give you permission to think about what your feelings look like.  Close your eyes, and imagine what they look like.  Give yourself the freedom to paint, draw, or sketch a feeling.  When you do that, I hope you are empowered to think about how this emotion moves in your in your life. You now have a license!  Keep it in your pocket to always remember you have a license to express your feelings through art.

Below is a list of books that I have referred to as I have written my series and my blog.  http://emotatude.blogspot.com/2016/10/acknowledging-feelings-and-emotional.html

Of all of these books my favorite was : Emotional Agility, by Susan David, Phd

The Emotion Code by Dr, Bradley Nelson

Why You Feel the Way You Feel Molecules of Emotion, by Candace B. Pert, Ph.D.

Opening Up by Writing it Down, by Dr. James Pennebaker

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Achieving Emotional Literacy by Claude Steiner, PhD

One Mind at a Time by Mel Levine, M.D.

Mindfulness for Teachers, Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom, by Patrica A. Jennings

Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators by Dr Maurice J Elias PhD (1997-09-15) by Dr Maurice J Elias PhD;Joseph E Zins;Dr Roger P Weissberg PhD;Karin S Frey;Mark T Greenberg Ph.D.;Norris M Haynes (Author)

Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say?

by Joseph E. Zins (Editor), Roger P. Weissberg (Editor), Margaret C. Wang (Editor), Herbert J. Walberg (Editor)

The Educator's Guide to Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement: Social-Emotional Learning in the Classroom 1st Editionby Maurice J. Elias (Editor), Harriett A. Arnold (Editor)

Emotional Agility, by Susan David, Phd

Why We Feel the Science of Human Emotions written byVictor S. Johnston 

Soothing Angels, by Gloria Wilcox

Emotional Equations by Chip Conley

Allowing Emotions to Guide While You Decide

Children have so much to teach us. This weekend at 352Create Festival in downtown Gainesville the Dr. Kich character from the Emotatude book series encouraged children to paint their feelings on paper through his 'Dealing with Feelings' game.  The creativity and sensitivity that were expressed on the pages empowered the children to express a feeling on paper.  The next step would be to give them a chance to acknowledge those feelings and then decide what to do with them.  Since Dr. Kich is an imaginary 'Emotatude' doctor, there was no Giving children a choice is so important.  Parents even came up to me and explained that their child was using the color blue to paint love because that is their favorite color. Interestingly enough you could see the expression pouring forth in the movement and richness of her strokes.  I began to question whether our world of color coding, quantifying, categorizing, and studying was destroying the unique individual experience we each have when we experience an emotion.

I asked each child to close their eyes and try to see and feel the emotion they are planning to paint.  There were no children confused by this.  They all acknowledged their inner life.  The younger children were more in touch with this than the older ones.  Perhaps we can learn to give children space to have their feelings and express them in their own way.  The next question left after honoring these feelings, is how to decide what to do with them.  Perhaps this exercise will give children a chance to understand that it is o.k. to sit with their feelings and then get to know them.  After that they can decide what to do with them.

So the next time you want to push positive perspectives in a sad situation, stop yourself and start acknowledging the feelings that are around that situation.  Then you won't be ignoring what is going on inside of your child.  After a time you can ask them questions about what needs to be done in the situation.  This may help bring self control.

The Emotion Code as One Way to Process Emotion

Do we hold our emotions in our body?  Can it make us sick?  My mother always told me not to keep my emotions inside especially resentment, or it will make you sick.  I have often recognized that after a trying time I will feel the weight of a problem upon my shoulders.  When something just does not feel right, I will feel it in my gut.  When I feel love for someone I will feel a warmth in my heart.  If I am angry I feel it on my side.  Perhaps I am just a super imaginative sensitive person, but after reading the book The Emotion Code, I feel that there is some truth to the idea that emotions can be held in the body and also released.  I tried some of the techniques that were suggested for locating, identifying and freeing blocked emotion, and I found a little sense that some blocked emotions were freed.  I intend to read it more carefully and try some of these practices more carefully.  They even have a certification in this method that will train you to do this more efficiently.  It is a fascinating concept, and could help heal many.

Our Emotions and the Election

My daughter cried the morning of November 11, 2016 when I told her Donald Trump was going to be president.  She was upset by the news she heard about him misbehaving around women, and was afraid to have him as president. 

I tried to be measured in how to explain to her to be effective with responding to creating change.  She wanted to move to Britain.  I explained that running away from our scary feelings is not the best way to deal with them.  Sometimes we need to face our feelings.

How can we deal with our negative feelings of fear as they arise? Instead of telling my daughter to stop feeling a certain way, I entertained her idea of running from this presidency.  Moving would be difficult.  We would have to put our pets in quarantine, get visas, jobs, and housing.  That might be more difficult than signing a petition and voting, or protecting ourselves and others from difficulty.

I then honored her feelings as useful information.  I explained that any man who talks about women the way he does or walks into dressing rooms, should be avoided.  Her emotions led us to a discussion of which situations she should engage with and which ones she should avoid. 

I explained her feelings, and my feelings can motivate us to be the change we want to see in this country.

As a parent, I realize that these emotions are warning signs we need to listen to and prepare ourselves for.  There is a purpose for emotions, and these emotions tell us about our values.  I explained this to my daughter and she felt proud of her feelings, and now I hope she will listen to her feelings in the future.

Turning Obstacles into Opportunity as Pennebaker Did

Dealing with grief, anger, or sadness does not come easy to anyone. James Pennebaker, an accomplished professor at the University of Texas came up with a way to deal with anger by writing it down.  His research inspired me when  found that people who wrote out their worries tended to cope better. There are so many ways to handle anger that I have tried lately.  Anger is the fire that burns us to make us shine through adversity.  It is like the fire in a kiln.  We can put the glaze of experience on our pot of life, but until we are put through the fire of life we do not shine.  It is that going forth and coming back again that makes us look all shiny and new again just like my daughter when she comes out of her fever. Her fever always makes her looks all toasty shiny and new again. 

If everyone could cope with anger naturally as we rid germs with fevers, the world would be better. I believe our anger is part of life, just as germs are.  There are people, things, and experiences that draw forth anger.  They are inevitable.  It is how we deal with this anger that matters.  Having the space between the feeling we feel, and the action we do, to cope with  feelings allow us to pick the best strategy to move forward in our lives and come out the other end of the adversity tunnel shiny and new again.

Often when life is in disarray we may feel confused and angry.  In cases like these we need clarity.  Pour a glass of water and sit and meditate for three to five days next to the water giving it our intention for clarity.  After we sit for a time of 10 minutes or more pour the water out into the ground.

When we are clear we may still be angry at the situation.  Then it is time to fight fire with fire.  Wake before all others in your household.  Get a sheet of paper.  Write all the things you are angry about on that paper.  Then, crumple up the paper and light it on fire outside.  Make sure it is in a metal or ceramic bowl that is not important to you.  After writing for a week you will feel less angry.  The ashes will still be there.  Bury them in a place that brings you peace.

After this is done go on a walk and breathe deeply for seven days.  Breathe in for ten counts and then exhale for ten counts.  Then stop for a second and think to yourself “I accept my life as it is and wish to live my life to its fullest.”  Allow positive new thoughts in and allow the painful sad thoughts to be.  The object of this exercise is not to get rid of unhappiness.  The idea is to allow the reality of the issue to set into your life.  

Acknowledging Feelings and Emotional Agility

Children experience grief but lack the coping skills to guide them through these difficult moments. Susan David Ph.D. the visionary behind Emotional Agility. says "When we show up fully, with awareness and acceptance, even the worst demons back down. Simply by facing up to the scary things and giving them a name, we oftewn strip them of their power." This is the core of what my Emotatude series is about.  My Emotatude series strives to give our feelings names and even paint pictures of what they look like.  I have done this to help my family and ultimately myself cope.  We really can't control how many emotional experiences we will have.  We can control how we will deal with them.  Do we hold things in?  Do we go over them in our mind over and over again? Or, do we accept situations and embrace them with all our being.  That is what Susan David calls "showing up." This is what I am working on personally, and what my books are trying to work on too. Right now I am working on my sixth book Gregory Deals with Grief. I hope that it will be as enlightening as Crandle's Conniptions, The Secret of Warm Fuzzies, How to be Heebie Jeebie Free, and What to do When you Get the Bejeebers Scared Out of You. I revere Susan for her deep research in these matters that I am savoring chapter by chapter.  They feed my spirit and give me new direction in my writing.