emotional intelligence

What you are trying to do in learning emotional literacy is to begin to understand this mapping of physical sensations in your body to predispositions towards particular classes of behaviour.

When there is a lack of interoception, we’re unable to fully feel the sensations associated with emotions. Unfortunately, this means they remain beneath our conscious awareness and instead are projected onto others — or we find ourselves emotionally overreacting in ways that are rarely conducive to our long-term goals.

A leading indicator of personal growth is how curious you are able to be with all your emotions - especially the ones you weren't allowed to feel as a kid.

When boys are showing care and concern and support for other people, celebrate it in the same way that you might celebrate more traditional things that are celebrated for boys, like sports victories or catching a big fish. You want to celebrate when they care for friends or family, too

Just get good at paying attention to bodily sensations. It might help to actually try saying things out loud, or writing them down, just going through a list of everything you notice about how your body feels right now. What you will tend to notice over time is that there are certain characteristic familiar patterns of how you are feeling.