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.
One of the things that happens as boys are growing up is they learn about a very restrictive version of masculinity, a list of things that you’re not allowed to do or say. Particularly around emotions: You’re allowed to be angry, and you might be able to cry if something’s really bad — like a sports team you’re on loses a really important game, or... See more
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.
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