Linguistic precision and its beauty
Six months ago I went to a conference where I met amazing Kate. She run a workshop on empathy, understanding of feelings and linguistic precision.
Linguistic precision sounded like a buzz word your therapist would use but understanding and living this term made my “being” so much more meaningful.
In one sentence, linguistic precision just means naming things as they actually are, it’s as easy as that.
Our lives have been shaped by social media, internet, texting and a fast pace that our thoughts, feelings and emotions has to keep up with. Before this era, people used to communicate by carefully crafting letters that take weeks and months to reach their readers. Thoughts on paper and out loud were more deliberate. They had to be.
Now we gloss over our actual emotions so we can rush and disappear into the world of distractions, the world of anything but ourselves.
So why is it so important and worth thinking over?
- By looking exactly for the word to describe how you feel in a moment will help you deal with the said feeling better and help you understand your motives, emotions and thought processes behind it.
- It will help you to be understood by others. Defining your emotions and feelings is a first step towards addressing them and thus, dealing with them.
Personally, feeling misunderstood gives me a lot of pain. I have this need for my expressed-out-loud thoughts to be received in the exact same package as they were intended leaving my mouth. So working on being more precise in describing what is that I am feeling and thinking has given me a bit more power to be heard correctly and hopefully, a step closer to be understood.
Next time you feel weird, stop and think: what do I actually feel? Do I feel hurt, sad, not supported, discouraged, defeated, hopeless, indifferent, desperate, confused, irritated, lonely, frustrated, rejected?
Linguistic precision is a wonderful way to define your feelings that sometimes seem so chaotic. It will help you deal with stuff and discover a bit more about your beautiful self.
Check out Kate’s feelings cards made precisely to help you get to know yourself and others better.
