Why do we sometimes struggle to explain what we're feeling, even when our emotions influence nearly every aspect of our lives? In Choosing Emotions: Thinking with Your Head and Acting with Your Heart, author D. Earl Johnston explores the connection between emotional awareness, language, and the decisions we make every day. Drawing on nine years of research, Johnston examines 272 distinct emotional states and explains how expanding our emotional vocabulary can help us better understand ourselves, communicate with others, and respond more thoughtfully to life's challenges. Rather than viewing emotions as obstacles to rational thinking, the book presents them as essential tools for navigating relationships, making decisions, and gaining greater clarity about our experiences.
Interview with Author D. Earl Johnston
You spent nine years studying the language of emotion. What initially made you realize that people struggle to identify what they’re feeling?
Early during book’s the nine year research process it emerged that an average or ‘normal person’ carries at least three fundamental misunderstandings about emotion:
Most people believe there are only 6-28 total emotions (this can be readily Googled), and yet Choosing Emotions amply identifies and defines at least 272 ‘everyday’ emotions.
Most people believe that emotions are rare and sporadic (such as ‘Bill was angry yesterday’ or ‘My boss was annoyed with me this morning’ or ‘I am excited about the big game this weekend’) but that the rest of time we are rational and logical. The reality is that humans are constantly morphing from one emotional state to another, and that emotions represent our continuous internal operating system of navigation. We use emotions continuously as tools to move away from bad things (pain, dangers, and threats) and to move toward better things that advance our lives (love, curiosity, wonder, excitement). This navigation happens 24/7 even while we are sleeping and dreaming.
Most people incorrectly regard emotions as inferior to reason and logic. But leading scientific researchers (see top USC neuroscientist and Honda Prize winner Antonio Damasio, MD, PhD, bestselling NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt, PhD, and top traumatologist and NYT multimillion bestselling author Bessel van der Kolk, MD) agree that emotions are foundational to reason. Damasio’s important clinical research verifies that we cannot rationally evaluate a scene without first having our emotional system assign value to the specific facts. As Haidt wrote: “It is only because our emotional brains work so well that our reasoning can work at all.”
The awareness of these three core misunderstandings became a central motivation in developing the innovative ‘emotionary’ format of the book in order to better define what emotions are - and are not. The emotional landscape emerges as far broader and deeper – and more helpful - than the average person believes. Your emotions are not to be afraid of – they are navigational tools to help you live a better life. They help you move away from pain, threats, and dangers, and they help you move toward things that advance your life – such as through curiosity, excitement, wonder, and love.
Many people use words like “stressed,” “upset,” or “happy” to describe their emotions. What might we be missing when we rely on such broad terms?
While at least 272 emotions can be mapped on a continuous spectrum (for example, from Death at the bottom to Euphoria at the top), most people are stuck with attempting to navigate their lives from a far smaller catalog of only 6-28 emotions. What the lack of vocabulary means is that most people can manage their emotions but not master them. In some ways, this can be likened to sitting at a “Grand Piano of Emotions” which has 272 keys, but where we repeatedly play ‘Chopsticks’ with only a couple of dozen of the available keys/emotions. The inference is that we can survive and play some ‘music’ in our lives with a limited number of keys/emotions, but that we are often missing the more beautiful music and happiness we can create in life when we better understand and communicate through the full spectrum of emotions.
Your book explores 272 distinct emotional states. Can you share an example of two emotions people commonly confuse and explain why the distinction matters?
We have a wide range of comprehension. Research indicates that the average person can readily differentiate between 5,000 different song tunes, for example. Similarly, the finer distinctions between ‘Hate,’ ‘Anger,’ ‘Disgust,’ and ‘Rage’ for example are real and can be identified, as can the differences between ‘Stress,’ ‘Panic,’ and ‘Trauma.’ In each case, understanding the differences in each of these emotions will produce different reactions and behavior – so long as we understand the differences. It takes words to understand the differences, and the small differences between emotions can produce relatively large differences in how we communicate with others and how we conduct our lives. Understanding how others have addressed these emotions can help you deal favorably with each of them yourself.
Say for example that you enter a room to find a man you know sitting quietly alone, with his eyes closed and his hands folded. You could take the view: “Well that’s John – doing what he always does – nothing.” But in John’s world, he might be ‘Calm” or ‘Thinking’ or ‘Meditating’ or ‘Praying’ – and each of these are different emotional states which include very specific elements and behaviors, and which can produce very different outcomes. (John could even be boiling ‘Angry’ or ‘Disgusted’ but not saying anything.) Understanding the differences between what each of these emotional states involves is best described by specific words with meanings – and the course of your communications with John - and with others - will be guided by what words you understand about the differences.
Similarly, the differences between the emotional states of ‘Teaching’ and ‘Coaching’ can be significant, and they can deeply influence your behavior – even though there are many similarities between the two.
in my own experience I came to spend a disproportionate amount of time researching ‘Trauma’ because I understood both the word and emotional state so poorly. Trauma is effectively a wild card in the emotional deck because it represents a time when our emotional system shuts down in whole or in part. A person can experience emotional and/or physical trauma which can shut down all or part of our nervous system, and restarting the human emotional system is far more complicated than re-booting a computer. As I have phrased my research: “Trauma represents a catastrophic rupture of vocabulary. We can be overwhelmed beyond words. Relief comes when we put words to what happened.”
So we think most often in words, and the solution to so many emotional states is simply having the words to describe them. Both science and faith and across virtually all academic fields, the thought leaders support the value of attaching words to emotions. What Choosing Emotions does at its heart is to put specific words to 272 emotions through over 8,000 terms and phrases that thought leaders have used themselves through the ages to help describe what they experienced themselves. This represents a wonderful boost to anyone who has ever been ‘stuck’ in life or has struggled to identify what is on their mind. As comedian and talk show host Jonathan Stewart has quipped: “The enemy is noise. The goal is clarity.”
How can identifying an emotion more precisely change the way we respond to a difficult situation?
Let’s start with an example about the importance of seeking competent professional help. Let’s assume that you are visiting a qualified professional therapist for the first time to help deal with an issue that has left you struggling. Let’s assume that you are not entirely comfortable with the process of talking about your problems to a stranger – even a qualified professional - and that your first-ever session is just beginning. The therapist begins in a friendly tone and gently asks what is troubling you. You are not sure exactly of the real issues yourself, and after stammering a few times in embarrassment you blurt out the first words that pop into your head: “I’m anxious…I’m anxious all the time…That’s what is is…I’m always anxious.” But what if the real problem is not anxiety at all (it was just a ‘filler’ word you used)? – What if the real problem is not ‘Anxious’ or ‘Anxiety’ but actually ‘Addiction’? Let’s say instead that the real problem you have is an addiction to sports (or it could even an addiction to bubble gum). Obviously, the clinical path to relief from anxiety is different from the path to relief from addiction, and so the therapist does not have the real issue identified in order to help. But let’s say that you have a new reference resource – Choosing Emotions – which describes each emotion alphabetically in words that others have used in their own lives. And scanning through ‘Addiction’ and ‘Anxiety’ (or perhaps even ‘Frustration’ for example) via the quotes of other thoughtful people who have experienced similar emotions before you – you spot words that describe exactly how you feel. This is the ‘Aha!’ moment of discovery and release. It is where you get ‘unstuck.’ So, rather than struggle to find your own words, you can more easily select from a list, and then begin to make real progress with your therapist in solving the real underlying problem. I will underscore that the very process of seeing how other people have described their own emotions can help take the edge off of addressing your own issues. Words matter. The better your words, the better your life. Now you’re talking.
Why do you believe people sometimes have trouble putting their feelings into words, even when those feelings are affecting their daily lives?
The data suggest to me that the problem people have in putting words to their emotions stems mostly from: 1) a lack of awareness about the range and central navigational role of emotions in daily life, and 2) a misunderstanding about the value and importance of vocabulary. The heart of emotional intelligence is emotional literacy, and the heart of emotional literacy is vocabulary. We think and communicate most effectively through words, and this concept is supported by thought leaders across at least 19 different academic disciplines.
Can understanding our emotions help us communicate more effectively with partners, family members, and colleagues?
Yes. Where emotions represent both reactions and decisions, we are at our best when we are consciously choosing our emotions. Having a better understanding of how they are defined and put into words and phrases makes this far easier.
Our communication thrives by putting precise words to our thoughts, emotions, and actions. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, Act II, Scene II: “Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action.” In more modern times, Nobel laureate Niels Bohr, PhD (Theoretical Physics) approached the issue similarly: "What is it that we human beings ultimately depend on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in language.” Charles Kettering, a co-founder of the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, and himself an owner of 186 patents, described the importance of words as: “A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.” Noam Chomsky, PhD, the Father of Modern Linguistics, identified the issue as: “Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow.” Six-time NYT bestselling author and psychologist Brene Brown, PhD described it as: “Language is our portal to meaning-making. Having access to the right words can open up entire universes.”
In day-to-day communications at home, work, or in school, we are often drawn to those who state issues clearly and precisely. Perhaps the best quote of all is from the words of top neuroscientist Lisa Barrett Feldman, PhD of Northeastern University in Boston and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School: “The more finely grained your vocabulary, the more precisely your brain can construct emotion.” It should be noted that Dr. Barrett is also a NYT bestselling author, and she is among the top 1% most-often-cited scientists in the world.
What's one practical exercise readers can try when they feel overwhelmed but aren't sure exactly what they're experiencing?
An exercise I use is rhythmic conscious breathing to first to calm myself, and to eliminate mental ‘chatter’ from clouding my attention. Choosing Emotions provides a deep well of alternate ways to express an emotion, and many of the identified individual phrases and quotes may resonate with your personal situation, and help you along the path to expressing them in your own way.
After spending nine years researching emotions, has your own relationship with your feelings changed?
A major benefit of the research is that no longer to be afraid of emotions. Emotions are helpful data and a tool to help us navigate the world:
“Emotions are how we navigate life, and our words and vocabulary are the specific instruments of navigation. Make friends with your emotions.”