Emotions are data.
Data we lack a shared language for. Unless, we develop emotional literacy, which often moves through art. And because it does, it is dismissed as less “valuable” than an Excel spreadsheet or a chart full of numbers.
Emotions are data.
We simply haven’t legitimised the language needed to read and to speak about them.
Because emotional literacy often speaks through art, we downgrade it calling it “soft” while spreadsheets and numbers are crowned as truth.
When we lack the literacy to express emotions, they come out sideways, through tantrums, reactivity, or infantile behaviours.
Not because emotions make us childish, but because we have not learnt to understand or embody them.
Un-literate emotions don’t vanish. They regress.
That is why I practice Messy Art. That is why I invite you to do the same.
I’d like you to reflect on these prompts and express them artistically, whichever is the art form that calls you, before you put words to describe them.
Where in your life do your emotions tend to “leak” rather than speak?
What behaviours, patterns, or reactions show you you are feeling something you don’t yet have language for?
Which emotion do you most often judge as inappropriate, unprofessional, or childish?
Where did you learn that judgment and what might that emotion be protecting or asking for?
What happens in your body just before you react?
If you stay with sensation instead of story, what information is already there?
When was the last time you felt deeply misunderstood emotionally by others or by myself?
What language or practice might have helped you stay present instead of collapsing or exploding?
Where are you fluent with numbers, logic, or competence but illiterate with feeling?
What would it mean to give those emotions the same respect you give data?
If your emotional reactions were treated as signals rather than failures, what pattern would you begin to see?
These are the kinds of questions that don’t demand answers, only presence.
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