PTSD and Emotional Awareness
Not knowing for sure what emotions you’re feeling makes it harder to control them. That’s why it’s important to learn ways to increase your emotional awareness. You can start by learning to identify where you and others are on the emotional awareness ladder or spectrum.
Levels of Emotional Awareness
Your awareness of any given emotion is said to fall on a spectrum ranging from no awareness to complete awareness. Drs. Lane and Schwartz theorized that this spectrum falls into six separate levels of increasing emotional awareness, including: From this theory, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) was developed and is used extensively for evaluation and researching emotional awareness in and out of the clinic. The five levels of the LEAS are physical sensations, action tendencies, single emotions, blends of emotions, and blends of emotions.
Monitor Your Emotions
Once you feel as though you have a good understanding of the levels of emotions, get in the habit of monitoring your emotions—thinking about what you’re feeling and taking time to identify it as you go through your day. As with any skill, increasing your emotional awareness may take time and hard work. However, even if you can’t always identify everything you’re feeling, you can use the information you have to try to figure it out. For example, if you know that your heart is racing, you’re having thoughts that something bad might happen, and you know that anxiety or fear are common emotions that people have in those situations, you can be fairly sure you’re feeling anxiety or fear. Once you’ve answered the question, “What is emotional awareness?” for yourself and get in the habit of monitoring your emotions, you’ll be well along in your efforts to move up the emotional awareness ladder. Keep in mind, too, that good emotional awareness can provide a solid foundation for learning other important ways to manage your PTSD. Follow Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts
