When I think about the clients I meet, and even about my own life, I often come back to this: so many of us never learned how to name or manage our emotions. We were not shown how to listen to our bodies, or how to notice what feelings were telling us. Instead, many of us were told to get on with it, to stop making a fuss, or to hide parts of ourselves.

I believe that a lot of our struggles with mental health can be traced back to childhood, and to how emotions were, or were not, discussed and modelled. Younger generations are, in many ways, becoming more emotionally literate. They grow up with a greater awareness of mental health and language to describe it. But for those of us my age and older, the gap is real. We were not taught these skills, and now we are expected to help our children navigate their emotions with an understanding we ourselves never received. That can feel daunting, and it is easy to become defensive when we lack role models to show us another way.

Emotions are not just in the head, they live in the body. Yet embodied sensations are often ignored. Securing how you feel in the moment can help you understand what you need, and stop you from being led by emotions alone. That does not mean ignoring them. It means pausing long enough to consider what is needed for the feeling to pass. When this happens, there is less conflict, fewer outbursts, and a greater sense of choice.

I notice this in myself. Sometimes I feel something in my chest that I cannot quite name. It is a bit like the rush of being on a rollercoaster, except I might be watching something happy and pleasant. What is this? Our bodies often speak before our minds have caught up. In therapy, I often begin with the body. I might ask someone to notice how they feel in a tricky moment, and then we talk about the context that feeling appears in. Only then do we move toward thoughts. This bottom-up way of working helps people to see that emotions are physical as well as mental, and that both need attention.

Culturally, we carry many ideas about emotions that do not serve us well. Some of us learned to bottle things up until they exploded. Others were told that emotions should always be believed and acted on immediately, which is not true either. Gendered assumptions still persist: girls being called “too emotional” for crying, while boys’ anger is dismissed as normal and acceptable. These messages shape how whole families manage feelings, often for generations.

It is tempting to imagine that schools should solve this gap. But teachers are human too. They have rarely been taught these skills themselves, and they are not emotional experts. While schools can certainly play a role, I think emotional literacy is something that must be lived in families and communities. It is about how emotions are modelled, acknowledged, and made sense of in everyday life.

In therapy, there are simple ways to begin learning emotional literacy at any age. The process can look like this:

• Notice the feeling in your body
• Notice the context you are in when it appears
• Notice what happens next, the urges or impulses that arise
• Notice what thoughts come alongside it
• Keep track of patterns, perhaps by journalling, so you can see what repeats over time
• Attach a feeling word, even if you have to make one up at first
• Try externalising the emotion, speaking of it as something that visits rather than something fixed inside you

Over time, this practice builds a map. People begin to see how their emotions flow through them, and how they can respond differently. They learn that emotions do not have to control them, nor do they have to be suppressed. They can be noticed, named, and allowed to pass.

Systemically, this matters because emotions are not just personal. They ripple through families and relationships. A parent who cannot name their sadness may pass it on as irritability. A child who bottles up their fear may act out at school. A household where anger is acceptable for men but shameful for women will shape everyone’s sense of self. Emotional literacy is not just about individuals. It is about how we live together.

I want to be clear: learning is possible at any age and stage. Even if you did not grow up with these skills, you can learn them now. You can practice noticing your body, naming your feelings, and finding ways to soothe yourself that are healthy and kind. You can also teach children in your care, not by being perfect, but by being curious alongside them.

For me, emotional literacy is not a luxury. It is as essential as learning to read or write. Without it, we are left at the mercy of our feelings, with no map to guide us. With it, we can meet life’s challenges with more clarity, more connection, and more compassion.