use your words
the power of naming what we feel
do you ever have an experience where a word or phrase just keeps coming up and up and up, almost like the universe is tapping you on the shoulder? do you find that if you brush off these little synchronicities, they just get louder and louder? the tap becomes a shoulder punch...
over the past several months, the phrase "emotional granularity" has continued popping up for me. this phrase (which as a word-nerd i appreciate for the satisfying way it feels to say it. gran-u-LAYR-ih-teeeeeee), refers to our ability to distinguish between emotions, especially between closely-related and highly-specific emotions.
granularity. when you think of something that's "granular", think of the word "grain" or of a small particle. a cup of sugar has a higher granularity than a cup of water, meaning that you can look at it closely and distinguish between scads of smaller pieces. 10 pounds of rice has a higher granularity than 10 pounds of bowling balls. more intricacy, more component pieces, more detail. a whole made of more individual parts.