{"id":355,"date":"2021-07-23T08:44:55","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T08:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/?p=355"},"modified":"2022-02-10T19:39:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T19:39:08","slug":"alexithymia-emotional-blindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/alexithymia-emotional-blindness\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexithymia and Emotional Blindness"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]\n
\n
\n

When I began seeing a new therapist a few years ago, it coincided with our introduction of the Emotion Wheel.<\/a> Much to my satisfaction, she would begin our sessions by asking how I was feeling. As you can imagine, I’d pull out the Wheel and share away.<\/p>\n

The reason I did that was also behind the introduction of the Emotion Wheel in the first place: that I had difficulty identifying and labeling my feelings. The Wheel became a helpful tool in my arsenal that forced me to think deeply about what was going on in my mind and body, and find words that reflected those emotions.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to last month, when\u00a0I was preparing for the latest session of our emotional intelligence Master Class. I came across a word I’d never heard or seen before –\u00a0alexithymia<\/a>. According to the book,\u00a0Consciousness and Cognition, alexithymia “refers to a person’s inability to identify or verbally describe his or her feelings.” Quite simply, it’s emotional blindness.<\/p>\n

I was dumbfounded. In over ten years of studying and practicing emotional intelligence, I had never seen this word. But what was more unsettling was that I\u00a0knew<\/em>\u00a0this about myself yet could never validate it. I shared it with my therapist to no avail, talked about it with friends and colleagues, and spent hours Googling phrases that described my “symptoms”; obviously, I didn’t search well.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, alexithymia is simply a personality trait, not a disease or disorder (here’s<\/a>\u00a0a simple test). And even more interesting to me is that it can be mitigated by so many of the strategies we discuss in our emotional intelligence training: journaling, reading fiction, going to therapy, building empathy, and of course, using the Emotion Wheel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-emotionalintelligence"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/wheelnametag2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1502,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions\/1502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejuntoinstitute.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}