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Becoming Aware of Your Emotional Expressions
Unless you are playing high-stakes poker, it can be vitally important to be able to express your feelings in nonverbal ways. Remember that emotions contain information. In order to facilitate communication, it seems that it would be important to be able to match your words with appropriate facial expressions. Getting your message across and being understood require thinking and feeling. Consider the list of discrete emotions described and the ones you used in your emotions journal. Now stand in front of a mirror. Repeat each emotion word, and watch your face in the mirror as you do so. Examine your facial expression as you pronounce the word a few times. Try to say the emotion word with feeling. If you are on the word happy, say the word in a happy manner. To help you do this, think about a time in your life when you were very, very happy. Continue with other emotion words from the list. The point of this exercise is to help you become aware of the way your face looks when you are expressing certain feelings and emotions. Most of us are not aware of the impact we have on people. We are often surprised when we hear our voice on a recording, see our photograph, or, even more so, watch ourselves on video. If we are shy, we may feel extremely uncomfortable with some of these exercises. We may feel embarrassed or awkward when we smile at someone, ask personal questions, or in any way deviate from our typical behavior. If we are shy and we do these things, we can often feel that we are coming on too strong. Yet shy individuals often are overly focused on how they think others are responding to their behavior. They think they are acting in a silly or too-informal a manner. They’re not, but they perceive it that way. Looking in the mirror is an excellent way to learn how you come across to others. After you’ve watched yourself while pronouncing the emotion words for a while, pretend to greet someone as you watch yourself in a mirror. Next, try smiling more; show interest in the other (imagined) person. How does it look? Too obvious? Not obvious enough?You can make this exercise especially helpful if you have access to a video camera. Set up the camera in your home or office and reenact an interview or an initial meeting with someone (you may want to ask someone else to play the role of this other person). Watch the video on your own, and share it later with a family member, friend, or a colleague. Are you happy with your presentation style? If you feel that your emotional expressions do not seem genuine or they make you self-conscious, you may want to try your hand at a game of emotional charades. The basic rules of emotional charades are outlined here, but there are many alternative ways to play the game. The main thing is to practice expressing emotions. So here goes:
Make a deck of “emotion scenario cards” (examples are listed).
Gather together a group of friends or other interesting people.
Have the group face a “stage”—a couch or open floor area, for example.
Ask one person to select an emotion scenario card from the deck.
Ask the person to read the card silently and try to get into the emotion (allow fifteen seconds or so, not much more).
Ask the person to act out the emotion nonverbally, without making any sort of vocalizations but expressing the emotion listed on the card using facial expressions, body language, and other nonverbal cues only (allow up to thirty seconds).
Ask the observers to rate the actor on: The emotion being expressed The genuineness of the emotion
Have the actor read the emotion scenario card, and ask the group to write down the emotions that the actor should have conveyed.
Ask the group to discuss and agree on the key emotions in the emotion card.
Ask all observers to share their ratings with the group.
At the end of the game, ask the highest-scoring people these questions:
What is a phony emotion and how do you know?
What are the keys to understanding nonverbal expressions?
What about facial expression?
Did you pay attention to body language, such as posture?
Here are some example emotion scenario cards to get you started:
The client presentation went quite well. Your boss did a great job, and the clients loved the idea and the proposal. At the conclusion of the meeting, your boss turns to you and says, in front of everyone, that you put the presentation together and you were the originator of the great idea that the client loved. You are beaming inside. Just what you don’t need: they changed their minds— again! It is not the first time. But tonight you wanted to leave at a reasonable hour because you have a date. Make that had a date. You’ll have to call and cancel and explain why, but no way this lame excuse will be accepted. You are really frustrated. It’s time for your performance review. You’ve done a reasonably good job the last six months. Most of the projects have gone well. There were one or two rough spots, but you made up for it with extra work and a bit of ingenuity. Your boss is reviewing your accomplishments and says that you were an average performer and that you need to work on your organization and time management skills. “Maybe,” she says “you’ll get that promotion next year if you pull this all together.” What a disappointment! Maybe you deserved it, but you are quite unhappy. What a crummy day. You wanted to leave early since it’s your birthday. Not that it matters much, because you don’t have any plans. Anyway, it’s just a birthday, no big deal. You hear a noise in the conference room and walk in. All of a sudden, every light in the darkened room turns on, and the entire department yells, “Surprise! Happy Birthday!” There’s a cake, candles, signs, and gifts. What a surprise! A perfect day! It’s your vacation, and you are lying on the most gorgeous beach you have ever seen. You left the office in great shape—no backlog when you return—and you still have ten days left. The sun warms you, a gentle breeze blows, and the waves lap at the peaceful shore. You are relaxed, calm, and ever so content. All is right with the world.
The job interview with the department manager, Joe, went quite well, and you are really pleased with your performance. The next day, you call a friend who works for the person with whom you interviewed. She hesitates when she hears it’s you on the phone, and after a brief pause says, “I’m really sorry that the interview went badly for you. Joe told me all about it.”
