But emotions have their place at work, much as many of us like to pretend that our jobs are all business. Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy have written two excellent books on the topic. "No Hard Feelings" describes the need and value of bringing your emotions to work in a balanced way, while "Big Feelings" discusses how to deal with the difficult feelings we all face at times.

Sometimes we're dealing with big feelings in our personal lives. We might need support. And acknowledging and addressing our emotional needs can help us to get our work done.

Feelings Too Big to Hide at Work

Last year, I struggled with my big feelings around major life transitions. I hadn't mentioned these personal events to any colleagues. Then I attended a team-building event where the whole company got together.

It started with an ice-breaker exercise and I found myself face-to-face with the head of the whole company. We had a question to discuss that looked innocent on the surface, but it also got a bit personal. As I started answering the question, I began to cry, right in front of him.

He didn't know the context for my breakdown, as it wasn't really contained in the question or my answer. But I'm grateful for his kind and even-handed response. It was a wake-up call for me that I needed support during this tough time. My feelings were too big to keep to myself – and too overwhelming to successfully fence off from my working life.

Finding Support

Ultimately, work is what helped me navigate these big feelings. I spoke to supportive colleagues about my life changes. I also attended a program called "Tea and Talk," offered by my company's Mental Health First Aid initiative. One colleague led these monthly sessions, facilitating laid-back discussions around a mental health topic while we all chatted over coffee or tea.

Sometimes we need to take time off to navigate big feelings. For me, it was the opposite – I found that my work provided a necessary distraction from getting too overwhelmed by emotions.

Having something useful to do helped me feel productive during a difficult time. And when I needed to take small breaks during the day to process emotions by doing things like taking a walk or grabbing a cup of tea, my flexible working schedule allowed me to take them.

Feeling and Connecting

Bringing my feelings to work, like I'm doing right now in this blog, helps me connect with others, whether it's through the content I write or my relationships with colleagues. I've realized that knowing how to handle my emotions in a healthy way makes me better at my job.

So, don't leave your big feelings behind when you start your workday. They won't stay there. Learn how to bring them gracefully into your professional life, and they'll enrich the work you do!

Listen to Our "Big Feelings and No Hard Feelings" Book Insight

We review the best new business books and the tested classics in our monthly Book Insights, available as text or as 15-minute audio recordings.

So, if you're a Mind Tools Club member or corporate user, listen to the "Big Feelings and No Hard Feelings" Book Insight now!

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About the Author

Melanie has worked as a writer, freelance and in-house editor, university writing instructor, and language teacher. She is the author of a short story collection, "Dream Signs," and a non-fiction book, "The Modern Enneagram." Melanie has written for several publications including Huffington Post, Cicada, and Contrary Magazine. And she is a certified teacher of the Enneagram, a personality typology that illuminates people's core motivations.

The post When Big Feelings Come to Work  appeared first on Mind Tools.

But it's true, particularly when I'm talking in person. When it comes to some of the most difficult conversations I've had in my life, I could and should have done a lot better.

Feeling Lost for Words

Take when my friend Pete got in touch to tell me that his cancer was back. I stammered some platitudes about always having hope. About being strong. You know the sort of thing. What I simply couldn't do was ask him how he felt. And I've known him for over 30 years.

Or there's my younger son, who's traveling the world at the moment. He's about as different from me as you could imagine – articulate, contentious and outgoing. I miss him, a lot.

And I'm scared. It's a big world and not everyone in it has his best interests at heart. When he messages us to say that he's staying with some guys he met in a club, I visualize situations I can only look at through my fingers.

Some days I just go and sit in his room. I riffle through his vinyl record collection, finding stuff I've given him, and thinking about the tracks he's recommended to me. Things we've shared.

But when I pick him up from the airport, will I be able to tell him that? Will I be able to tell him about the fear? I doubt it. He won't want to hear it, and I won't make a very good job of the explanation. Best that I leave it.

Mad, Sad or Glad?

When professor Brené Brown was conducting research into the language of feeling, she asked people to keep a record of the changing emotions they experienced.

She analyzed responses from around 7,000 people. The vast majority could label just three emotions: anger, sadness and happiness.

For Brown, this lies at the heart of a widespread crisis of emotional communication. We can't talk properly about how we're feeling if we can't name and describe our feelings. So she set out to write a book to help. It's called "Atlas of the Heart."

What Hidden Feeling Lies Beneath

This book does a bit better than naming three emotions. In fact, it isolates and defines 87 of them. And most of them, most of the time, are feelings we don't understand.

Think about anger. Those outbursts of incoherent rage are usually just superficial. There's a whole bunch of contributory emotions swirling beneath the surface. Fear, shame, betrayal.

But we can only identify the anger. And without being able to understand exactly what we're feeling and why, we'll likely always struggle to do anything about it.

Terms of Engagement

There's a refreshing clarity to this book. I'd never really thought about the difference between empathy and sympathy, for example. I'd probably have had them down as near-synonyms. But Brown's distinction is precise.

Empathy is an emotional skill that allows us to understand what someone is experiencing, and to reflect it back. It emphasizes closeness and engagement. By contrast, sympathy says, "I feel sorry for you," but with separation and distance. It says, "I'm sad, but I'm glad it's not me."

In Search of Meaningful Connection

"Atlas of the Heart" is full of this kind of acute observation. It's a reference book for anyone who struggles to understand how they're feeling or to put it into words.

And Brown spells out a larger project in the book's subtitle, "Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience." This book isn't just a glossary of terms. That idea of meaningful connection is vital.

It's great to know the difference between empathy and sympathy, for example, but more important to know how to be empathic. Learning the language is just one step. Speaking it daily is the vital part.

Because if we don't properly understand ourselves, or each other, how are we ever going to get along?

Download Our "Atlas of the Heart" Book Insight

We review the best new business books and the tested classics in our monthly Book Insights, available as text or as 15-minute audio downloads.

So, if you're a Mind Tools Club member or corporate user, download or stream the "Atlas of the Heart" Book Insight review now!

If you haven't already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club and gain access to our 2,400+ resources, including 390+ Book Insights. For corporate licensing, ask for a demo with one of our team.

How well do you understand your own emotions? What words do you use to describe them? Let us know in the comments, below.

The post How Am I Feeling? It's Hard to Say appeared first on Mind Tools.

What do you do when a co-worker has an angry outburst or shows distress – run away? Or are you someone to "pour oil on troubled water" and bring a smile back to your team member's face?

And how's your decision making? Do you get overwhelmed and confused by the options, or can you come to a clear and calm conclusion, taking everything into account?

Most of us are somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, but would like to improve our awareness, skills and courage. Emotional Intelligence (EI) encompasses all these areas and more.

Thankfully, we can develop it in ourselves and in others. So, have a look at our infographic on emotional intelligence and try our quiz. These tools will help you assess how emotionally intelligent you are, and what you can do to grow even more.

The post Five Ways to Show Emotional Intelligence appeared first on Mind Tools.