Language Gives Meaning

Sitting in a lecture room with a guest speaker talking about Third Culture Kids (TCKs), I personally did not think that I would learn much. But I was curious to learn who are TCKs. The more the guest speaker talked about the life of a TCK, the more I was on the edge of my seat and leaning in. She was talking about me. Every word, the challenges TCKs face, the emotions, the losses, and transitions, she was describing my life in ways that I would not ever have been able to because I did not have the language. I so related to everything she said about TCKs as it mirrored my life almost to a “T” except the cross-cultural living part. It was mind-blowing!! What was amazing is now I had language. I was then able to start processing and understanding the nebulous like parts of my 30 years of life.

Language gives us meaning. Emotions give language to what is happening inside us. I heard somewhere that there is close to 300 emotion words and that the average adult only knows and/or uses 10 emotion words. If we do not know the language, emotion words, then it can truly be hard for us to process what is happening within us and to describe it to someone else.

How many emotion words to you know and use on a regular basis?

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