“You’re feeling mad at Ellie for drawing on your picture.”

(Excuse me while I access my former preschool teacher alter-ego).

There is something healing about naming your feelings. When I first learned about the early childhood education technique, I thought about my own children’s spectacular tantrums and meltdowns. “This will never work,” I thought, grimly.

To prove it, I decided to give it a try, starting with the classroom - better make sure my scorn was evidence-based. Ellie had scribbled on Max’s carefully crafted, Picasso-esque drawing of an airplane, and he was in the process of imploding, an agonized screech just gaining momentum.

I crouched down, looked into his sweet sad dark eyes, and said, “You’re feeling mad at Ellie for drawing on your picture.”

Max stopped crying, rubbed his hand across his nose (and rubbed his snotty hand on his jeans – ah well, first things first). A light rose in his eyes, and he nodded.

All I’d done was name his feelings, but that was what he needed in the moment, to cope.

I’ve since found that sometimes it even works for adults.

I’m feeling frustrated. I’m tired of trying to talk through a mask. I’m sick of worrying that every conversation will lead to a life-threatening illness.

No magic, no cure, no resolution.

Just words naming, acknowledging, accepting.

As the meditation mantra says, This moment is like this.

(A word of caution, however: my daughter’s response, the first time I used this with her, was, “Don’t try that preschool stuff on me.” She was seven. If she’d been ten years older, I’m pretty sure it would have been, “Don’t try that sh*t on me.”)

And so I want to belatedly honor October 16 - Dictionary Day (apparently celebrated on Miriam Webster’s birthday). Webster’s, Dictionary.com, The Oxford English Dictionary, every dictionary ever written, in every language ever spoken. And writers everywhere. And readers.

Purveyors of words.

Words are powerful. Words are messy. Words are marvelous.

Here’s to words.

Images by Pisit Heng @pisitheng; Sam Haddad @samplusplus; Adam Nieścioruk @adamsky1973

PS If you want to see our first paean to words, check out the June 26, 2021 post here Marvelous Messy Words