Balance Part II — Emotions
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be emotionless? Never to feel a single thing, not a hint of joy or a grain of anger. It would be a pretty dull planet to live on… Luckily, we are humans with the ability to express what we are experiencing through emotions. However, most of us are not properly equipped with the tools or the necessary knowledge to understand ourselves and the actions or reactions that come from our emotional state. Therefore, it is imperative that we get to know ourselves through a variety of different scenarios, for our own mental and emotional health.
Last post I talked about how important physical health is to be able to create your first stable pillar/leg for a balanced chair to sit on. One of the main keys to having a balanced physical health is to have a high level of self-efficacy, in other words, to know that you can execute something well. This week allows me to talk about the next important pillar/leg, Emotions.
For most of us, emotions come and go as unpredictable as the changes in the weather. Although only some of us know what we are feeling, whether to react or not and how to react to emotions depending on the situation. Usually, when we encounter a tragic or shocking moment in our lives, we let our emotions and actions run wild, causing either damage to our environment or ourselves. This uncontrollable and confusing feeling makes us become slaves of our emotions excluding us from our own responsibility of understanding them. The mechanism to comprehend our emotions, be able to recognize them, use them accordingly to the situation, manage them, and express them as feelings, is referred to as “Emotional Intelligence” (EI). The study by Okwuduba (2019) of undergraduate chemistry students from Nigeria, demonstrated that there is an evident relationship between EI and academic performance. Similar positive results were found in undergraduate students of arts and science from Puducherry, India (7). If the students or any individual know themselves more deeply, there is a better chance of enhancing the current reality, thus creating the reality you desire.
Our minds are consistently exposed to so much information and so many due dates that we tend to lose focus on the present moment. Our anxiety for upcoming assignments and due dates, as well as the depression from our past mistakes and dark experiences molds the lenses from which we see the world. For example, if we come from a place of pain, sorry, and guilt, we can be sure that our perspective of the world will be negative. So, with this thought in mind, we can say that our past experiences make up the filter from where we can interpret our reality (2, 3), hence why it is important to treat yourself with love and curiosity (9). Instead of neglecting (9), avoiding (11), or fearing (12) our emotions due to lack of understanding, we can try to gently ask questions whenever we find ourselves lost in our own mind.
Distractions can help you stay busy, be productive, make time go by quicker, and best of all, not think about your emotional health (11, 12). However, distractions do not help your emotional and mental development, on the contrary, it makes you stagnant. Quintero (2020) demonstrated that EI can be very healing for people with attention deficit, which already have a difficult time identifying other’s emotional states (5). This shows that if we can find the trigger (1) to be able to stop as our emotions are arising, look beyond ourselves (8) and ask with kindness, “What is this emotion that I am feeling?”, “Why is this situation/person is making me feel this way?”, “Why am I allowing this situation/person to conquer my emotional state?”, “Who is in control of my emotions?”, “Is there anything I can do about this situation?”, etc. we allow space in time in which we are not being controlled or overpowered by the intensity of the moment (10). This pause (1) or connection with yourself when emotions arise, can teach us to identify what we are feeling and why we are feeling this way. Improving your ability to recognize your emotions is the result of acquiring new knowledge, meeting new people, and living through new experiences. Greater recognition of emotional states has the power to enhance and expand our emotional flow. This expansion in your EI creates a sense of enrichment in your life, accepting the present moment, and increasing enjoyment through learning.
Processing emotions and knowing how to respond well according to the situation can be a huge deal for all of us, due to the consequences of a rational or emotional decision. Alan Watts (2020) said it better, “There are no wrong emotions, only wrongful actions”. We have complete freedom to feel whatever we are entitled to feel corresponding to the situation, for example, if someone betrayed you, you are totally entitled to feel anger. However, you are not entitled to treat people wrong because of what happened, what you must do, is accept the situation for what it is and move on … easier said than done, but it can be done with a bit of practice. Okwuduba (2019) states that the creation of a more balanced emotional state can be done through a process of continuous feedback. This way of learning can be harsh to some people, but it is the most efficient way to understand oneself. The processing of new information can allow us to see our own reality differently, exposing all the possible outcomes for a particular situation (2, 3, 6). This process will allow the individual to see a clear and objective picture of what needs to be maintained, fixed, or changed within themselves. As we begin to see ourselves from a more detached (observant) perspective, we tend to identify these patterns much quicker. Therefore, this processing of new information, new patterns, new options, and new opportunities must come from a good source. In my perspective, the most important factor for change, acceptance, and determination is not the motivation to do so, it is the state in which this is all happening. The process for acceptance and growth can only happen if it comes from a state of love. Loving who we are at any point in time can help us get a better understanding of what we genuinely want without the judgmental and comparative thoughts of insecurity. Our dreams and aspirations may change according to our experiences and environments, but our emotions have the power to makes us believe who we are due to some unattended inner conflicts. It is vital to acquire a deeper understanding of ourselves sooner than later to enjoy our life through the toughest lessons as well as in the brightest moments.
To conclude, I would like to give some pointers about emotional health for all of us to “expand” the core values about ourselves:
- Bring yourself back to the present moment by taking three deep conscious breaths at any given time during the day.
- Take a day in which you sit in the observant’s seat of your own consciousness. Watch how your emotions are formed, how you are interpreting those emotions, and how you react to those emotions.
- Be curious about yourself, gently ask and wonder why you are stuck or feeling a certain way, and if you can’t come up with an answer that’s totally fine, you already took the first step 😊
- Empower yourself: remember it is not what happens to you (because a lot happens to all of us), but how you react to it. By choosing my reaction, I am empowering myself!
- Love yourself and your life above all, you are the only one who will stick by you until the end, so might as well have a great connection and relationship with your emotional health.
“Be the observer, the game-changer, not the game player”
References
1. Barrett, L. F. (2018, May 18). Cultivating wisdom: the power of mood. Retrieved from Youtube — TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYAEh3T5a80
2. Barrett, L. F. (2018, Jan 18). You aren’t at the mercy of your emotions — your brain creates them. Retrieved from Youtube — TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gks6ceq4eQ
3. Freedom of thought. (2019, Jan 15). How to master your emotions. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGQQ7pJQqHk
4. Okwuduba, E. N. (2019). Emotional abilities of emotional intelligence (EI) and academic performance: examining their relationship using Nigeria university undergraduate chemistry students. Bulgarian Journal of Science and Education Policy (BJSEP), Vol (13), Number 2.
5. Quintero, J. V. (2020). Emotional Intelligence as an evolutive factor on adult with ADHD. Journal of Attention Dissorders , Vol 24(10), p. 1462–1470.
6. Saligari, M. (2017, May 8). Feelings: Handle them before they handle you. Retrieved from Youtube — TEDx Talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD4O7ama3o8
7. Sen, A. T. (2020). Emotional Intelligence and perceived stress among undergraduate students of arts and science colleges in Puducherry, India: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Family MEdicine and Primary Care, Vol (9), Issue 9.
8. Sync Mind. (2019, April 22). How to become emotionally stable — Sadhguru. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SytcsaJtiEc
9. The school of life. (2017, September 7). How to process your emotions. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b197XOd9S7U
10. Thomas, C. L. (2017). The influence of emotional intelligence, cognitive test anxiety, and coping strategies on undergraduate academic performance. Learning and Individual Differences , Vol 55, p. 40–48.
11. Watkins, A. (2015, Dec 18). Why you feel what you feel. Retrieved from Youtube — TEDx talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rRgpPbR5w
12. Watts, A. (2020, May 2). There are no wrong feelings. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdATFBcEeSg
