Emotional Resilience — The art of overcoming unpleasant emotions
A skill that is quintessential for the success in your job
We all have unpleasant emotions. We all want to get away from them as soon as possible. Emotionally resilient people suffer without being consumed by it. To become emotionally resilient, try to develop these habits:
- Practice tolerating unpleasant emotions — We need to recognise how we feel rather than act on it.
- Embrace helplessness — We are helpless when controlling other people and our own thoughts and emotions.
- Practice self-compassion instead of self-judgement — Treat yourself as you will treat your best friend.
- Learn to handle unfulfilled — Expectations themselves are not the problem. It’s how we respond to unfulfilled expectations that matters.
My colleague Sonal gets into a fight with her husband almost every day. She always complained about how pathetic she feels every morning because of the arguments. But fight with her husband wasn’t the only thing she was tolerating. She was also taking emotional distress due to traffic, boss, stock market crash, office politics and many other things. This severely affected her work, relationships and most importantly, her health.
Sonal was going through a lot. She was quite good at her work and was very passionate about her career. But because of all that she was going through at home and outside world, her performance kept deteriorated. This increased her trouble. She was going through a lot emotionally.
It happens to a lot of us. We get stuck in unpleasant emotions, and then we just get consumed into it. It takes a lot of time and energy to overcome those emotions, and sometimes we never do so.
These negative emotions or unpleasant emotions occupy our minds, drains our energy, and, most notably put our self-worth and self-esteem to the lowest possible level.
Emotionally resilient people suffer without being consumed by it.
But when I met Sonal after almost a year, she was completely transformed. When I asked the secret of her happiness, she told me about her realisations and how following them had changed her completely.
Learn to tolerate painful emotions
People usually tend to run away from painful emotions. They try to find peace in various activities and slowly get dependent on it. I tend to eat ice-cream whenever I feel things are going out of my control. Or maybe go on a drive. Many like to confront the situation upfront and often make things worse.
Trying to overcome unpleasantness through any activity depends on it. Being dependent on any person or activity increases our vulnerability.
If you want to become emotionally resilient, experience painful feelings and get on with your life and goals anyway — you must cultivate emotional tolerance.
The next time your boss yells at you, instead of immediately calling your friend or going on a smoke break, set a timer on your phone and sit with that frustration or resentment. Please don’t act on it. Don’t identify yourself with that frustration — acknowledging that you have been through a bad situation is not dangerous or harmful.
The next time you feel angry, instead of immediately acting out impulsively on your anger or judging yourself for it, notice your anger and feel it.
When you get in the habit of running away from painful emotions or trying to fix them, you train your brain to fear them.
An unpleasant emotion, mixed with fear exacerbates our condition, increases our depending, vulnerability, and leaves us with a misery feeling.
Let go of things you can’t control
Human beings are control freak. Whether it’s the environment, weather, animals, governments, bosses, employees, anything, we want to control everything. This controlling tendency of ours makes us believe that everything can be controlled. But that’s not true. We are just a tiny spec in this cosmos, and we really can’t control many things.
You need to be careful about which problems in life benefit from or worsen when you try to control them.
We dislike painful feelings like anxiety, grief, frustration, boredom, shame, etc. There is one emotion that none of us likes — Helplessness. We don’t want to see ourselves as helpless creatures. Recognizing that we are helpless in many situations requires us to give away our controlling tendency. Don’t we give up our controlling desire when our kids don’t listen to us?
My professor used to say “Pick up your battles and lose the rest.” We must cultivate what truly matters to us. Thinking that you can influence your company policies is useless. Assuming that you can change your boss will drain you out. Considering that you will be able to stop the office politics is futile. Even at home, your spouse, your children, even your maid will not happen the way you want them to happen. The same is right for you too. You can’t happen the way others want you to happen.
You can’t control other people simply because they will act based on their own conditioning, motives, influences, beliefs and value systems. You can’t control your thoughts because they are not your own. Majority of the content of your thought has come from the outside. And what comes from the outside, is not in your control. You can’t control your emotions, either. Can you start crying right now.. as you are reading this? Can you become happy.. right now? Most of the times, even your emotions are determined by external entities.
Practice Self-compassion
Dr Kristin Neff says that to have compassion for others, you must notice that they are suffering. Second, compassion involves feeling moved by others’ suffering so that your heart responds to their pain. When this occurs, you desire to help them in every possible way. Finally, when you feel compassion for others (rather than mere pity), it means that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is part of the shared human experience.
The same is true for us as well. I have come across many people who don’t acknowledge their feelings in the first place. They think themselves a warrior and hide their despair, loneliness, sadness, dejection etc. Hiding feelings increases suffering. But once you acknowledge what you are feeling, you can do something with it. Instead of judging and being overly critical of yourself, you accept yourself the way you are. Then try to become a better version of yourself with every single day.
Most of us have this strange habit of beating ourselves up and being overly self-critical anytime we make a mistake or notice a flaw — which is ironic since, at the same time, we’re usually incredibly compassionate and understand when other people make mistakes!
Self-judgment only compounds difficult emotions and frequently leads to spirals and spikes of bad moods and painful feelings.
Unfortunately, most of us learned that the “secret” to success and happiness in life is to be tough on yourself. Like the tough drill sergeant yelling at his recruits, we mistakenly learn to believe that being tough on ourselves prevents failures.
Learn to handle unfulfilled expectations
Ever wondered why do we set expectations?
We set expectations because we want to get one step closer to the reality from our imagination.
You love your girlfriend, and now you expect your girlfriend to give you a gift. Isn’t it coming one step closer to the reality of being in love expressed through a gesture created by you in your head?
You have worked really hard on a project. Now you imagine that you should be rewarded for your contribution. In the appraisal, you expect a salary hike. Isn’t it becoming one more step closer to your imagined reality?
Nick Wignall elaborates expectation as
When you create an expectation in your head — which is really just you imagining the thing you want to be true — it temporarily alleviates some of that anxiety and uncertainty. It makes you feel just a little more in control and a little more certain that things will go well.
The first step to set up realistic expectations is to be prepared for failure. It would be best not to blame any individual or situations for your expectations not being met. You should not pledge that you will never keep any expectation, because that’s not human. When your expectations are not met, practice acceptance. Remember, telekinesis doesn’t work in reality. No one can read your mind, and you can’t read their minds either. When the expectations are related to an outcome or your effort, be satisfied that you have done your best and then work to enhance your capability.
It’s not just Sonal’s story. We all have somewhat similar stories of dealing with our emotions in a different context. When we experience pleasant emotions, we are a better version of ourselves. But when we experience negative emotions, not just we feel miserable, we become the source of misery for everyone around us.
During the 1970s, psychologist Paul Eckman identified six basic emotions that he suggested were universally experienced in all human cultures. The emotions he identified were happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger.
He later added the following to his list:
- Amusement
- Contempt
- Contentment
- Embarrassment
- Excitement
- Guilt
- Pride in achievement
- Relief
- Satisfaction
- Shame
Emotions play a significant role in living our lives. It determines our actions, our physical well-being, the health of our relationships with others and the quality of our lives. Many people don’t get what they want in their career because they are not emotionally intelligent. The true power of you lies in the fact that you have the ability to respond to your emotions and develop the ability to choose them.
