Three pillars of Emotional Literacy

to live an enriched life

Emotions are natural instinctive response to an internal and an external events.It’s a product of a mind, where certain feelings and thoughts generated by personal experiences to the internal and external event and expressed as certain bodily response, behavior and action.Emotions are an invisible wall, stands between you and your enriched life.

Emotions are source of life force, they mobilize and motivates us , enriches life, creates passion and purpose , takes us on to the high road of fulfilling life.Much of life distress comes from not recognizing, understanding and processing emotions.

Emotions activates the autonomic nervous system which produces variety of symptoms like chest pain, palpitations, nausea, stomach pain ,sweaty palms, headache, etc. Ongoing chronic emotional distress causes sleep problem, muscle pain, fatigue, lack of motivation, memory problem, diminishes creativity, clouds the judgment and thinking process.Emotional deregulation can lead to anxiety, depression and chronic pain.

Emotions are either constructive or destructive ,positive or negative, it could be energizing or paralyzing.Like primary colors, there are six basic emotions.Sadness, Fear, anger, disgust, happiness and surprise.Intensity of emotions varies form low to high.

Emotions are personalized product of an Individuals, your own creations.We all are unique in our ability to perceive , process and think about the events.

Our Childhood experiences, life experiences, our culture, our attitude , skills, knowlege and capabilities affect our processing of information.

Emotions are an instinctive responses.Its difficult at times to deal with certain unpleasant emotions.We need to identify and understand our emotions, self awareness is the key.We need to experience all kinds of emotions.Don’t suppress, detach, deny or escape from emotions.

Develop skills to process emotions in healthy way , over time you will develop a mastery in managing emotions.It requires ,Self awareness, Self management and Self care.

Self awareness.

Its a conscious knowledge about self and how other people’s perceptions about you.Be aware of your own emotion, attitude and thoughts, know who you are and your strengths and weaknesses , your personality style.Do your self appraisal openly and honestly, you are not what you think you are.Discover your purpose.Get down to the roots of the emotions, find out what’s causing it, get three dimensional view in analyzing emotions, check your biases, minimize the perceptions errors, take time to think and ask questions like is it your emotions or you are absorbing someone else’s emotions? Check the facts rather than relying on your feelings.Understand bodily symptoms you are experiencing and identify the subtle emotions working underneath.

People’s perception about you is based on your behavior and an intent.What people perceive is their own reality. When interacting with others be mindful about how you approach them, your body language, tone of voice, facial expressions.Show empathy, sincerity and trustworthiness in your communication, make deeper level of sincere connections,remember when communicating with others its not about you.

Self management.

Take full responsibility for your thoughts, behavior and action. Stop blaming, complaining and justifying. Eliminate victim mentality.

Self control:(self restraint). Only you can control your own emotions.Let emotions flows , don’t resists, suppress, deny or escape; process and regulate them with calmness.Avoid temptation for immediate gratification.Avoid need to be heard when hurt, insulted, slighted or angry.Don’t fall into justice trap and entitlement trap.Reframe the situation and try to see it from a different perspective.Embrace the change.

Self mastery: Key to mastery is practice, perseverance, patience and resilience.Enhance your capability and resilience.Develop positive mindset with ability to bounce back and responds to challenges and obstacle.Challenges and Failures are temporary , they are nothing but a learning experiences.

With self awareness intense focus perservance and faith, one can master their emotions.

Self care.

Self care is deliberate volitional act which we enjoy to do to enhance our emotional, mental and physical health.Self care refuels and recharges our mind body and soul.

Healthy nutritious diet, good sleep and regular exercise are must for a healthy body and mind.Socialize with others, spend time with friends, family, build cultivate and nurture healthy relationship .Take care of your mind like a temple.Feed your mind with positive thoughts and feelings.Read inspiring books, learn a new language, listen to music, meditate and laugh more often.Stimulate your mind with creativity.

When you master your own emotions, its easy to manage emotions of others.We are all creatures of emotions, we can control our own emotions while we can’t control others emotions.We are not responsible for others emotion.

In order to understand and manage others emotions we need to first identfy , and accept it , approach them with empathy and connectedness.

Identify

Emotions are generally expressed in,body language, physical signs, comunications and behavior.You can make a good guess based on your observation about the other person’s emotion.Its all guess , not necessarily the reality.We all are subject to an interpretation errors.To minimize these errors we need to have a three dimensional view and perspective of an event.We need to be in right state of mind, if we are distrubed we can make interpretation errors.We need to check our biases, remove the negative filter, we might be judgemental or labeling based on our past experiences.Avoid temptation to reach to a conclusion and reacting it reflexivly. Take off your mind reading glasses, see, think , evlaute and act.

Accept

Accepting that everyone is entitle to feel the way they want to , you have no control on it and you can’t expect them to think and behave the way you think and behave.Don’t be judgmental. Don’t take anything personal. Evaluate them like tree or an object which just exist in universe , in short detach from the person or situation to get clear picture.When we get emotionally involved things are different as we put our biases in the situtation.

Empathize

Try to step into other person’s shoes , see from his or her perspective, try to understand the person, try to feel what that person is feeling.Try to be compassionate with others, help them to resolve their problem.

Connectedness

Connect with others at deeper level, build relationship, listen attentively, have open and honest communication, be authentic, show genuine interests in others.Be aware of your own emotions and your demeanor interacting with others.Make a conscious habit of practicing gratitude, kindness, helpfulness and forgiveness.

Negative emotions are useless and it does not serve any purpose.Negative emotions creates negative feeling ,thoughts ,action and behavior in a negative way.It creates a rumination loop ,where person gets stuck and spirals down.Negative emotions imobilizes us, clouds our thinking and judgment , increases stress level and cortisol level which creates all sorts of physical and psychological ailments.

Anger is the most powerful and destructive emotion,its like a wild fire burning out of control, consumes everyone in the path.

Fear is another negative emotions.Fear of failure, rejection, criticism and disapproval are major obstacles of life. Fear affects self esteem ,self confidence and happiness.It creates anxiety and stress and immobilize human being.

Guilt .Guilts ruins your present moments as a results of past behavior or actions.Past is a past, there is nothing can be done , its a history, get rid of the guilt.

Worry. You are ruining your present moment because of your pre occupation with future which you have no control over it. In fact there is nothing to worry about, your worry is not going to change the future, so why worry…

Emotions are master of a fool — Sunil Desai