Picture credit - digitaltrends
Day 39 - Coping with emotions
18 May 2020
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sirurp@gmail.com
My learning for the day
Today I want to summarise two TED talks on coping with emotions. The first talk is about Power of Emotional Courage. The second talk is about Emotional First-Aid
Talk 1 - The gift and power of emotional courage
Summary -
How we deal with our inner world drives every aspect of how we love, how we live, how we parent and how we lead.
What is emotional courage? This crucial question has been at the center of Susan’s life's work.
You could say that her research work was more of a personal journey of a teenager how she bottled her emotions after the death of her father.
Susan did not show her grief to anyone. She went about with her usual smile. She didn't drop a single grade in school. When asked how she was doing, she would shrug and say, "OK." She was praised for being strong. She was the master of being OK.
Behind this facade of being OK and looking positive, she started to use food to numb her pain, refusing to accept the full weight of her grief.
Susan says, “Being positive has become a new form of moral correctness. People with cancer are automatically told to just stay positive. Women, to stop being so angry. And the list goes on. It's a tyranny. It's a tyranny of positivity. And it's cruel. Unkind. And ineffective.”
Research on emotional suppression shows that when emotions are pushed aside or ignored, they get stronger. Psychologists call this amplification.
Tough emotions are part of our contract with life. You don't get to have a meaningful career or raise a family or leave the world a better place without stress and discomfort. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.
When we label our emotions accurately, we are more able to recognise the precise cause of our feelings. That is when the readiness potential in our brain is activated, allowing us to take concrete steps.
What do these steps look like in practice?
When you feel a strong, tough emotion, don't race for the emotional exits. Try not to say "I am," as in, "I'm angry" or "I'm sad." When you say "I am" it makes you sound as if you are the emotion. Whereas you are you, and the emotion is a data source. Instead, try to notice the feeling for what it is: "I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad" or "I'm noticing that I'm feeling angry."
Emotional agility is the ability to be with your emotions with curiosity, compassion, and especially the courage to take values-connected steps.
Talk 2 - Why we all need to practice emotional first aid
Summary -
We'll go to the doctor when we feel flu-ish or a nagging pain. So why don't we see a health professional when we feel emotional pain?
We sustain psychological injuries even more often than we do physical ones, injuries like failure or rejection or loneliness.
Loneliness creates a deep psychological wound, one that distorts our perceptions and scrambles our thinking. It makes us believe that those around us care much less than they actually do. Loneliness causes high blood pressure, high cholesterol. It even suppresses the functioning of your immune system.
Rejection is equally painful. We all start thinking of all our faults and all our shortcomings, what we wish we were, what we wish we weren't, we call ourselves names as soon as we get a feeling of rejection.
Failure does that as well. If your mind tries to convince you you're incapable of something, and you believe it, you'll begin to feel helpless and you'll stop trying too soon, or you won't even try at all. And then you'll be even more convinced you can't succeed. That's why so many people function below their actual potential.
One of the unhealthiest and most common is called rumination. To ruminate means to chew over. Ruminating about upsetting events can easily become a habit.
Studies tell us that even a two-minute distraction is sufficient to break the urge to ruminate.
In essence, we need to acknowledge that loneliness, rejection and failures WILL come in our lives. We need to keep our first aid bands ready when they do. What are your first aid bands?
I found a great first aid band from Nataliia Totka. This is her first-aid-band to fight loneliness - “I read, I exercise, go out for a walk, go out for tea/coffee, go for a run to clear my head. When you get excited about your life and being able to do all those new things, you won’t feel lonely.” I guess the same first aid could be applied for rejection and failure too.
What is Coping with emotions?
Emotions are biological states brought on by thoughts, feelings, behavioural responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure.
The basic emotions are
1. joy/ sadness,
2. acceptance/ disgust,
3. fear/ anger,
4. surprise/ anticipation.
The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word émouvoir, which means "to stir up". Emotions create responses in the brain called feelings.
Coping with emotions is -
a. understanding the patterns of emotions,
b. understanding our responses to emotions and
c. taking corrective and preventive actions
My learning so far on this topic
Day 9 post - Plutchik wheel of emotions and ways to cope with emotions
Day 19 post - Association of emotions with endocrine system, the Chakras and the Yoga postures
Day 29 post - Learning from an RJ (Radio Jockey)
How to improve this skill?
Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of coping with emotions.
Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of coping with emotions.
Learn - Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of coping with emotions
Apply -
Identify a model suitable to you
Create a template to document the flow of the process
Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
Maintain record/ process flow of every important activities you did with respect to coping with emotions
Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts
Purpose of this document
I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day.
My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself.
This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends.
I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.
What are Life Skills?
UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three broad categories of skills
- cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,
- personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself,
- inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.
Which LifeSkills are covered?
The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures:
1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.
Some trivia
‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.
Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives
- Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
- Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
- United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
- USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
- South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.
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