Emotional empowerment - A lot depends on it.

Emotional empowerment - A lot depends on it.

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Published By: Dr. Anju Chawla
Published On: 30 Sep 2023 11:41:57 PM
Wellbeing

Emotional empowerment - A lot depends on it.

Being an Emotional Wellness coach I prefer to start with the emotional weather check of each one of you who is stopping by to read this, and I will be grateful to each one of you for keying in your current emotion or emotions in the comment.

A little serious question now is in these tough times of #COVID19, what do you think is the most hit? In my view #Emotions are worst hit. I will be doubly grateful if you can write a Yes or No in the comments to help me visualise the energy of my words impacting the reader.

Since it is a little disbalanced situation with unprecedented events playing around us like the game in movie Jumanji, so Emotional Empowerment (EE) is the need of the hour.

Talking of EE, I treat this as application of EI especially the first two quadrants from #DanielGoleman Framework of EI- #SelfAwareness & #SelfRegulation, in order to make our personal competence all the more powerful.

Emotional Empowerment means being aware of and feeling powerful over your emotional state. Underlying word is powerful. This also means staying cantered and grounded, regardless of what is happening around you and outside you-Around and Outside. But one has to be highly aware of what is happening within oneself. And to be aware of oneself especially while experiencing an unpleasant emotion-let your internal dialogue be in "I, Me, Myself" and not in "he, she,we,they, you".

Ex- instead of reiterating an internal dialogue-"Loss of work disheartens us", use "Loss of work disheartens me". Reason is our brain!

Brain has a centre to control emotions called-Amygdala. To avoid amygdala hijack owing to unpleasant emotion, follow 6 seconds rule i.e., whenever you experience an unpleasant emotion, before performing any action including speaking, run a word in your brain "Wait, think and act”. This has to be thumb rule narrative while one is experiencing unpleasant emotion. These six seconds of pause will change your reaction to response which you have thought of first and then acted upon, and not the other way.

Does that empower you emotionally- well only if your internal dialogue is in alignment with what you aim to achieve in the context. (Yes, please do have an intention while you are readying yourself to be emotionally empowered).

Emotions are universal, but the triggers because of which we experience these emotions are different to different people depending upon their memory and attention. The trigger gets registered only if your attention goes there and this trigger may be pulled out of your memory, which means the trigger has happened in past. Remember that Memory ad Attention are two powerful tools to empower us emotionally.

Please understand that before a doctor prescribe your medicine he enquires about the symptoms, where is it that you are experiencing unrest, and a very important question which doctor asks is-when did you last feel okay. This is a question that we at Behavioural level diagnosis ensure to ask. Answer to this question precisely tells the starting point of unpleasantness.

Emotions can well be categorised into pleasant and unpleasant to be understood way better than a myopic view of categorising them as positive and negative emotions. And now since the context is fully set let me share the genesis of a few unpleasant emotion-remember that's how doctor proceeds to fix the restless in you.

Anger-how many of you face it?

Genesis- when one faces a stimulus which takes one's attention to a trigger that as per his memory is a threat to him-physical and social mental etc.-anger is invoked and it is the easiest emotion to get invoked.

EE doesn’t advocate to not show your anger, it only advocates to show your anger to the right person, in the right situation at a right degree and at right time with right words. Too many rights? How many of you are running following narrative in your head- 'Huh! is it even possible?". Anger means anger, period! In this case, I urge you to please go back to your intention, and drop your judgmental hat and only focus on evaluation- is this workable or not? Difficult or very difficult comes later! for now is it workable or not?

Sadness- another unpleasant emotion.

Genesis is a trigger that takes your attention to something that is not in alignment with what you need or what you want in other words your values. And sadness is the only emotion that can stay for the longest duration. When you feel sad-divert your attention to anything but one that is making you sad.

Ex- In these times when less of work or staying in same environment or that restriction on movement brings in sadness-divert your attention to anything and that must need some action. Cleaning your wardrobe, playing some game, dancing, reading, painting etc. Don't try to divert your thinking that won't help. A good idea is to pick up your phone and call up a loved one or reach up to your kid and talk out things which makes her most interested. You know what has happened, your neural network of your brain pathway just got attached to a new way. All I am moving you is to the concept of Behavioural Template, which are present in our brain.

Regret- third unpleasant emotion.

What do I regret about? It will not be future that you will regret but something from past or in present because of past. I am once again drawing your attention to the behavioural template- that is the pathway between brain cells that got more fixed as patterns of feelings and thoughts begun to repeat. So when regret strikes you-ask yourself what can i do about it now? Instead of playing the narrative- i could have done this or that.

Ex- you regret of not having spoken your point to your boss at x time-can you express it now? If yes, then are you ready to express it and if no, then can you ready yourself to express it?

Whenever you start judging my words-please halt and go back to the request-don't be judgmental. The pathways are physical- proteins attached to your DNA and neural connections controlling your behaviour. they are central. Every time new knowledge is acquired, the connections communicate differently and through repetition, communication becomes faster, more instinctive. Almost like muscle memory.

There are numerous unpleasant emotions like contempt, disgust, irritation etc. To gain power over that state of emotion i.e. to be emotionally empowered you need to REACH to the genesis of the emotion, CHECK your narrative, TWEAK it if needed (RCT of emotional empowerment).I must reach out to where my attention is going- that is my trigger. Now since I have an intention to bring positive outcome, I will frame my narrative accordingly. I may follow six seconds rule to let my different peptides settle down.

The pre-requisite to be Emotionally Empowered is an intention and space for thinking it out.

Important now is you come up with your present emotion, intention and Reach to your trigger of unpleasant emotion, Check the narrative and Tweak it to meet the outcome you want.

What is your emotion and intention??

#EIcoachDr. Anju

About the Author

Dr.Anju Chawla is a passionate EI practitioner and is on a journey to enable people use their emotions to run their lives and not ruin it.

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