Science of Emotions

Yesterday when I lifted a book, I was kind of sure that I cannot concentrate, then it struck me that I had few DVDs from T.T.Rangarajan who is the editor of Infinithoughts (formerly Frozen Thoughts). The one which I picked up is “Science of Emotions”. Just that I didn’t have complete focus to read a book, but I felt I can surely listen to his speech, yes I did that and here are few key points from what I learnt about Emotions.

 

1.        Two dominant emotions in all of us: Emotions of Pain and Pleasure. Whatever I perceive as Pain, I will avoid and whatever I perceive as Pleasure I will embrace. Eg. Kids generally associates pleasure to play and it embrace playing. And they associates pain to studies and that’s why it avoids studies. So knowing this what is the reason why we avoid or embrace something, we should start associating pleasure to what is right and pain to what is wrong. Even it comes to the example of kids reaction to studies, parent or the teacher should make every sincere effort to help the kid to associate pleasure to studies so that the kid will start embracing it.

2.        I am the creator of my own emotions. We always think that somebody make us angry, which is not true. Nobody is making us angry, instead we are becoming angry in response to something happening to you. Let’s take an example: Your kid spills some food in your favorite dress, you become angry and shout at her. The same scene if it happens in your boss house, you were invited to your boss’s house and there his daughter spills something in your favorite dress, now what is your reaction?!! Even if your boss scolds his daughter, you will support the little kid saying “please don’t scold her, it is not her fault”. Ultimately in both the scenarios, your favorite dress is getting spoiled, but you choose to respond differently, which makes it clear that you have the control on your emotion. Nobody is making you angry, it is you who becomes angry.  So you are the creator of your own emotions, nobody can change it.

3.        How do I control my emotions. When do we become angry? May be when something happens not the way we want? When we don’t feel in the control of the situation? Again a small example: When you ask your spouse to do something and if it is not done on time, you get angry. The same way if a Government employee says that he will finish some task for you on Monday, you also go there to get the document, but if he says it might take one more week, do you really think you can shout back at him, obvious answer is No. You politely say you will come back after a week. So the understanding is:

              Something + Acceptance => Tolerance

                           Something + Non Acceptance => Anger

Uncertainty + Acceptance => Adventure

Uncertainty + Non Acceptance => Fear

                           Someone possess something + We accept it => Inspiration

Someone possess something + We don't accept it => Jealously

Somebody hurts me + Acceptance => Forgive

Somebody hurts me + Non Acceptance => Hate them

To make it even more generic:

                           Something + Acceptance => Positive Emotion

Something + Non Acceptance => Negative Emotion

So answer the question: How to control emotion? If we start accepting what we have been rejecting knowing that we don’t have control on, we will start getting positive emotions. So when we have negative emotion, question our self “What is that I am not accepting?” Whom am I not accepting?”. This will help us to control our negative emotions.

4.        Emotional Maturity - Dynamic Acceptance: We will get emotions, we cannot control that. Just that we are going to control our negative emotions which has major bearing on our health and peace of mind. We are going to cut down the dream we make and do what has to be done. If a truck hits our car, we should accept that what happened cannot be erased by our negative emotion Anger, so cut down the drama of fighting on the road with the Truck driver. But proceed the next set of activities which has to be done to repair the car.

I am sure it is easy to write but very very tough to follow. I am planning to make a sincere effort to follow this, how about you? J

Run your own race

Few months back, we (My husband and self) went to Rohit’ s school for his Sports day. Rohit is little above average in sports (My husband was an athlete). By God’s grace, Rohit has picked up some good things from his dad J, otherwise he is just like me (my MIL says that he is a Xerox copy of me)

In the hot sun, we were sitting under a shamiyana and watching the running race which was conducted for various age groups. We noticed that in one of the senior student race, a boy who was running first with a very good lead, but kept turning his head to see where his competitors are. It was so visible that he is concerned more about others than focusing on his race. That moment Rohit came to us for drinking some water and his race was the next one to happen. My husband told Rohit about what he saw in the senior student race, and asked him to just focus on his race and not to worry about others position.

I didn’t realize that it is applicable for our life also, not only for a running race, until I happened to listen to this Podcast recently “Run your own race” (http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/robin-sharma-podcasts/). Those words were very strong and had so much of depth.

When I introspected, I realized how much I have been focusing on knowing where others are, whereas I could have focused that time and energy for my own growth. I liked this proverb “There is nothing noble in being superior to another person, true nobility lies in being superior to your former self”.

On a lighter note, we can let our managers worry about relative performance of ours Vs our peers, as an individual, we should only worry about our own performance and keep competing with our former self.

The Sword Crafter's Parable - Robin Sharma

I am big fan of Robin Sharma (Thanks to my friend who gave the first book “The Leader who had No title” to start my account). In this fast world, it is easy to catch up on the Vlog rather than reading blog or books, but I agree books can never be replaced by these. I came across one such Vlog on “The Sword Crafter's Parable” by Robin Sharma. Please watch this when you have time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP5SjstKYYs

What are the 5 things in our life that are the most important? Do we focus your time and energy on those 5 things? Simple questions, but we need to introspect a lot to find the real answer for our own self.

That Vlog was a small and crisp one, but this interview is little lengthier one, listen if you have some leisure time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGcQgZOKIM0