Course-Correcting Emotions
The Art of Choosing Your Response
When we talk about emotional intelligence, we associate the idea of emotional health, empathy and mental health. However emotional intelligence goes beyond merely understanding and processing your emotions. The foundation of emotional intelligence lies in developing a clear understanding of your emotions and the reasons behind them. However, the most crucial aspect is cultivating emotional competence. Emotional competence has more to do with utilizing your emotional intelligence and your intellectual capacity to respond to situations appropriately and more healthily.
Thus, when it comes to your emotions and your responses, it is important to course-correct to ensure that you choose your response accurately. A response that is emotionally fuelled and sans logic is as harmful as a completely logical response that has no emotional comprehension. So, when you’re going through a considerably difficult situation, it is important to be aware of your emotions, your triggers, and your biases in mind. These can be especially helpful in helping you respond to situations in a much more mindful and appropriate manner.
Let’s explore what the first step of Choosing your Response is.
Self Awareness
In the simplest of words, self-awareness is about knowing yourself. Having a strong understanding of who you are, why you behave in a certain way, why certain words might trigger you and why certain compliments make you happy are all parts of self-awareness. You must know yourself in a way where you understand the cause and effect of everything surrounding yourself, especially your triggers.
Your triggers are a result of your past experiences. For eg, an insult or common phrase from your childhood might trigger you to become angry when hearing it today. Knowing your triggers, helps you understand yourself better and control your reactions to your triggered response as well.
Sellf-awareness is especially useful in high-conflict situations, as it’ll help you understand your triggers, and your issues and will help you devise an appropriate response.
The Science behind Emotional Responses
Our emotions are not merely in our heads. There’s a physiological and physical response to every emotion that we feel, especially when we’re facing situations that bring out extreme emotions. For eg, when feeling anxious before an exam will perhaps cause you to sweat and perspire. When you’re angry, your skin might flush and you might become reddish. These are all the physical responses of your emotions that reflect them.
Oftentimes, our emotions tend to precede logical thinking and perhaps even forgo them. When emotions override your logical aspect of thinking, it might lead you to behave impulsively. This is when people commonly say;’ You don’t think before you act.’ But the reality is that you did think it through, but it was your emotions dictating your response more than your logic.
Recognizing the Moment of Choice
When you’re in a situation where something has triggered you, there’s a quick moment that exists between the point that triggered you and your response. This moment is the moment of choice, where you can allow yourself to pause, reflect and course-correct your response. Instead of acting irrationally, based on only your emotions, you can allow your rational brain to support you and help you come up with the best response for the situation.
Recognizing this moment will help you act more thoughtfully and intentionally. It can help ensure that regardless of the situation you’re always in control of your emotions and your thoughts. Instead of constantly reacting to every trigger, you have the power to control your responses to situations.
By practising mindfulness and meditation, you can help yourself become more aware of your emotions and how to tackle them in intense situations. Once you recognize the choice you have, it’ll become easier for you to recognize and course-correct your responses and reactions.
Shifting from Reaction to Response
There are several high-pressure situations where something might trigger you to respond in the wrong manner. However by knowing your emotions and recognizing your triggers you can keep yourself in check. Instead of reacting quickly to a situation, assess your feelings regarding the situation, and try to understand why you’re feeling the way you do.
Try understanding the perspective of the opposite, you can have better control of your emotions.
Perhaps what we might perceive as criticism, is constructive feedback that is meant to help us grow and improve. Someone’s comment on our behaviour might not be an attack, but more so their observation of our behaviour. Part of shifting our mindset involves understanding the other person’s perspective.
It’s important to do so, since all of us at some point have commented and said things that might trigger someone else knowingly or unknowingly. Mostly, it happens without our knowledge. If you can hurt someone with your words without your knowledge, we must assume that others have the same power as well. What might be perceived as an attack or insult in our brain, could be a mere comment uttered by the opposite person.
Thus, by keeping our minds open and reflecting on the various possibilities that exist when communicating with someone else, you can help shift your mindset. Instead of reacting to your emotions, you can respond to the words or emotions that have been expressed to you. Becoming a person that accepts and acts by aligning thoughts and emotions together, will help you in connecting with people better. You’ll become more empathetic, kinder and a better listener as well.
Building Emotional Resilience
Building self-awareness and understanding your emotions can help you build emotional resilience, ie, the ability to adapt and recover from difficult situations. When faced with difficulties, having an understanding of your emotions, a positive attitude and accepting personal growth will help you considerably.
Part of building emotional resilience involves equipping yourself with the tools to lead an emotionally healthy life. This involves taking care of the physical and mental aspects of your life while you learn how to manage your emotions. One of the best ways to build emotional resilience is by meditation which can help you learn how to control the flow of your thoughts. Someone to share your thoughts with can help as well. having honest competition with people you love and trust and can be vulnerable with, will allow you to understand your emotions deeper.
Conclusion
In conclusion, building emotional resilience and competence is key to combatting difficult situations and remaining composed and in control. So the next time you’re feeling triggered or angry because of someone’s words, you can try doing the following;
Ask yourself why you’re feeling this way.
Ask yourself if you think why a particular situation or incident is making you feel this way.
Ask yourself what your triggers are and where their roots are from.
Ask yourself how would a better version of you respond, and then respond accordingly.
By bringing distance between the incident and your reaction rate, you can increase your ability to think logically and effectively. Instead of allowing your emotions to rule you, you understand them and act accordingly. So how about you try it out, and let me know in the comments how you did.