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    Developing Healthy Emotions
    Developing Healthy Emotions
    Developing Healthy Emotions
    Ebook190 pages3 hours

    Developing Healthy Emotions

    By D J

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Feelings are much like waves; we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which ones to surf. ~Jonatan Mårtensson

    We can choose! And that's what this little booklet is all about... choosing to develop healthy emotions and maintain emotional balance? Can we do that? Yes definitely, if we work at it. Just as we can choose the waves to surf and reject those that may cause us harm, we can choose which emotions to nurture and which to reject. The operative word is 'choose.'

    Lets be honest. Emotions drive our behaviour, our decisions, our feelings ... just about everything we do and are, including our thoughts. Until we understand the source of our emotions, and learn how to direct them to healthy outcomes we allow them to control us - often with distressing results. Our emotional state [our 'attitude'] is the most important determinant of how happy we are. Not material wealth and not even good health. Viktor Frankl wrote in 'Man's Search for Meaning' that our attitude is the last of human freedom. It can never be controlled by someone else. Read all about Nick Vujicic - a man who conquered unbelievable odds.

    Controlling your emotions means using them to help you get along with people, solve problems and live a more happy and balanced life. It combines feelings with knowledge, emotion with intelligence.

    Dr. Daniel Goleman wrote 'Emotional Intelligence' in 1995. It is a common belief that intelligence and emotions are two distinctly separate dimensions, with emotions considered a failing that lead to poor decisions and actions. Not true. In his book, Daniel Goleman suggests that intelligence can be applied to successfully use emotions to create a fulfilling and balanced life. That means we can learn how to dominate our emotions.

    An emotional person is defined as: "one easily influenced and driven by emotion; one who easily and openly displays emotion; one with a tendency to depend on or place too much value on emotion; one whose conduct is ruled by emotion rather than reason."

    An ntelligent person, on the other hand, uses a set of cognitive abilities to acquire knowledge, and to learn and solve problems". That's clear enough. But what kind of problems are we referring to? If they're rational and objective that shouldn't be too difficult. But what if the problem arises from emotions [feelings] that have been negatively aroused?

    When we have control over our emotions we are able to modulate our emotions in any given situation to meet a desired objective that is acceptable to everyone involved. This essentially means being able to 'identify' the dominant feelings you and those with you are experiencing, then use this knowledge to generate an emotion, and then reason with this emotion. It means using your emotions to help you solve problems and live a more effective and happier life. Emotional intelligence without intellectual intelligence, or intelligence without emotional intelligence, is incomplete.

    Learning how to control our emotions by choosing which ones to hold on to and which ones to reject is not about how to be gracious and refined, or about how to win friends and influence people, though it certainly does help in both. It does not replace job skills, initiative or knowledge; neither is it vital in all facets of day to day living? It is however crucial in effective leadership and career growth, and in many spheres of our lives that involve interacting, and creating healthy relations with others - our spouse, children, friends, relatives and whoever else may feature in our lives. It is alsi immensely important for our happiness and well-being.

    This book explores in brief the dynamics of emotions, types of intelligences and practical approaches to controlling and developing healthy emotions and emotional balance. It is essentially a guide book, not esoteric psychobabble, touching on an easy-to-understand principle: that you have more control over your emotions that yo

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherD J
    Release dateDec 9, 2013
    ISBN9781311219848
    Developing Healthy Emotions

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      Book preview

      Developing Healthy Emotions - D J

      Developing Healthy Emotions

      Regain Your Emotional

      Balance

      By

      Daniel Jeremiah

      ↔ § ↔

      Smashwords Edition | Copyright 2010 Daniel Jeremiah

      ISBN 9781311219848

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      For permission requests, please write to the author, addressed to Dan Jeremiah, danj@writeme.com Thank you.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Emotions Are Not Constants

      Overview Of Emotional Intelligence

      The Singular Importance Of Self-Awareness

      What Exactly Are Emotions?

      What Is Emotional Health?

      Emotional Management Skills

      How Do I Look After My Emotional Health?

      Emotional Cognizance And Attitudes

      What Controls Our Emotions?

      Attitude, Moods And Emotions

      What Is Emotional Intelligence?

      Components Of Emotional Intelligence

      How Do We Become Emotionally Smart?

      What Exactly Is Intelligence? The Theory Of Multiple Intelligence

      How Important Is Emotional Intelligence?

      How To Raise Your Emotional Intelligence

      Increasing Emotional Intelligence-The Five Key Skills

      The Limbic System

      The Autonomic Nervous System

      How Can We 'manage' Stress

      Emotional Cognizance

      The Effects Of Communication

      Types Of Communication

      Humor In Interpersonal Relationships

      Your Quest For Emotional Balance

      Conflict Management And Resolution

      Transactional Analysis – How Communication Affects Emotions

      NLP Or Neuro-Linguistic Programming

      Emotions And Relationships

      Wrapping Up

      Epilogue

      Introduction

      If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far. Daniel Goleman.

      William James (American Philosopher and Psychologist) said, "The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action. They have a physical side in addition to a psychological feature. Emotions are strongly connected to thought, feeling, and the subsequent resulting behaviour. They control every part, and touch on almost every characteristic of a person."

      We cannot but agree that emotions are an inseparable component of the human experience, hard to manage and impossible to brush off. Antonio Damasio suggested that the emotions are the foundation of consciousness. Without emotions providing the content of consciousness, there would be nothing to think about - thoughts would not exist, he wrote.

      Emotions moderate the way we think, feel and act. They affect us physically as well as mentally. Those who brush aside or suppress their emotions are running a high risk of getting physical and mentally ill. The effects on your physical and mental health from negative emotions like fear, anxiety, frustration and depression are poles apart from positive emotions like happiness, contentment and feeling loved, appreciated and accepted.

      Unless we have been lobotomized, we cannot ignore the effect of emotions on our health, disposition and behaviour, or deny the tremendous influence it has on our quality of life. Since we cannot ignore our emotions, we need to find ways to manage them so as to be emotionally balanced as far as possible.

      People define emotions in different ways. Some differentiate between emotions and feelings. Feelings, they believe, are only the reaction part of an emotion, and that emotions also involve the situation and how it is interpreted or perceived, and the reaction or feelings aroused by that specific situation. However, emotions and feelings are so closely intertwined it's futile trying to give each a separate stage.

      Our feelings arise from our 'beliefs,' or value systems, which then stimulate our emotions - which then govern our actions or behaviour. Our internal beliefs (which are very personal and unique) interprets what we see and hear, then forms our 'perceptions.' These perceptions then incite our feelings.

      A person who has had very little love and acceptance in childhood, or who had been mentally abused, will perceive every unfavourable judgement or unkind word by another as a rejection of his or her self-worth and value, and react in anger, huffiness, umbrage or indignation. Emotional abuse is probably the most virulent in causing negative emotions. Emotional maltreatment can include acts of rejection, degradation or debasement, ridiculing, humiliating and insulting. Refusing to respond emotionally to another is also emotional cruelty. Feigning indifference is an insensate way of trying to control people and situations.

      To put it bluntly, every thought and feeling we have is a result of our beliefs (system). Our views and opinions, interaction with others and the quality of our relationships are all subliminally controlled by this belief system, which is responsible for forming our perceptions. If I believe you don't respect me then I will interpret or perceive most of your words or actions as a sign of disrespect or disdain.

      Emotions are not constants.

      No one can be happy or content all the time. People, circumstances and happenings can influence our emotional state and make us behave in ways we are later embarrassed by. The range of emotions we can be affected by is surprisingly long. However, as emotions are an integral and inseparable part of us, we must know how to 'manage' them. Dr. Maurice Elias says emotions are cautionary systems. Emotions are our truest indicators of how we perceive our lives, and help balance our mental processes of memory, thought, perception and reason.

      Core Issues: What we belief of ourselves.

      Each of us will find we have at least one core emotional issue to resolve. Even similar situations will keep on playing out in different reactions until the core issue/s which color our emotional expressions are identified and dealt with. Many discover their core issues only after deciding to take control of their emotions, instead of being controlled by them.

      Feelings of inadequacy, rejection, disesteem, feeling unloved and unappreciated are core issues which will persistently sabotage our efforts to achieve emotional balance until they are neutralized. We need to look within ourselves and discover the beliefs that are impacting our lives negatively. This takes dedicated focus and perseverance. However, only after becoming cognizant of our beliefs can we free ourselves from emotional bondage.

      I became fascinated with the power of emotions and how they have such a profound effect on my thoughts, feelings and physical health. Even more so, I became very much aware of the relationship between my thoughts - which lead to my emotions which, in turn, shaped my feelings and subsequently my behaviour, and ultimately my relationship with every other person I came in contact with. After countless hours of introspection [self-awareness], I found that I was unnecessarily sensitive to other people's foibles or thoughtlessness, and allowed my resulting emotions to make me morose and unhappy. Naturally, this only served to worsen the situation and create a vicious cycle.

      This book is a result of this discovery. It has helped me get a lot of things into the right perspective and change the ways I view and interpret situations and words. Of course I stumble and fall numerous times. It's impossible to achieve human perfection, and pointless making that a goal. What is important, however, is being able to pick yourself up after each fall and review what went wrong that time; then make a determined effort to be more aware of that pitfall in a similar situation the next time, and visualise how you would handle it.

      The only person who

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