Are you vaccinated against Emotional Turmoil?

 

Like we need the vaccine to protect us from the virus, we need to learn ways to immunize ourselves from our inner emotional turmoil.

The prolonged and seemingly unending nature of the disruption and losses caused due to ongoing Pandemic makes us routinely feel disoriented, anxious and exhausted.

We need to Cultivate sense of Equanimity – We need to develop and practice stillness within us so the changing external scenario doesn’t easily affect us. This doesn’t mean that we are not affected at all. It’s just that we need to raise the threshold at which we experience emotional hijack.

Building equanimity requires deepening our emotional self-awareness. We need to learn what makes us happy, sad, insecure and excited; how frequently we move from one emotional state to the other; and what triggers these shifts. Ordinarily, we are on an autopilot mode where certain triggers produce a predictable reaction within us time after time.

When we are in touch with our changing emotional states, we can quickly catch ourselves starting to feel anxious, envious or angry. We can then choose to acknowledge those emotions and without judging ourselves, explore alternate ways to respond. That’s how we can break the pattern of our emotional reactions.

We need to learn to deal with unexpected outcomes: One of the major reasons we experience emotional stress is our attachment to specific outcomes. For example, I should get promoted this year, I will get possession of my recently booked flat this year and many other such expectations.

The problem is that we associate so closely with the desired/expected outcome and in case, there is any deviation, it causes anxiety.

The way to deal with this is to open our heart and be flexible to accept any possible outcome of whatever may emerge. Whether that promotion happens this year or the next; whether we get the possession this year or the next, we need to accept the natural process of evolution rather than get stuck to fixed outcomes.

Our ability to deal with Setbacks: We fear and hate setbacks. We shouldn’t underestimate our innate ability to deal with setbacks. We must be more resilient than we often believe.

We can protect ourselves against this fear by learning to reframe our relationship with difficult circumstances. Almost nothing is as good or as bad, as it seems. Also, we can choose to assess what the situation is trying to teach us. In fact, invariably, it’s in such situations that we learn and grow the most.

We simply need to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable.

If we can practice these in our real life, we can be assured that our vaccination is effective and our immunity on emotional turbulence is in action!

If we have cultivated our mental strength to control our emotions, then we will realize that our existence should matter, it must have value, worth and importance for us and society.

Having reached this milestone, it’s time to find our Purpose of Life and achieve the same.