Emotional Intelligence- How do I get over my years-long stuffed emotions?

Sometimes the almighty create such circumstances that there is no elder family member with you so by default you have to shoulder the responsibility and see through the incident successfully.

Just to tell one incident was, when my father met with a car accident. It so happened that he was coming from Pune in our Premier Padmini (around 1987) in the night at around 9.30-10.00 but Lord Ganpati’s grace escaped with minor injuries, although he was unconscious immediately after the accident. I received a call on our landline at around 12.30 AM or so from the police station in Daighar (near Mumbra, Thane) about it asking me to come there immediately. I was alone at home, just about 19 years old at that time. This was my first such call to attend. I was totally shocked with my legs trembling, was profusely perspiring, my mouth turned totally dry and my eyes welled. I didn’t know what to do. I called my elder brother who that time was pursuing his post-graduation at Nair hospital (in Mumbai Central) and with no cab service like Uber or Ola in those days and last local train of the day already left he was not able to rush to my help and so, he asked me to go to one of our relatives in Thane-west. I went there by 2.00 AM and my cousin Sumant offered me to come along to the police station which is good 20KMs from Thane. I rode the scooter with him as a pillion and reached the police station only to find my dad sleeping on one of the benches there. By that time, he had regained consciousness but to my shock, he was not able to recognize me (he went into temporary shock) and my cousin. The cop was too eager to see us off from there and suggested that we go triple seat (an offense in fact) to Thane. So, it was at around 3.30-4.00 AM me as drive, Sumant as a pillion and my dad seating in between both us and Sumant firmly holding him with his hands, came home to our place in Thane.

Handling this incident bravely with a composed mind, really boosted my confidence in handling crisis and with this experience, I was better prepared to take on more reverses in my life later. This incident also paved the way for my resurrection towards a more self-assured and more resilient personality. This incident was also the turning point when I started to look my life from a different perspective, helping towards getting me out of the rut of self-doubt, fear, and anxiety deeply embedded due to years of stuffed emotions in the childhood.

In the last blog, we have seen how years of stuffed emotions can play havoc with the individual’s personality, and self-confidence and may limit the height of success he/she can reach in his personal and professional lives. The good news is, there is no need to despair. With emotional intelligence, you can definitely resurrect the situation although you cannot get back your lost years. However, you can get back that lost confidence, positivity, self-esteem, hope and optimism, and lead your life with happiness and have fulfillment in it.

So, let’s discuss what can be the ways in which we can remove those deep-rooted beliefs, blocks, and hooks which are ploughing us back. There can be various ways ranging from some simple methods of increasing your confidence, learning NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), spirituality, meditation and in more serious cases cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), or any other psychiatric treatment. However, I am not authorized or expert to talk about any solutions based on medicine or therapy and hence these topics will be out of the scope of this blog. We will discuss from my experience the following ways of getting over hostility and effects of stuff emotions:

1. Spirituality: As you start growing with age and get more mature, it is expected that some sort of self-awareness has to come in you and you realise your limitations (at that point of time) as well as your strengths, at least to certain extent. Apart from striving hard, one way towards getting free of your years of mental blocks and releasing your stuffed emotions, is to totally surrender to the almighty on whom you have total faith. This may sound funny or superstitious to some people, but I found that once I started reading holy books, mantra chanting and prayers, there was lot of change in me and a strong belief that some unknown power (which we may call as god) is behind us and this starts giving you the energy and enthusiasm to take more initiative and action in whichever field you are working. It sometimes also helps to listen to a good satsung from a very genuine source on say Ramayana or stories of Mahabharata, and if the preacher has the quality to get the emotions out of you, this certainly helps to lighten up your years of laden heart. As you listen to them you may feel overwhelmed by emotions of love, compassion, respect, devotion etc. all at the same time and on the verge of breaking down. This time don’t stop yourself, don’t think of what people will say (they may call you a weak person), just let tears come out profusely. Give way for your emotions, this time don’t supress them. You may also take help of a Chakra healer or Energy healer who with guided meditations can get the emotions out of you. These sessions can bring out years of pain, anguish, hatred, rage and hostility in the form of tears and loud crying. You may require more sessions depending on the severity of the stuffed emotions.

In some other situation you may have the urge to laugh. Again, don’t stop yourself. Let it come out.

One more benefit of practicing spirituality regularly is, over a period of time it becomes slightly easier to forgive people. You may have years of grudge/mental hooks against that school head master or teacher, a close relative, a neighbour, etc. who had beaten you mercilessly or you were subjected to sexual abuse in the childhood and as a result disruptive emotions such as anger and fear made a permanent home in your psyche. Off course, forgiving people is not that easy especially if the pain inflicted is too deep and it is a process, cannot happen overnight. You may say that you have forgiven so and so person but, in the mind, you are cursing him/her, constantly thinking about that person and actually wishing that something bad happens to them. In these cases, being spiritual really helps. I have discussed in greater details about forgiveness in one of my earlier blogs (https://www.shrikantmambike.com/emotional-intelligence-forgiveness/)

Release all your frustrations, fear, anger, and hatred, at the lotus feet of the almighty and have faith in his capabilities. (it may be difficult in the beginning, but you need to have the patience and persistence in this regard).

• What if those painful thoughts just don’t go away?

It may be very easy to just say that don’t think about your painful past and try to forget those moments, however in practice it may be very difficult. In which case you may try the following methods:

1. Recall again and again those moments of life when you experienced lots of love, joy, and peace, from your parents, friends or anybody.
2. Stay away from negative, aggressive and abusive people.
3. Practice gratitude- to the almighty for blessing you with this life, your parents for giving you birth and bringing you up with lot of care, love and happiness. Thank your brothers and sisters for leading and guiding you, your grandparents, your best friends who had helped you in any way, relatives, contact through whom you got your first job, etc. Practice attitude of gratitude for all the people that come into your life- directly or indirectly like, the farmer who toils in the field so that we can eat, the other people who manufacture all the products that we consume or use, the milkman, the security guard of your society etc. Focus on all good things in your life rather than the traumas and the negative things that have happened.
4. Get into the practice of acknowledging and patting yourself for even the smallest of accomplishments in life. Think about the good and noble, rare qualities that you may have and feel proud about them even if nobody else recognises and acknowledges them. (like till many years nobody knew or acknowledged my character and the strong value system based on ethics that I have. I no longer look for external praise or validation, however really feel proud about those qualities, myself).

Look inside to feel the feeling of goodness after an act of kindness and love you have shown for others.

As you communicate with your heart and mind and release positive feelings of love to your own soul, feelgood or happy hormones such as endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine are released in the blood which is very healthy for your body and mind.

We have already seen the bad effects of stress (which is a result of the toxic emotions like fear, hatred, rage, anger, etc.) on our body in one of my earlier blogs https://www.shrikantmambike.com/emotional-intelligence-stress-because-of-lockdown/

• Get associated with some honest NGOs and drive your compassion side. Empathy and compassion especially towards the poor and needy, really make you feel much better. We thank almighty even more for what we have and tend to forget our pains.
• Give positive self-talk and affirmations daily, first thing in the morning and before going to bed in the night. Have words of encouragement for self.
• Pray almighty to fill your heart with his love and presence. Pray him so that he fills your heart with all the positive emotions such as joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, trust, and happiness.             
• Yoga, Meditation, and Pranayam: Well I am not an expert (like my wife) to talk about it, on this tough and heavy subject. But ever since I started meditating, Yoga asanas and practicing deep and belly breathing, myself and people around me (especially my better half) have noted the following positive changes in me:
• The general anger level has gone down
• I used to be a perfectionist and this resulted in frequent altercations with the wife. Now realized that it is ok to be a little untidy, messy and make mistakes. After all, nothing can be more important than your relationships with your very close people.
• Confidence level has gone up and willingness to take initiative and experiment has increased
• Increased self-awareness as you get into the mold of observing on your breathing.
• Reduced anxiety levels
• Increased levels of focus and concentration
• Perspective towards life and other people started to become positive.
• Increased levels of empathy and compassion for others.
• Building confidence:  The incident at the beginning of the blog just demonstrates this. As discussed in my last blog one of the fallouts of pent up emotions is fear, self-doubt, low self-esteem and hence inaction. I had many fears in childhood and carried over to my teenage years. These are blanket fears of being not able to perform any task successfully. Although, I cannot claim that I have conquered 100%, however, I am there at least at 60-70% now. Thankfully, I learned early in life that if you have to achieve anything worthwhile you need to have some basic level of confidence. I also realized that building confidence is a process and you need to work continuously towards it. To begin with, I started by taking baby steps towards learning skills like riding on a scooter (in those days we had that Bajaj with manual gears) which removed some fear of vehicles and people on the road, then I learned swimming-fear of water and depth removed and then learned to drive a car, which gave me immense confidence. I got into the habit of trying and doing things and activities which I was really afraid of- the key to developing self-confidence. These small activities paved the way in giving me the ability to handle difficult situations.

After joining engineering, I found it was quite heavy for me to handle and as a result got some ATKTs and in the process again lost some of my confidence. However, after the 6^th semester realized that I need to get going and worked really hard to clear my 7^th and 8^th semesters together, in one go.

But the real personality change came after about 4years after I joined my first job (in 1992). As a trainee, there was no much work and hence, I was not able to get much exposure and since the job involved working with very high electrical voltages, I was again scared to work and always remained behind and never raised my hand to accept any new challenge.

One day my then boss, Mr. Hegde gave me a pep talk and without asking me I was made to handle a totally new project all by myself. The universe had perhaps started working for me. The experience on that project where I required to do all the tasks such as designing, ordering material, getting drawings done and getting approved from consultants, coordinating with internal teams and customer/consultants, resolving their queries and completing the project within the deadline really boosted my confidence many notches higher.

The Comfort Zone

Psychologists have determined that each of us have a natural tendency to slip into the zone of status quo i.e. to be there where you are going easy, without much trouble although you may not be living a great life. But we still like it very much. We like to be in this state as we don’t want to take efforts and lead a relaxed life style. We get so used to enjoyable, safe and secure life (an illusion which might change in no time) that we stop to strive or take action. We just wait for things to happen rather than making them happen. The result is day-by-day we develop habits that lead to underachievement and failure.

We generally waste a lot of time watching daily sops, socialize, waste time on social media and eventually convince ourselves that we can only achieve only so much. Hence it is your attitude and personality and your habitual way of responding to other people and to life is your comfort zone. If you have to set and achieve your goals you need to come out of your comfort zones. And unless you come out, push yourself harder and try all those tasks and activities which you fear, you cannot increase your confidence.

Conclusion: Using these not so difficult methods one can release the years old, deep-rooted blocks and march towards a healthy, happy and peaceful life.

Coming up next: Emotional Intelligence- Guilt and Shame