Are You Emotionally Healthy?

1) When you’re feeling depressed and a friend asks how you are feeling, are you more likely to answer:
a. Fine
b. I don’t know
c. Alright, I guess
d. You don’t want to know
e. I feel depressed

2) When one of your family members does something which upsets you, are you more likely to say:
a. You are _____
b. You shouldn’t have____
c. You really hurt my feelings
d. I felt hurt by that
e. You always do this to me

3) When someone points out a mistake, are you more likely to:
a. Defend yourself
b. Find something wrong with the other
person or their logic
c. Thank the person
d. Ignore the person

4) When facing a scary situation are you more likely to:
a. Try to avoid thinking about it
b. Worry about it
c. Hope that it will go away
d. Estimate the probability of your fears coming true and begin focusing on your options.

5) When someone reacts strongly to something you say, are you more likely to:
a. Think they are too sensitive
b. Tell them you were just joking
c. Apologise and ask them what bothered them about what you said

We all come across such scenarios almost on a daily basis and our answers to these questions
will determine how ‘emotionally intelligent’ we are. Well, isn’t that odd? Intelligence doesn’t go with emotions, does it? They’re almost opposites! At least, that’s what we always thought. But now even companies have realised that to be good at their jobs, their workforce must also know how to deal with their emotions.This area of your personality is called Emotional Intelligence and it is measured by Emotional Quotient or EQ, like Intelligence Quotient (IQ).

In fact, EQ is far more critical than IQ for building healthy, high performance companies, societies and families.Common emotions Can you name some emotions? Anger,happiness, sadness, depression, jealousy, fear,rage, surprise, guilt, shyness and so on. Notice that each of these emotions has behaviour and a physical reaction associated with it. For example, rage leads to tightening of body, fear with shivering etc.

“Anyone can become angry — that is easy.But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way that is not easy.” – Aristotle
So, what is emotion? It is defined as a subjective feeling usually accompanied by physiological reactions that lead to behavioural change.Now some of these emotions are socially acceptable or acceptable to a person and these we may call positive or pleasant. Some emotions
are not very nice for people and we may want to label them as negative or unpleasant. But remember, both these emotions exist in everyone. It is how they deal with it, is important. A person may get angry but he may choose to keep quiet or register a protest in a nice way. So anger by itself is not negative, it is what you do with it that makes it negative or positive.

What is EI?
Emotional Intelligence helps one to:
1. Accept and Accurately identify
emotions
2. Use emotions to help you think
3. Understand what causes emotions
4. Manage to stay open to these emotions in order to understand your feelings and respond appropriately
5. Empathise with other’s feelings in the same way and respond
6.Coming back to the quiz

The response ‘a’ in the above questions may indicate that you are not accepting your feelings and the rest of the responses indicate that either you are blaming someone for the emotion or having self pity.

What do you attribute your success or failure to? Watch what you say!
As students, let’s look more closely at how you talk about your successes or failures.
When you get good marks in an exam, do you say “Oh, the paper was easy” or do you say “I worked hard”. When you fail in an exam, do you say, “The teacher was strict” or “I should have prepared better” Now the reasons you give can be either temporary (paper was hard, but it can be easy next time) or permanent (my teacher doesn’t like me, so unless she is replaced, I will continue to fail). Next time, please observe your language and this is the cornerstone of your ability to deal with situations. When you attribute your success or failure to yourself, then you can take responsibility for it and possibly you can change it. When you blame others, you are shunning the responsibility. And this external thing can be either a permanent excuse for your failure or it can be changed.

How consistently can we keep our EI alert?
We have just given a sample of situations in the five questions at the beginning. But our lives are not just these five issues and cannot be solved by multiple choice answers. In fact, the lack of emotional intelligence is that mostly we don’t see these choices. We are reacting in an ‘automatic’ way. But choices always exist. Let me give you an analogy of a computer command. When you click an icon or give a command and press enter, you instantaneously see the result of the command. But that doesn’t mean the computer didn’t do anything.

The computer actually executes thousands of instructions to carry out your command, but it does that so fast that you don’t perceive the time. So it is with all of us. If we pay attention to the step by step process of the reaction, we will be able to choose what our response should be. This is called ‘respond but don’t react’.

The behaviour can fall in a very wide range – very consistent, every single incident is handled well to totally unpredictable and volatile personality. Most of us are somewhere in between. Some may handle most of the situations well but have occasionally lost control. And others may be the opposite.Someone doesn’t give these choices. We need to see these by ourselves and also choose the right response ‘consistently’ and appropriate for the situation. People who do this more often are better in their life. But no one is perfect. Also, just that we didn’t react externally
doesn’t mean we didn’t react. This is true especially between ‘unequal’ relationships where one is very senior or powerful. I may not have the liberty to show my anger, but I will hold resentment or jealousy.

All human beings have issues in relationships,education and career, finances and health. The priorities change during different parts of life.As a youngster, you are bound to have challenging situations in relationships and education. This is quite normal. But whether you have the ability to deal with it in such a way that brings you and others happiness is the key.

Space for counselling Now life is not so difficult after all. When cracking IIT-JEE was difficult creative people came forward for coaching. These people could give you the ability and attitude to compete and perform in JEE. They didn’t come and write your exam! Similarly, there are trained and experienced counsellors who can help you grow and mature yourself in such a way that you can deal with life’s challenges properly. It is not wrong or unhealthy to seek a counsellor. Just like you have joined a coaching institute to help you with academics, you can approach these
counsellors who are life skills coaches.

A counsellor is not someone who will give you solutions. He/she is not supposed to. It is not even possible, since every person’s situation is unique. The goal of counselling is to achieve a better personal adjustment and growth in maturity, to stimulate the counselee to exploit
his/her potential and resources to resolve an issue at hand. The people who go for counselling are normal people who need help in their personal problems. The counselee achieves deeper self knowledge, a change in perception about self and others, and shift in attitude.

Counselling is more like teaching you how to fish rather than giving you a fish. When you find your own solutions, you are likely to carry them out to the end. Also, now you have also learnt how to find the solution.

A counsellor is someone who helps you see choices to your questions and then you can make a choice that is good for you and others.This is different from psychotherapy which may be practiced by a psychiatrist for specific mental illnesses.Effects of emotional problems are sometimes irreversible You see many youngsters ending their lives because they could not pass an exam or couldn’t get admission in a college of their choice. There are instances when even children have ended their lives because their parents scolded them or when they did not get what they wanted. Under all such incidents is the lack of strength in the person to deal with disappointments. Such people don’t see any choice for themselves excepting ending their
lives. And this can happen even to an IIT graduate who didn’t secure his dream job. But is that true? Think about it.

Another situation which might create anxiety or depression in a youngster is when he/she joins a new institute. It becomes quite challenging and some people may need professional help to prioritise their problems and sort them out.Some extreme cases reported in the media about lover throwing acid on the girl or killing her are very disturbing. It is perfectly normal for a boy to be interested in a girl and vice versa.Sometimes this could be an infatuation, at other times it may lead to a life-long relationship like marriage. Sometime, the two may be just good friends forever.

To sum up In any case, one skill that is required to handle this and which is an important aspect of EI is what is called EMPATHY. Empathy is different from sympathy. Empathy is the ability to put
yourself in the other person’s place and think from his/her perspective. All managers and corporate CEO’s are expected to have this skill to manage the HR. All marketing professionals are using this skill to think like their customers and know their needs.

Any human relationship – whether it is lovers,boss-subordinate, spouses, parent-children or simply between friends, thrives only if ‘one’ in that relationship can understand ‘the other’s
perspective’.When parents can’t see what their children want as they grow into young adults, it leads to tensions at home and sometimes rejection.I have known people who have cut off their ties with a brother, a parent or a cousin on very small issues.All such situations can be dealt with in a more mature and balanced way, if the persons are emotionally intelligent.So, what are you waiting for? Read more about EI and check your EQ.If you have a friend who is feeling challenged,depressed, angry or helpless – tell him/her to see a counsellor.Your early attention and suggestion may help save a life.

(The author, Dr Uma Garimella, is an expert on teaching learning process and regularly conducts workshops for teachers and students.She is a consultant at Centre for EducationTechnology and Learning Sciences, IIIT-H and Honorary Director, Centre for Faculty Development and Management, NMREC,Hyderabad. Visit her site www.teachersacademy.co)