Guide to Personal Growth & Wellness (BUILDING GOOD EMOTIONAL HEALTH) – Part 3
“Unhappiness Indicates Wrong Thinking; Just As Ill Health Indicates A Bad Regimen” ~ Paul Bourget
INTRO:
Having good Emotional Health is one of the most important aspects of our lives. This is a tricky one because Emotional Health is not physically visible which sometimes makes it more complicated to treat when it’s damaged or lacking. People, however, find ways to achieve good Emotional Health; employing different techniques to create and maintain tip-top emotional balance. This blog looks at some of the techniques you can use.
Developing good Emotional Health is a lifelong Lifestyle choice. As we discussed in “Lifestyle Changes” article, small, determined steps with a positive undertaking of “Self” is required.
We start by looking at our:
“Inner Compass” This is always a good starting point. My personal technique is the same as always; an honest look within me. Develop or sharpen your “Inner Compass”, question yourself on:
~ How your personality deals with adversities? Do you confront them head-on? Can you deal with each adversity as it comes along or leave it for another day?
~ Are you a glass “Half Full” or “Half Empty” type of person?
~ Are you honest in analyzing what causes your “Negative Emotions”? Were you hurt, disappointed by a loved or trusted friend? Are you surrounded by damaged people or the environment? Remember that adversities happening to people you love can have lasting negative effects on you too.
Choose To Be Positive. Make a concerted effort to be positive. This means changing anything or anyone who is detrimental to it. Always strive for a positive environment:
~ Minimise Distraction.
~ Upgrade your relationships (friends & family) by having only positive people around you.
~ Have positive thoughts by avoiding toxic and negative energy. You’ll never be successful with these.
~ Positivity should be applied even to the type of food you eat. Eat clean, fresh food. Your body is your temple. Look after it and everything else will fall nicely into place.
~ Be aware of where and with whom you hang out with.
Build Hope and Maintain Hope: We need to replace “Negative Emotions” with “Optimum Positive Emotions”. Positive Emotions are based on hope. With HOPE, everything, I mean “everything” is possible! The hard part, however, is having and maintaining hope in the face of adversities. The trick here is to learn how to find hope & maintain it.
These are my tricks. They worked wonders:
- Re-emphasize what you know. You know that no situation stays the same indefinitely. If you’ve lost all hope or have none at all, have this FIRMLY in mind – This situation is not permanent and will eventually shift!
- Never limit yourself to only one plan. Always plan more than one possibility. Have plans A, B & C.
- Keep tweaking your plan until you arrive at the one that suits the problem.
- Constantly throw away negative thoughts, negative emotions, and negative people in all forms.
- Find things to occupy your mind and to occupy you, like passionate hobbies that will keep you busy and occupied. Find a purpose, “A Reason to Do Something” The old adage “idle mind is devil’s workshop” can be true.
- Look for ways to develop a social support system.
- Utilise each opportunity you get.
Don’t Be Caught Out! Regulate Your Emotions!! I’ve learned to split hope into “Mind” and “Emotion”.
~ Learn the difference between Mind and Emotion. Most of us (intellectually) know all the good reasons to hope but still feel hopeless. One effective way to deal with this is by using my “Bite-Size” rule (as in the Lifestyle Changes article). Take things in bite sizes – one minute, one hour, and one day at a time and emphasize each good reason to have hope.
~ Strive to find something to rejoice in and celebrate each day.
~ Understand the importance of having HOPE. Developing Hope and keeping your hope intact is one of the most important aspects of good emotional health and contentment.
~ Don’t be caught out by underestimating the importance (and strength) of Emotion! Explore and understand the saying that “Emotion is more powerful than Intellect”. Think about it; the power of Emotion is the reason why the most powerful amongst us, the most educated; most religious, the strongest sometimes get depressed and/or lose hope.
“Mind” and “Emotion” are important and will be looked at further under Meditation & Mindfulness. I also have a project for you that will hopefully help you develop these aspects better.
My Tip: Work this project to best of your ability: Spend one week regulating your emotions.
- Start by learning how to rule and how to track your emotions. These are vital to any worthwhile Emotional Health.
- It’s not as difficult as it sounds and can be easily achieved.
- Start by monitoring and (optimally) regulating:
~ Your rest
~ The food eat and
~ Living a clean life
You are able to learn and do these if you truly want it and if you notice that any of these is going off-sync, try bringing it in line quickly. If this is not happening as quickly as needed, then manipulate it by Will-Power and Intelligence.
Please note: For anyone diagnosed with chemical imbalances and/or under medication, combine this with your medical regimen but let your Doctors know. They’ll be able to adjust things as you get better.
Outside Influences: Like every other aspect of our lives and as stated before, people and influences around us impact our Emotional Health. You need to constantly evaluate and be aware of what influences are around you – who are your friends, associates? Which family member(s) bring positivity to you and who’s draining? What TV programs do you watch? What type of movies do you see? What are the places you gravitate to? Who do you fraternize with? Are these positive, re-affirming places and people? If not, then drop them like a hot potato.
It is proven that positive emotions create a positive life and activity. The effect that bad company has on us is so relevant that it’s recognized in Psychiatry. It’s called “Relationship Illness”
Exercise such as Yoga: Yoga is great, gentle Yoga if you have limited movement. We are basically animals and our physiology is not made for sitting in front of the television or computer all day. Fresh air and exercise help cleanse the chakra (areas in your body that connect with your life energy). Again, those limited in their movement may want to try Chair-Exercise or similar.
Meditation & Practicing Mindfulness: Meditation work on a deeper level than our intellect state. They are great for our physical body and soul. Fortunately, meditation is easy to practice as it doesn’t require expensive equipment; nor does it take up loads of space. All you need is yourself and a quiet corner.
There are many different techniques. The common denominator across the techniques is that Meditation evokes inner stillness, quietude; it is a conduit for introspection in our noisy world.
The benefits (even when done for a few minutes a day) are invaluable. Meditation joins our intellect self with our visceral and emotional self. It is the emotion’s food and the massage that will help you absolve that “Nothing is Permanent”. As said earlier, most of us know this intellectually. It is imperative that you know this Viscerally! It will help alleviate your suffering(s) as meditation will help you experience impermanence which leads to the ability to let go of unnecessary emotional baggage.
Finally, Meditation will change your relationship with Negative Emotions and situations that come with it; so that instead of being all-consuming, you’ll see the issues float by you into the horizon!
IN CONCLUSION: Like with Lifestyle-Changes, I advocate baby steps here. Focus on all the positive changes you achieve. They will help you keep the momentum. The human cognitive system is an intelligent one and will, with time recognize and accept your new, improved “Self” as the deal!
Next Section: We’ll be looking at Finance, the different types of Investment Vehicles, such as Venture Investing, Stock Market, Real Estate, Commodity, Preference Shares, Futures, Diamonds, Hedge Fund, Deposit Account, Investing of Art, Gold, Classic Cars, etc.
You can learn more about Wellness, Personal Growth, and Business Insight with Pat Clough
