How to master emotional intelligence?

“Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and a precise picture of it.” ~Viktor Frankl

Part 1: DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM EMOTIONS

Human beings are embodied in complex emotions. Negative emotions control them and make their life miserable. Emotions like anger, frustration, fear, depression, and boredom, etc. If someone experiences anger, he would immediately take a reaction and nag or fight with the other person without even knowing that what he is doing. Emotions are controlling him. Now the question arises how to control emotions? Here is the exercise to develop this critical life skill.

"Breathe, step back, think and then react." (Buddha)

The solution is to develop a space in the mind to think about these emotions. Just don't react suddenly. Whenever you feel anger and before reacting to it analyze it. Take a step back and access it. Ask yourself these questions that why am I feeling anger right now? What am I outraged about? Is there any specific or tangible reason for it or is it in the air? Then find its origin. Is it came from your inner self or your personal experience or any other source like social media or your office surroundings?

At that moment of emotion, you are in the bubble. Come out of the bubble and analyze it from the outside. Once you find the origin of emotion, you are ready. You have discovered that trigger that made you restless. Do this exercise with every negative emotion and discover triggers and say bye-bye to them.

Do this daily whenever you experience emotion and write it down. While you analyze the emotion, you will come to know that these negative emotions are temporary and they are not real. You will not be like this tomorrow or a few days later. In this way, you practice patience instead of messing things up. 

Part 2: CONFRONT YOUR MORALITY:

Death is a bitter reality. During this COVID-19 time, people are afraid of death. This fear of death is the mother of all other pessimistic emotions like anxiety or depression, etc. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors didn't experience this extreme stress and anxiety of thinking death like today we do. Because their relationship with death was visceral. They had no hospitals. They used to see people dying in the houses and they used to kill animals to eat. But now we have hospitals and supermarkets where death occurs in silent rooms far away from us. During this virus time, we sense death all around us like people in the past. How to stop fearing death?

"The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural." -Darth Sidios

We need to confront it rather than concealing it. Think about your death. Battle with this fear. This fear is going to be beneficial once you start to consider life as a grateful opportunity. You will start to appreciate life. You will wish to move forward to live and enjoy life. A sense of urgency will develop and your applause towards your blessings will increase. Your connection to life will deepen once you realize that life is temporary. You would want to fill each moment with affection and joy.  

Part 3: DEPRESSION

Depression is what everyone experiences. According to Robert, there is an exercise that would help to dull the consequences of depression. We have been reading this quote since our school days that HEALTHY MIND LIVES IN HEALTHY BODY 

Our body and mind communicate with each other through neurons and hormones. There is a deep connection between them. Negative thoughts in minds affect the body's immune system while a weak body makes things complex for the mind as it starts to feel boredom, etc. There is an interactive feedback loop.

He said that our hunter-gatherer ancestors used to walk dozen of miles. They used to use their physical powers. While people who live in Scandinavian countries where night stays for many months and their exposure to the sunlight is very less. They experience depression a lot. The physical element has an extraordinary effect on the mental element.

Our body is functioned to move. If it stays static, it would become vulnerable and leads to kick negative emotions in mind.

To live without having the effects of depression, one needs to subtract the lethal chemicals from the body by moving. One needs to use physical powers to make the body tired and to sleep like a baby and replenish relaxed hormones. Don't stay in bed all day it will make you think negatively. Stand up and go for a walk.

Part 4: ANXIETY

Anxiety is an emotion that constantly haunts the mind of every individual in any ground of life. Like anxiety about getting good grades or career or money or relationships. The more we dwell on this emotion the more we create troubles for ourselves.

The solution is whenever you experience this anxiety, think it out of the box. Question yourself that the career or goal you have made is going to give you long-term sustainability or benefit? Think about its growth in next coming years. If you find that career or goal is not getting you in that place where you wanted to be in the next 5 or 10 years and it would be downsized by technology or another source then think about the other direction. Once you discover other ways then find the skills, you need to develop to excel in it at that anxiety moment. Grab your laptop and start to google.

In this time of exercise, you are thinking about solutions. Constructive thinking would eliminate stress hormones and your time would become productive.

And if you have a sustainable career, then reassess it. Think about how you did this in the past. Point out the mistakes you made and analyze them and generate schemes or think about another way to not repeat them.

Analyzing and cultivating big objectives will take you out of the negative cyclones if you think out of the moment.

Part 5: BOREDOM

This powerful emotion is what we all are experiencing during this horrible quarantine. It is biological and obvious.

We depend on external sources like scrolling social media or watching movies. We get addicted to these sources to entertain ourselves. We need to develop internal resources to amuse ourselves and to make us more creative.

According to Robert, either we can make our mind like a dessert having irregular patterns and less variety of plants and animals or like a forest having a diverse variety of every component of nature.

Now the question arises how to make your mind like a rich self-enriching environment having fascinating ideas and thoughts?

The first step is to make yourself comfortable being alone. Spend time alone. Think about yourself, about life, about your feelings. This life skill would help you analyze yourself. And would let you know the inner self weaknesses which are needed to be healed.

"You are facing death and danger and competition, but at any moment, you can decide to have a fearless mindset" - Robert Greene

The second step is to read a variety of philosophy books by authors that have faced extreme challenges in their life. Analyze the moments and the moves they took to calm themselves down when they were in danger.

Read books of history and geography. Make your mind time machine and take yourself in past and learn about their cultures and learn from their experiences. This will make your mind a rich mental landscape. 

CONCLUSION:

These exercises would not be giving the impression to solve your current problems but once you start to practice them, you would succeed to create mental space and abilities in you and these will help you figure out your future troubles. Put these principle into actions every day NOW! Nothing WORKS unless YOU WORK!!