Hello guys, how are you doing? Now rather than saying “I’m good” or “I’m fine,” connect to the actual emotion you are feeling. That’s a technique for improving awareness. Which is the first powerful step of the emotional intelligence training I had given you last week through my managing change part 1 and part 2 article! Now let’s move ahead…
The Second Step to Managing Change
Now we go to the most important step (By the way, we’re still on with the emotional intelligence training!). This is the step which helps you process emotions. And its called Acceptance.
So, what do you have to accept?
Firstly, all the emotions related to what you got aware off in step 1. Which could be emotions that get triggered off by getting aware of other emotions, thoughts or even physical sensations. Which we all unfortunately have a tendency to fight with! Just like I was fighting with the tiredness in by body that I suddenly got aware of yesterday. And took some time to make peace with. Post which only could I allow myself to actually take some rest!
You will realise that at the base of every thought, emotion or physical sensation is an underlying belief. And you could also be fighting with these. These could be beliefs about how you can never manage your emotions. Or about how incapable you are as you are unable to manage the change without getting ruffled. It could also be a belief about the environment or the people around you. All of these beliefs trigger off certain emotions inside us.
Now for some people, their emotions are so loud that they make getting aware of their beliefs very difficult. However, its important that we get in touch with these. Because it’s always better to knock off the problem from the root rather than deal with a symptom that comes back sooner or later! Which is why most of us first need to process our emotions. And give ourselves a chance to actually get aware of our beliefs.
So, how do we process these emotions? Through a number of techniques like the Emotional Freedom Technique, Mindfulness, etc. You’ll have to experiment with them and see which one’s work the best for you. And if you need help, attend one of our emotional intelligence trainings. Trying to process emotions has always piqued my interest. And I would frankly love to share what I have discovered with you😊
The Last Step to Managing Change
And finally comes our most favourite step, action. Now while you all know what kind of action you should be taking to manage the change, I’m also going to add another aspect to it. And this is about changing the beliefs that we got aware off in the previous steps. After all, we do want to change our attitude permanently, right!
Beliefs can be changed by challenging them. We tend to form many beliefs in childhood that no longer hold good anymore. And it can serve us well to let go of many of these.
You can also use the positive affirmation technique here. However, be sure to neutralise the emotion that comes along with the belief or else the affirmations may actually cause you more trouble! Yes, that’s another discovery of mine. You can check out this article I wrote on it last week. Its on Making Positive Affirmations Work for you.
Summing it Up
I’ll sign off with an interesting example.
Last week I happened to be discussing with a colleague as to why I’m finding this pandemic difficult to manage. As always, he started asking me questions on the same. I started off with how I wanted things to be normal again and not be so messy. From there we went over to how I had a need for things to be perfect, which got me aware of the underlying belief that “Everything should be perfect.” On further cross questioning, we arrived at loneliness! Yup, my need actually stemmed from a fear of loneliness (Which is a base fear of all human beings as I was once told my another colleague of mine!) And what was the underlying belief that was causing me trouble? “Loneliness is bad.”
Now how did I manage all that I got aware off? By first allowing myself to shed a few tears. Trust me, crying really helps create acceptance! Next, repeating to myself “Its ok to be lonely” many times. I did this until the strong emotions I was feeling while repeating this statement died down. And finally trying to find something positive in loneliness which would help change my belief.
So, that’s how you can use this amazing model to create any change in your life. And as I always say, if you need help with it, you know where to look! All the Best!