Happy Place- enhance your emotional granularity
Look around. Life is beautiful!
“It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine.”
—Eeyore
Only we cannot stay in awe for long, we get snapped out of this exhilarating existence time after time.
Whilst pushing extra hard working remotely, 100% digitally, it feels natural to execute vast amounts of tasks when there are no distractions. Since no time is spent transitioning from a meeting to meeting, we have more opportunities to do our chores, spend time renovating home, gardening, learning new skills and hobbies.
What we do with our day has almost become a pressure in itself, how much can we enjoy our freedom, can we do all at once?! No.. Take a break, take a Kit Kat!
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
—Winnie the Pooh
?Event-though we are working remotely, we can still take on too much, go on an overdrive which may lead to tiredness, self destructive negative behaviour, and eventually affect our relationships and team if we behave snappy, immediately diffusing good vibes.
It is becoming more and more vital to maintain healthy routines paying increasing attention to how we are feeling, to recognise signs of tiredness, irritability, anger, resentment and exhaustion before they snowball into something much bigger, even causing havoc to our relationships and workplace.
How are you feeling?
'3-4-5' Breathing Exercise
This will help you to balance your core and identify your current emotional and physical state.
Sit down with your back straight, feet firmly on the ground, hands resting on your sides. Start by breathing in counting in 3. Keep in for 4. Slowly breath out with 5.
Can you sense where your tensions lie, what emotions are you feeling? Place your own hand on the area that feels most irritated and show empathy towards yourself, you are allowed to feel these feelings.
Carry on breathing without forcing it, just naturally letting the air flow and imagine you are watching seagulls sitting on the sea, they sit there relaxed riding the waves not resisting even the bigger ones, they just let them roll by.
Now it may be easier to assess what is going on inside you.
?What ever may be. May be. For now.
Relax and listen to the sounds of happiness
Now see if you recognise your current state from this emotional sphere and give yourself time, find your center.
Our understanding has come a long way since William James proposed four basic emotions – fear, grief, love, and rage—though these core emotions still form much of the foundation for current frameworks.
The wheel visualization in below identifies six root emotions:
- Fear
- Anger
- Sadness
- Surprise
- Joy
- Love
From these six emotions, more nuanced descriptions emerge, such as jealousy as a subset of anger, and awe-struck as a subset of surprise. In total, there are 102 second- and third-order emotions listed on this emotion wheel.
Do you recognise where you are in this emotional wheel?
The Emotion & Feeling Wheel (EFW) is a beneficial tool to use when working on emotional efficacy. The EFW is divided into many sections. The top half identifies more negative emotions and the bottom half, more positive emotions. The wheel is then split into six color-coded triangles (three on the top and three on the bottom).
The six inner emotions – Sad, Angry, Afraid, Peaceful, Powerful, Joyful – represent the emotions that are most easily identified. These are called secondary emotions. While they are easiest to identify and label, they are secondary to what a person actually may be experiencing (e.g., I know I’m feeling angry, but I’m actually hurt). The outer layers in each trajectory represent the primary emotions associated with each secondary emotion.
How you proceed next is up to you, whether you let emotions dictate the outcome or take action to find identify your emotions first and then find better ways to communicate and create solutions for your current situations.
Healthy routines help to overcome anxiety and uncertainty, including regularly connecting with good friends. When was the last time you spoke heart-to-heart with someone?
If things are getting grim or just need assurance, professional therapy may be of a good solution, we should not feel ashamed of getting help if things are piling up.
Emotional Granularity in Leadership
I consider myself and our team fortunate to have retained semi-freedom of movement and an ability to carry on spending time with the loved ones.
But downshifting in an industry full of passionate sociable keen travellers with a high phase, colourful social life has been extremely difficult to adjust to.
“Oh, bother.”
—Winnie the Pooh
We have all made various sacrifices in the past 12 months to protect our society, now it is time to gear up again, transition back may be hard too. Unprecedented times affect us all, and especially if we are going through existential struggle due to loosing a job, a loved one, or ourselves.
Now it is important to pay attention to your wellbeing also on a deeper level and not just how you are doing egoistically- financially and career centrically.
It is important for all of us to show emotional granularity, an ability to specify exact emotion you are feeling and communicate them clearly to others. Lisa Fieldman Barrett writes in her TED article that when you specify your emotions, you “issue predictions and construct instances of emotion that are finely tailored to fit each situation.”
Our emotions serve many purposes, one of which is to help us figure out how to solve problems, especially in the case of uncomfortable, or negative, emotions. The way you approach a situation when you feel harassed would be much different than how you approach a situation in which you feel betrayed.
If you feel attacked you either flee or attack back, step back to assess the situation, use breathing exercises to assess if what you are feeling is really happening.
Do you recognise how your team dynamics vary depending on each-other's emotional and psychological state? Can you think of a way to help to keep up the positive flow?
Emotional granularity is more important than productivity, take solace in your Happy Place.
What is your happiest moment and what sounds you hear, colour you see or texture you feel when you think of it, what makes you smile? Bring these elements to your daily environment.
Share good vibes at the beginning of your meetings with others.
Always remember what Winnie The pooh says.“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.
"A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”
SPARKLE.
