Self Awareness: The first step toward emotional adaptation

"I can not live without him! I'm useless! "
"Do not be so, still a lot you can do in life"
"But only he who can make me happy"
"There are still other men are definitely better than him"
"I do not care! Anyway my life now has no meaning anymore! "

Brief conversation above is a fragment of a scene from a soap opera on television. Cliched story about a woman who abandoned spouse, whom she loved. Many of the reasons why the men go. It could be due to other work in the city, having an affair with another woman, or even died of contracting the rare disease. What is clear, after the death of this man, she feels lost identity. He dissolved in the deep emotions of grief until she felt her life had ended.

Have you ever experienced something similar? Probably not a case of a breakup, but other cases where it is hard to overcome your own emotions. One of the simplest case that often happens is that when driving on the highway. How often do you feel "offended" when there are other vehicles that get in front of your path, until then you step on the gas to return following a vehicle? Or have you ever cursed the public vehicle driver who wishes to stop the vehicle on the road to raise the passenger? Or other emotional events in different situations, for example in the office. Amid the confusion of approaching deadlines, usually what you do? Incessant cursing because your boss just added to the workload? Scold your staff because they seem to linger even work? Or would you skip work because no strong again faced pressure at work? Without realizing it, it turns out a lot of emotion affects our everyday lives. Before you go any further, let us together explore first what is meant by emotion.

Emotion is a mental and psychological reactions that occur spontaneously when one is dealing with a condition. For example, when a person is undergoing his first day working as a secretary, it is fair if he was glad to get a job, afraid of making mistakes while typing. Furthermore, there are four types of basic emotions are:

    * Glad
    * Sad
    * Angry
    * Fear

The four emotions are then developed into a variety of emotions such as fear, shame, disgust, and so forth. The emotion itself is actually not have a charge of "true" or "wrong" because this is a human reaction in the face of things. Conduct a follow emosilah which can be assessed "right" or "wrong." In the case of a new secretary was, if he is unable to overcome the emotion of fear that he feels and then typing too careful, so take a very long time to make one letter only, then this behavior can be considered "wrong."

It should be noted that not only negative emotions such as fear, anger, or sadness that can make us behave in the "wrong". Positive emotions such as happiness can also be detrimental if we do not understand how to set them into appropriate behavior. 2Salah one example is the case of students who pass the final exam nationally. They show overflowing joy by doing convoy on the road, making the graffiti on the wall, or singing loudly disturbing others. Of course, their joy is not wrong because they may indeed have tried maximum to pass, but the way they show the joy that is not fair and is considered wrong by the public.

Well, that positive emotions can be detrimental, then we really must be good at controlling the behavior that accompanies a particular emotion. So, what can we do to control our emotional behavior? The first step is to have self-awareness.

Self Awareness

To be able to control emotional behavior, we need to first identify what emotions we feel at any given time. Self Awareness (awareness of self) is a concern that took place when a person tries to understand the internal state itself. The process is a kind of reflection in which a person consciously think about things he experienced the following emotions about the experience. In other words, Self Awareness is a state when we make ourselves aware of the emotions we are experiencing and our thoughts about the emotion.
A psychology expert who pursue many emotional problems, John D. Mayer, said that generally there are 3 styles that appear when someone is facing his emotions, namely:

   1. Unencumbered (engulfed)
      This type is immersed in his emotions and unable to get out of this situation. They do not understand his own emotions so they can easily dissolve carry emotions. As a result, they are not a lot trying to get out of a particular emotional state and eventually are unable to control emotional behavior. An example is the case of a breakup that became the opening of this article, or a case of people cursing other drivers because of traffic jams. They do not spend more time to realize the emotions that are sad or angry they feel. As soon feel a certain emotion, without thinking they immediately react accordingly urge the emotion.

   2. Receiving (Accepting)
      These people actually realize what they are feeling emotions, but emotions tend to take for granted is happening and not try to understand the emotion further. In the end they did not try to adapt to the emotions that arise. This could be a problem when the emotion experienced is sad, then allowed prolonged so that it can cause feelings of distress (depression). Another thing happens when emotions are felt angry or scared. Maybe in the long term, this allowed the emotion of anger which can turn into feelings of resentment, while the emotion of fear can become paranoid (excessive fear no apparent reason).

   3. Conscious self (Self-aware)
      People with this style are aware of and understand the emotions that happen to him. They know the limits of the norms that need to be guarded and thinking to manage the emotion that is felt for his behavior is still in the threshold. At the time feeling positive emotions, people who self-consciously able to demonstrate his joy when appropriate and can maintain that pleasant feeling of emotion for some time. On the other hand, when experiencing negative emotions, they are not too obsessed with things that trigger these emotions and can get out of feeling uncomfortable. For example when people are aware of themselves experiencing a breakup. Most likely, he will understand that the emotions he felt sad as it is natural, but it will not drag on in sadness. He will look for other more productive activities to overcome these feelings of deep sadness.

From the above it is clear that when we become aware of themselves more easily control the emotion that is felt so that it can more effectively control our emotional behavior. We can better understand our emotions the following reasons explain why we feel the emotion. And by realizing that the reason the emergence of an emotion, it means we have pushed our brains thinking about the importance of the source of the problem.
Here's an example. For example, an employee stuck in traffic jams. People who are aware of themselves will realize that he felt the emotion of anger because he was tired after a solid day at the office. He wanted to get home quickly because of the child and the wife was waiting. When there are other vehicles that grab the track, in fact the employee is ready to rage, venting his anger at the driver's vehicle was not polite. But because he knew himself, he thought again the reason why he wanted to get home. In the end he could realize that much more important to be able to get home safely rather than ignite a fight on the highway. Well, the right choice is not it?

With the benefits of being self-conscious, of course we want to be the case. Now the question is, how do I?

Developing Self Awareness

Self-awareness can be built by enabling the brain called the neocortex. This is part of the brain associated with language use. That is, to increase self-awareness, you need to "show respect", identify, and name the emotions you feel. Some ways you can do is:

   1. First Messages (message "I .....")
      Write or express feelings by using a message that begins with "I ....". For example: "I feel your behavior did not appreciate my hard work" or "I am disappointed with the decision you make." I message you aware that the control of the problems that occur in your hands. You are feeling an emotion, you are stating, and you who have control to change things.

   2. Various Color Ways
      Using various methods to depict and describe the feeling:

    *
      Color, eg yellow for the emotions happy, blue for sad, red for angry, and others. You can use it in clothes, stationery ink, the font color on the computer, and so forth.
    *
      Scale, for example: "I am pretty happy, approximately 80 of the 100 is". It gives a pretty picture measured about how strong the intensity of emotions that you experience. If you can say that your sadness 50:50 scale, there is no reason for you to drag it in sadness.
    *
      Analogy, example: "If I was a mountain, I was willing to erupt!". This analogy can also be used as a measure of the intensity of your emotions. For the people of Indonesia, such analogies are usually easier to understand because our culture does a lot of symbolism in language teaching (eg, forgetting his skin like a nut.)

   3. Writing unmet need
      This is intended to explain to yourself why the emotions you are feeling. Example: when you are angry at the time of your staff do not bear the same workload, you can write "I want him to join me overtime when overtime" and their needs / wants another you realize. More and more the need / desire that you write, then you will be more aware of emotional self.

   4. Jot down who want to do
      Actually it was entering the advanced stage of Self Awareness. Once you recognize the emotions being experienced, the next step is to determine what you want to do next related to the emotion. In the example you are angry at the staff were lazy before, you can write "I want to cut his salary if you come home early again" or "I will immediately rebuked if he refused the assignment." By writing things to do, you provide the opportunity for the brain to re-think: if these things are already fit and do not violate norms.

By getting the things above, you will be able to feel more comfortable to live your emotions without having to dissolve and get out of hand. Well, once you learn a lot about emotion and Self Awareness, there is no reason for you to feel helpless when hit by a powerful emotion. Whether it's negative emotions, as well as positive emotions. Now you've learned to make yourself aware of these emotions. Stay half the next step where you plan to conduct appropriate to express these emotions to others.

Self Awareness: The first step toward emotional adaptation

Nurie Lubis / 18-May-2011