Emotional maturity is the basis of a successful, happy life. If a person is not emotionally developed, be it in a family or a society, he does not know how to handle mutual relationships properly. Amidst the ups and downs of life, he gets excessively emotional and often makes the wrong decisions. In daily life, we can discipline our thoughts, behavior, and conduct and maintain emotional balance.
Here are some useful tips to attain this objective:
1. Accept your emotions, accept yourself – The first step is to understand your feelings. Try to understand the level and nature of your sentiments when you are dealing with different people. Figure out where your emotions are coarse, where you feel insecure and uncomfortable, and what you can do to reduce them. One should learn to accept feelings without judgment. The change will begin with this self-acceptance. You can improve your behavior by observing your emotions in every situation. Emotions can be refined and matured by establishing control over them gradually, but it can only start with acceptance and understanding of your feelings.
2. Give positive expression to your emotions – Once you understand your feelings, you can jot them on paper and thus lighten the mind, and at the same time, get conceptual clarity. You can also share these feelings with a trusted friend or loved one who understands you. This helps in developing a positive attitude toward your sentiments. If this is not possible, then you can express your emotions in front of your God or Guru. This exercise, done with
honesty and with full faith, has a positive effect, and you will feel more powerful and balanced.
3.The task is time-consuming, so you need patience – If you accept your situation wholeheartedly, then there is no reason to maintain a negative attitude. It may take some time to change long-persisting negativity into positivity, but an honest effort will ultimately bring results. The process of transformation begins once you reach the roots of unbalanced negative emotions. With this initiative of controlling negative emotions and encouraging positive sentiments, a new outlook is developed towards better possibilities in life.
4.Make sympathetic listening a part of your life – This is a simple but very effective formula for emotional development. When you listen to someone with your full attention, it acts as an ointment on the wounds of conflict and negative thoughts. This 5. creates an abundance of positive connection, trust, and closeness in a relationship. According to the famous philosopher Stephan Covey, when you engage in sympathetic listening, the “emotional bank account ” increases. Showing interest and attention, offering verbal or physical affection, giving compliments, listening, following through with commitments, showing understanding, apologizing, and showing up or spending time together are acts that offer connection and build closeness. Additionally, you become more sentimental, and there is an increase in the credibility and authenticity of your personality. A good physician wins the confidence of the patient on such a basis and knows how to make his treatment effective. The same is true of effort made in the context of emotional development.
5.Adopt a disciplined lifestyle and austerities along with ethical conduct – This contributes significantly to reducing your ego and increasing emotional development. In the same way, self-discipline and kind nature make the personality powerful at the physical and behavioral levels. The refinement of the mind takes place in the furnace of austerities; it eliminates bad habits. This gives rise to a solid foundation for emotional balance, which gets augmented by engaging in selfless service.
6. Perform selfless service – It is a harsh truth that almost every action of ours is motivated by some selfishness, and there is a feeling of satisfaction of our ego somewhere in them. At the core of an emotionally impoverished person lies greed and arrogance, due to which he remains mentally disturbed, but is unable to understand his own situation. Therefore, by doing one task in a day with no selfish motives, one can enhance his emotional development. Ultimately, when providing selfless service starts becoming a part of our lives, our emotional development also picks up in pace.
7. Take the support of prayer and regular worship – Emotional development is the work of rooted emotions and faith, so worship is an effective way to bring about emotional balance. In moments of prayer, you try to connect to your God with emotional depths. When you are praying, you are at the peak of emotions, because then your longing is rising from the depth of your heart. These moments of spiritual communion with God become moments of emotional transformation, and during these moments of divine interaction, emotional development is occurring at the highest level. The miraculous transformation of devotees’ lives takes place on such a basis.
By adopting the tips mentioned above, you can enhance your emotional balance. Yes, this is a time-consuming process, but it is also a sure way to happiness in life.
Source: Akhand Jyoti Magazine: Sept-Oct 2020
Founder of Magazine: Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya
Chief Editor:Dr.Pranav Pandya (MD)