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Yesterday, I had an interactive session at the @air-clinic room where I discussed ways to maintain emotional balance. The class began by 5.40 in earnest.

I defined emotional balance as the ability of the mind and body to maintain equilibrium and flexibility in the face of challenge and change. From the definition I gave, I focused on 5 words.

• Mind
• Body
• Equilibrium
• Challenge
• Change/flexibility.

We will all agree that if we want to have an emotional balance, we need to have wisdom to connect these five concepts, we need to be emotionally intelligent to have an emotional balance.
What is emotional intelligence? In my own words, emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand and manage our emotions and the emotions of others.
Several other definitions of emotional intelligence were given by members of the class. @fejiro defined emotional intelligence as “Ability to recognize your emotions”
@peterakpan defined it as… “To my understanding, I think emotional intelligence is the ability to take control over your emotions”
@georgeasante defined it as ...”Emotional intelligence is all about awareness of emotions, controlling of emotions and building of interpersonal relationships judiciously”

The way we manage our emotions successfully can be top notch or poor depending on our individual exposures to life circumstances. This means that the ability for us to recognize and understand our emotions will lead to a better management of our emotions.
An emotion is an energy in motion. There is no true success without emotional success. An average person experience about a dozen of those emotions weekly. This doesn’t reflect our emotional capacity but the limitation of our emotional patterns of focus.
There are about three thousand words in the English dictionary that describes emotions e.g. Anger, grief, sadness, calm etc. Out of these words, about 1,051 portrays positive emotions while about 2,086 portrays negative emotions.
Life’s journey is an emotional experience, there are hidden messages in every emotion when we identify them and act upon them, and we become emotionally intelligent and better human species. When we improve our emotional intelligence, we become less reactive and more interactive with conversations.
@ adoore-eu and @peterakpan experienced grief, when they lost somebody dear to them, @fejiro felt lonely when she had a heartbreak.
As they experienced these temporary setbacks, they learned from it, yes even an unpleasant emotion has a lesson to learn. All negative emotions contain within them positive messages or instructions that can help us grow as better human beings.
Grief occurs when one experiences a major loss (of loved one), when your life is impacted negatively by people or forces (outside your control).
The lesson from grief is acceptance. You have to accept the things that cannot be changed and start focusing your energy on what you can control.

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The example I used yesterday was Anger. Anger is an emotion we experience averagely on a daily basis. It is a loud cry of an unsettling hurt. Anger is a secondary emotion, the primary emotion is frustration. Frustration is wanting something and not getting it. In frustration, the brain believes that you can be doing better than your present state. The message learned is this, constant frustration means that the solution to your problems are within range, and you need to change your approach to achieve your desired goal. Life is teaching you that you are off the track, so you need to go back and retrace your steps. If we can conquer our frustrations, we have conquered our anger in the long run. Prolonged anger can lead to depression which is a clinical case.

The steps to maintaining a stable emotional balance can be seen thus.

Ability to stay calm and manage stress.

Stress is a major trigger of emotions, how we manage stress can make a difference btw being assertive versus reactive. When we are stressed and under pressure, we can pour cold water on our faces and go out for a walk to get some fresh air. Cool temperature helps to reduce anxiety levels. Caffeinated beverages should be avoided because it stimulates the nervous system which can affect your mood.

Ability to reduce negative emotions.

In order to change the way we feel about a situation, we must first change our thinking faculty and focus on positive emotions. Example when you feel bad about somebody’s behavior, we don’t jump into conclusion, we first put ourselves in the person shoes

Ability to stay proactive and not reactive

this is almost similar to stress management, here when we feel angry or upset before we voice our mind, we can take a deep breath and count slowly from one to ten or vice versa. @amoni admitted that this method worked for him most times, @georgeasante was flabbergasted.

Ability to express intimate emotions in close personal relationships.

The class got more interesting when @georgeasante inquired about sexual emotions and how to control them.

It is true we all have sexual emotions, our ability to effectively express and validate tender, loving emotions us essential to maintaining close personal relationships. Sharing your emotions in a way that is nourishing and constructive and being able to respond affirmatively when the other person does the same.

“A persons “heart withers if it does not answer to another heart” – Pearl Buck.

I gave examples of how to go about this.

• verbal bidding- using short sentences like “how are you”? “how are you feeling”? "I appreciate you” etc.
• Body language bidding. Positive eye contact, hugging, smiling etc.
• Behavioral bidding - offering food, hospitality a thoughtful gift etc.

The summary of the above examples could be classified into an increased level of self-awareness, ability to manage our emotions, ability to practice self-motivation and empathy always, this goes a long way to improving our emotional relationship with ourselves and others.

Every single one of us has weaknesses, if somebody has hurt you, you need to forgive.Forgiveness is a liberating experience, it sets you free and helps renews your emotions. Some of us reading this post have held on to some grudges for years. Some people can’t even remember who they need to forgive. Let me help you remember them.
The people you need to forgive are:

• Your parents (Living or dead) they might have made mistakes while bringing you up. But be happy that they gave you life and you are a better person.

• Past relationships that didn’t work out may have affected your self-esteem -remember that you were once responsible for your actions then.

• everyone else in your life who has caused you grief and pain.

• lastly yourself. You must forgive yourself for every mistake you did in the past. When you did those things, you were not the person you are today, you were an immature version of yourself.

I want us all to take control of our emotions and keep it balanced today and always

Philippians 2:3 (KJV) Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.