Given
the high, and increasing, stress-levels, there is an urgent need to find means
and ways to control stress-causing situation and, more importantly, our
emotions towards the situation.
It
is an irrefutable fact that stress does good and bad for us. However, when we
let it get the better of us there are more bad outcomes due to stress than
good. It is towards changing the impact of our own emotions and reactions,
which ultimately become 'food-for-stress', that I present my Emotional
Sunglasses Theory!
Just
as physical sunglasses help us reducing stress caused by Sun's glare, without
reducing intensity of Sun's glare, we can wear emotional sunglasses (not
physical or real sunglasses) to reduce stress caused by emotional
stress-generating stimuli.
It
is a simple theory to understand, its practise is anything but. Simplicity of
this theory comes from the fact that so many of us already apply part of this
theory, almost daily…at least the physical aspect of it, i.e. wear sunglasses.
The complexity of this theory, and the bit that many neither understand nor
think about, is what wearing sunglasses actually does for our body and mind.
The
questions to think about are:
- On wearing sunglasses - does the shining / reflecting Sun, which was disturbing us, suddenly stop shining / reflecting (and thus disturbing) OR have we changed our scenario to feel better without making any change to the problem (i.e. - shining / reflecting Sun)?
- Does wearing sunglasses, although a physical act, bring only a physical change or does it bring a psychological change as well?
- For shining / reflecting Sun, which is a physical problem, wearing sunglasses is a fitting physical action to reduce impact of shining Sun - can we similarly take an emotional action to reduce impact of an emotional problem (stress)?
- Does this hint / direct towards giving us a little more control over our problems? At least to the extent of how wearing sunglasses makes us less disturbed, without reducing the intensity of shining / reflecting Sun.
The
emotional sunglasses theory suggests that we change the perceived importance
and impact of emotional problems glaring at us. We must, now, consider the
possible benefit against the effort required. If we are able to convince
ourselves that our problems, although still existing, will have lesser negative
impact on us after we wear non-physical sunglasses, the effort required to
train ourselves on wearing non-physical sunglasses becomes worth-while.
Ask
yourself this - in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year - how many minutes
you find yourself outside in the Sun and how many minutes do you actually wear
physical sunglasses to become comfortable with shining / reflecting Sun? Now
consider this, how many minutes do you spend worried about something or the
other - one emotional stress-causing element after other attacks you from
various different aspects of life. No doubt the number of minutes for latter
(emotional stress causing elements) will be many folds more than the number of
minutes for the former (out in the Sun). Thus - wearing emotional sunglasses
would immensely improve our stress-levels, by simply reducing the perceived
negative impact of situation faced.
With
just this one statistic alone, we can see the need and benefit of training ourselves
in the use of emotional sunglasses theory. There are at least three other
benefits of practicing this theory:
- Calm and composed mind due to more in-control emotional state. This will not only improve our decision-making, but also our efficiency.
- The reduction of actual physical harm that comes to a human body with stress, meaning a healthier and happier body in general.
- Other people - colleagues, family and friends, will notice this positive change, which could mean fewer bumps in managing people.
Without
any doubt, the emotional sunglasses theory would help us see things in
different light - just as physical sunglasses help change the colour, and
reduce intensity of shining / reflecting Sun. The question that should be
raised now is: are there any harms of this theory?
This
theory does carry some potential shortcomings. One potential side-effect may
occur if the theory is over-used in one’s life. In this case, complacency or
lethargy is likely to set in because a person could get mind-trained to think
no problem is worth worrying about or even worse, a person may believe that the
only action required when faced with a problem is to wear emotional sunglasses.
Neither scenario is the intended outcome of the theory - however, it is
important to know potential flaws / shortcomings of this theory when it is
abused.
The
purpose of this post is simply to share my theory, which potentially has strong
benefits. Purposely, there are no specific suggestions on how to implement this
theory. Every individual could think of implementing it in a different scenario
and make use of the theory differently. The basic idea is to believe that
without making any change to the problem at hand, we can choose to change our
outlook and reduce the perceived negative impact of the said emotional problem.
Finally,
just as wearing physical sunglasses makes us believe that we look
"cool", the emotional sunglasses could have a similar
impact...probably more. After all, positivity breeds positivity.
Go
ahead...try out the emotional sunglasses, see how your emotional problems
become pale and enjoy the control over strong-glare of stress.
