Embrace your emotions - P3

Don’t be sad always keep smile… Don’t get angry, be cool. Don’t be disappointed Stay strong, be positive.

Fellow toastmasters, Is it really possible to stay happy always, is it really possible to be positive and motivated every single day. Have anyone done that? No…   

Go to any books shop , you will find a array of self-help books promising – 7 secrets to stay happy , your inbox  is filled with emails of stress relief and anger control workshops and there an emerging professional who call themselves as life coaches.

Turns out this is an 11 billion dollar market in US. India is not left behind, 95 lakh self-help books are sold annually by the ecommerce giants. So what does this mean? Very simple staying happy , staying motivated , staying positive , controlling you anger .. all your emotions are made in to a commodity and sold in the market.

Before going further let us understand what is an emotion… Emotion comes from the word motion which means that something that changes continually. And the prefex “e” denotes the word out … the name itself suggests that emotion is something that keeps changes and has to be let out, expressed or experienced.

There are only 6 kinds of emotions Happy , sad, Anger , fear disgust and surprise and all others emotions are just a combination all these.

This moment you are sad that moment you are happy. Even the angriest man laughs sometimes. Even the saddest man smiles. Even one who laughs continuously sometimes cries and weeps and that is why they are called emotions.

Recently I saw, the movie inside out.  Though the movie is meant for kids, I would recommend it for all adults.

The movies shows the circus of emotions happening inside a 11 year old Riley who deals with moving to a new city, new home and new school. The movies  takes place mostly in the head of this gal, with Joy Sadness anger fear and disgust as the main characters. The emotions are led by joy. Same like our lives how we over rate happiness. Early in the film, Joy admits that she doesn’t understand what Sadness is for or why it’s in Riley’s head.

Joy always wants to keep Riley happy. Trying to force Riley to be happy actually does not help Riley deal with the stress and transitions in her life. And also made her feel isolated and angry with her parents , which ultimately factors her decision to run away from home.

Thus making happiness an explicit goal in life can actually make us miserable

But the moment she allows herself to feel sadness in addition to fear and anger. About her idea to run away from home, she decides not to go with her plan. This choice reunites Riley with her family, giving her a deeper sense of happiness and contentment in the comfort she gets from her parents, even though it’s mixed with sadness and fear.

At one time or another, many of us have probably wondered what purpose sadness serves in our lives.

At the end of the movie Sadness actually emerges as the hero of the movie. Because sadness help to connect with people – what we call as empathy , a critical component of happiness.

Thus even sadness can trigger happiness.

Emotions are neither good nor bad, stop judging them. Instead start being aware of your emotions. IF you become aware of certain emotion and by becoming aware the emotion dissolves , then it is a negative emotion. If by becoming aware of a certain emotion you become the emotion and if the emotion spreads, then its positive. By using the word aware , I mean to be watchful or become an witness. Next time you are angry or in a difficult situation ,just come out of yourself and just be a watcher. You will start to understand the whole purpose of that emotion itself

If you are rational , you become a scientist. But if you are emotional , you become a poet. 

The tears that were never shed - P2 - Toastmasters

Good afternoon Fellow Toastmasters!!!

This is the 1^st time a speech that will be dedicated  only to all men in the room.How many men in the hall have have heard these lines “ Don’t cry you need to be brave”  “Be a man , don’t cry like a girl”.   And when a girl cries she doesn’t hear the same.

Turns out humans are the only animals who can cry when they are emotional.. Research says that emotional tears contain stress hormones, our bodies own way to push out these hormones and thus can crying can stabilize your mood , by making you less angry or less sad.

How many of you believe that only women can cry and men cannot.  Turns out it is true. Only that our culture  does not give the freedom for men to cry.I am going to be 25 soon and I have seen my mom cry every quarter , that’s almost 100 times now, and I saw my dad cry only once in my 25 yrs. And that too he cried only theoretically.

Everyone has those moments in your life when you wanted to cry very badly, but, only left with a mass of lump in your throat and could not cry.I can remember two such instances when I wanted to cry but could not cry. One was when I broke up with my girlfriend, the second time was on the day of Holi in sumerpur when I was the only person in the whole colony to left alone.

There is one incident that actually made me write this whole speech, was an incident that happened 7 years ago. When my cousin brother was leaving to Scotland to pursue his masters. It was the 1^st time realized how difficult it is for men  to cry.

I accompanied my uncle and aunt to send off my brother to the airport as a coolie only to carry the luggage. My Aunt like my mom was very emotional , they both share the same genes.  But my uncle was like a big daddy. I have always found airports to be very emotional place, lets blame the Bollywood for it. So, when I brother came back to wave the final good bye with the boarding pass, my aunts tear tank started overflowing. I wanted to move away from that drama, as I started walking way I saw my uncle , the big daddy, with swollen red eyes. Tear drops were just hanging in the eyelids but not wanting to come out. Again theoretically he did cry but practically he did not cry. 

Very clearly he wanted to cry, but he was afraid if cries he would be branded as weak and emotional and clearly big daddy cant afford that right ? Masculinity is not something men are born with. The expectations are fixed by the society artificially. We have been conditioned to fit into gender roles for so long, resultantly we suppress our real feelings, needs as well as desires.  Due to the rules set by the society and fear of rejection, men and women often suppress the qualities inherent in them. No matter what the stereotypes say, the truth is men do get emotional often. Not all men can remain strong at all times. They do cry. They do feel scared.

Please don’t see men as men and see them as humans. And don’t ever utter that line to your child “be a man , don’t cry like a girl”. You are going to make his life stressful for the rest of his years.

We often relate emotions with gender but aren’t emotions universal ?  

"So next time life gives you lemons, squeeze your eyes and cry you  will feel better.  "