Mental Health

How to Create Emotional Self-Defense Using In 3 Steps By Barbara

Key lessons learned from a mental health professional for reducing unnecessary suffering

My First Encounter with Emotional Self-Defense

Emotions, good or bad, run our lives. There is not a moment we don’t feel emotions. They fluctuate. Some emotions create pleasant feelings, and some cause unpleasant ones.

While our bodies make many emotions as part of our biochemical and electrical signals via biological processes, people around us can also trigger emotions.

Dealing with external emotions can be daunting. Emotional intelligence and maturity are topics close to my heart.

Working in diverse and complex corporate environments, I struggled to manage emotions triggered by some strong characters. However, doing my job according to the process was not enough to protect my sanity.

I lacked strong emotional self-defense mechanisms. Barbara diagnosed it. She was the first social worker I consulted based on a referral. She had a postdoctoral psychology degree with many years of social work in the corporate environment.

The first question Barbara asked was, “how can I help you?” After that, she stopped and did not verbalize any words until I finished my description of subjective thoughts and feelings about some workplace issues. Then she asked, “can you please give a few examples of these situations?”

Many examples popped up in my mind. I started revealing generously. I felt already in the middle of a therapeutic manifestation.

After I gave several examples, she took a deep breath and said, “we need to work on developing your emotional self-defense.” I didn’t know what she meant by this term as a young engineer who was logic-oriented and attempting to hide emotions.

Nevertheless, her suggestions were thought-provoking. She was holding a mirror of my inner self. This metaphorical mirror motivated me to focus with the utmost attention on her wise words.

The one-hour session was like a minute. She scheduled another session in a week.

Since then, I have learned a lot about emotional self-defense, a broad topic spanning multiple disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry.

After initial exposure, the subject became a strong interest to me. Thus, I researched it in detail as part of my cognitive science studies at the postgraduate level. My findings inspired and motivated me to learn more.

Experimenting with theoretical points gave me valuable insights into my emotional state.

However, in this post, rather than going into theoretical details, I aim to highlight three key points contributing to emotional self-defense at a high level.

This critical aptitude can contribute to emotional intelligence, leading to emotional maturity as a powerful life satisfaction tool.

Awareness of Emotional Triggers and Manipulators

Many internal and external factors trigger emotions. Being aware of them was the first piece of advice from my conversations with Barbara.

She introduced me to several triggers, such as our thoughts, perspectives, interactions with others, and reactions.

She advised me to scan triggers and monitor the environment. However, the most exciting point was recognizing manipulators.

According to her, anyone can manipulate our emotions intentionally or unintentionally.

When she gave some examples, almost everyone around me manipulated my emotions, including my loved ones.

However, the degree of manipulation varied. I needed to understand the intensity and amount of manipulation using a mental scale she taught me. The solution was setting boundaries.

Setting Emotional Boundaries

I didn’t know about emotional boundaries. As a person who believes in the goodness in everyone, I choose openness and intimacy even with people I meet for the first time.

However, this naive position did not work in the corporate environment.

Barbara taught me to understand hidden agendas. She believed that every communication has some plan. However, not all agendas are sinister.

Awareness of this concept and observing people’s agendas gave me valuable clues about their plans. It was my first entry into the emotional self-defense field. It was not an obscure notion to me anymore.

The most radical shift in my emotional maturity journey was setting boundaries. Initially, it was a complicated and challenging task, especially for loved ones and close friends.

I was afraid of being labeled as a cold and restrictive person. Nevertheless, clear communication strategies helped me to set meaningful and sustainable boundaries.

Neutralizing Emotions by Changing Perspectives

When I practiced setting boundaries and communicating them with people around me with confidence, I noticed a significant improvement in my emotional health. The occurrence of triggers substantially diminished.

This simple yet powerful practice boosted my self-esteem.

However, Barbara explained a missing puzzle in the subsequent sessions. It was a unique technique from mindfulness practices that I had no clue about in those days.

My only knowledge was meditation, which helped me to some extent. However, I did not know mindfulness could be practiced every moment to manage our thoughts and emotions.

The key lessons were observing the emotion as soon as I felt it, accepting it, and neutralizing it with an opposite emotion. Like setting boundaries, the process of neutralizing emotions requires practice.

However, it turned out to be a lifestyle habit after some repetition. Adding this unique skill created another radical shift in my emotional maturity journey.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Learning about emotional self-defense and practicing it habitually brought me many physical and mental health benefits.

My chronic stress almost disappeared after habitually using these three practical tools for several decades.

My anxious thoughts disappeared. I felt empowered when dealing with others, especially in the corporate world.

More importantly, my relationships with others improved. I learned many more items from Barbara during our consultation sessions.

The critical was emotional stress as the more significant part of the iceberg in my suffering. As these three made the most impact on me, I thought it was worth passing along to others who suffer from emotional disturbances unnecessarily.

We cannot stop emotions and thoughts. It is impossible to change manipulators.

However, we can change our responses and take control of our thoughts and emotions mindfully and with cognitive flexibility.

Taking personal responsibility for our physical and mental health is the most empowering decision in life.

To manage our emotions, we need to be aware of our hormones and look after them.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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