Reflection Journal

Submitted by:
Midhun KV
2018PGPH018

This course on foundations of Emotional and Social intelligence motivated me to continue

one of my old habits, i.e. Journal Writing. It helped me to have a self-introspection, identify
more about my positive as well as negative emotions. In the very first session itself, when the
instructor asked us to write about a few emotions, I found it hard to come up with more than
5 emotions. This incident urged me to pause back and have an awareness of one’s thoughts
and feelings. Also what intrigued me more was the fact that out of the emotions that I could
recollect, the majority of them were associated with negative thoughts and emotions.
The practice of journal writing helped me to better monitor my emotions, capture even the
finest nuances, better categorize my emotions and control my actions to some extent. I could
figure out the triggers for each of these emotional spikes. I observed that negative emotions
remained for a longer duration while the positive emotions were more or less momentary. As
part of my journal apart from the major incidents daily, I started pointing out 3 instances
which made me happy, no matter how big or small it was. I incorporated the practice of
setting the action plan for a day early in the morning and tried sticking to the plans, which
helped me to organize things in a better way. The following is an excerpt from the journal :

“ Today we had Makar Sankranthi Celebration in our society. As part of the celebration, there
were several programs by small children from our housing society. It was good to watch
those kids performing those acts. It took me back to my school days and made me happy and
nostalgic at the same time. I felt very positive and was kinda admired by their performance.
The way they were talking to each other showed me how innocent they were ”.

One other important realization was that my over expectation about some things often makes
me disappointed. I realized that there is a thin line distinction between being optimistic and
over expectations.
Things that changed for me:

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 Rather than acting out of impulse, I realized that it was important to pause back and
think.
 Started setting out action plans and became more organized
 Self-introspection helped me realize how certain minute things made me happy,
which I did not realize before.

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 Reflection on the course
The course introduced us to the concept of Emotional Intelligence and walked us through the
history and evolution of Emotional Intelligence theory. Emotional intelligence is the ability to
monitor your own emotions as well as the emotions of others, to distinguish between and
label different emotions correctly, and to use emotional information to guide your thinking
and behavior and influence that of others. Organizations these days are heavily emphasizing
the importance of emotional intelligence and the survey report of future of work suggests that
it is the 6th most sought out competency in 2020. We discussed threshold competency and
distinguishing competency, floor effect and leadership traits. Overly intelligent leaders tend
to put off followers by presenting more sophisticated solutions to problems that may be
difficult to understand, by using complex verbal communications or by having an outsider
perspective. In the subsequent session, we learned about emotional balance which is the
ability of the mind and body to maintain equilibrium, about the functioning of human brains.
Amygdala makes decisions to keep us out of danger and to help us survive (Fight, flight or
freeze).We studied the importance of resilience which is the ability to withstand, adapt to and
recover from stress and adversity and we also looked at the strategy to build resilience, i.e.
 Altruism
 Optimism
 Moral Compass
 Humour
 Social Support
 Meaning or purpose in life

The entire course mainly revolved around the 4 emotional and social intelligence competency
frameworks.
 Self-Awareness - Self-awareness is the ability to recognize what you are feeling and
how it impacts your performance and your interactions with other people. Atlas of
emotions by Paul Ekman points out the 5 emotions which are fear, anger, disgust,
enjoyment, and sadness. It also helps us to identify how these emotions are triggered
and how we react to them. Self-awareness helps one to identify themselves which lays
the foundation for managing their own as well as other’s emotions.
 Self-Management- it is the management of or by oneself; the taking of responsibility
for one's own behavior and well-being.

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  Social Awareness - It includes the competencies of empathy and organizational
awareness. Empathy is the ability to sense others' feelings and how they see things.
Organizational awareness is the ability to read a group’s emotional currents and
power relationships.
 Relationship Management - In relationship management we discussed about coach
and mentor, conflict management, team work, and inspirational leadership. We
studied coaching for compliance and differences between coach and mentor. A
mentor is like a surgeon whereas a coach is like a guide. Coaching for compassion is
an important factor for long term learning and development of others by giving
feedback and support.

We also discussed 2 kinds of conflicts, cold conflicts, and hot conflicts. The main reasons for
conflicts are systems, interests, and values. Influencing is also an important feature as it refers
to the ability to have a positive impact on others, to persuade or convince them to gain.
Contemplative Practices Duration Experience
Journal Writing 20-25 minutes per day I started capturing key
(Usually at the end of the highlights of my day which
day) helped me to better reflect
on my actions and develop
an action plan for
subsequent days.
Emotional Log 10-15 minutes per day Helped me to better
understand emotional
triggers and how my body,
as well as my thought
process, reacted to these
triggers
Yoga Nidra Around 30 -45 minutes per The music helps to relax and
day get rid of stress. Usually, I
listen to it and gradually
drift to sleep
Going for a Walk in the 1 hour Every evening I go out for a
spiritual garden walk in the nearby spiritual
garden. It helps me to get
connected with nature and
take a break from the hectic
schedules.
Contemplative Practices followed since 4th January