Page 15 - NAMAH-Jul-2018

Namah An Emotional Literacy Programme

and how not to instigate the aggressor. We of listening to someone. Children learn to
will learn to protect ourselves, physically and express themselves when someone listens to
psychologically. them. When it comes to faking it, people can
guess it immediately. Give your undivided
Mindfulness meditation develops emotional attention and many problems will get solved.
maturity. At the end of the training, the victim A counsellor often says little. The client
will not give any power to the aggressor to recounts his story and that process itself sets
hurt him. This means when the blows come, things in their right place. It is an echo of
they are deflected and do not reach the target. Sri Aurobindo’s “All Knowledge is Within”.
Or if they do reach, their strength is weak. Sometimes a compassionate listener urges
The victim does not dwell on why he fell, the speaker by asking salient questions,
but learns to pick himself up quickly and get by interjections such as, “Oh, I see”, or by
out of the way. encouraging gestures and nods.

Battered and abused people have many painful Topic 4 — compassionate communication
memories. These get triggered suddenly. The
triggers can be events, or simply the presence of This is the complimentary practice to com-
certain people. For example, if one is abused by passionate listening. It is called non-
a parent, some other similar-looking person violent communication and is offered as
may trigger fear or anger. Sometimes a single a training programme to diplomats and
phrase or the timbre of a voice replays an political negotiators. But why call it by its
unpleasant memory. If we can be conscious negative name? Words hurt more than blows.
of our emotions, we can defuse the trigger. Words wound the emotional being, which
Meditation helps in developing a witness has an infinite store of memories. Long-lost
consciousness that stops us before we react memories buried in the subconscious re-
to the trigger. With proper understanding of appear in dreams or in strange phobias and
the aggressor, an emotionally independent inexplicable behaviours. One of the easiest
person can try to pardon them. abuses to commit is psychological abuse
using words. Here participants will learn to
Topic 3 — compassionate listening modulate their voice to remove the ‘edge’.
Some people spill their anger on one person
Listening to others selflessly is a great way when they speak with another person. This is
to get out of self-absorption. It helps us called transference, which is not fair towards
diminish the hold of the ego upon ourselves. the recipient. If you want to vent, don’t speak
Many sicknesses are caused by repressed at that time, follow the ten-second formula of
thoughts. In this world where we type speech letting the impulse deflate. Participants will
and pass them on short bursts, we rely learn to replace certain words with others. For
overly on our eyes. The ears are organs example, instead of giving advice, “You should
worth cultivating. Remember the ssrutis do this”, it can be offered as a suggestion, “Do
were written by the hearers of truth. Here we you think doing this will work better?”
will develop the outer hearing and, through
it, awaken the inner hearing. Give the gift Communication between people can cause

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