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Namah Emotional Literacy Training

each team gets a point when they answer it by hormones, neuro-transmitters and how
correctly and act it out well. Depending on they affect our nervous system. When people
the age-group, the range of emotions can touch each other, both secrete the hormone
vary. Participants should be encouraged to oxytocin, which produces contentment. This
come up with complex emotions and explain lasts up to four minutes. Repeated touch creates
where they have read about it or experienced a circuit in the brain and the neural pathway
it. Some examples are: I know you have seen is laid, like laying telegraph cables under the
through me. I agree but cannot say it aloud. ground. These people feel safe and can give
Your doubting me does not hurt me. attention to others from their vantage point
of security. People who do not have enough
Next we will see some clippings from films human contact may become lonely, inhibited,
where actors display social intelligence. We shy, and avoiding others. Other people make
will also read from literature where emotional them feel stressful and stress hormones create
intelligence is displayed. We will then discuss the opposite of well-being in the body. They
how we would feel and react were we in the prepare it for fight or flight. The immune
position of the characters. system’s lymphocytes are produced less and
cells deplete faster, reducing the lifespan of the
Topic 3: why we are what we are individual. Children with Adverse Childhood
Experiences (ACEs) or trauma victims, function
Many factors make us what we are — our under high stress. The involuntary triggering
genes, our upbringing, our micro-culture, of unpleasant memories is called PTSD —
our culture, the epoch in which we live, the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. People who
people in our lives, our personal preferences, live selfishly also have high stress hormones.
what motivates us. The gifts we are born with Loneliness is not measured by the quantity of
are called nature, the rest are nurture. The contacts, but the quality of relationships. Our
line between the two is blurred as studies moods are affected by a host of factors: our
of epigenetics have shown. Genes switch on environment, when last we exercised, what
and off depending on circumstances in life. film, book, music, conversation is re-playing
They are now viewed as propensities and within, what’s the weather like, if we are sick,
probabilities, not certainties. The same is what is preoccupying us, and so on.
true of our nurture. It has been observed
that babies who were not touched by their Our natural tendencies are driven by the three
mothers and not talked to, in other words modes of nature — sattva, rajas, tamas —
not loved adequately, grow up with stunted illumination, kinesis, inertia. We are a mix
emotions and avoid human contact. This is of these, showing more of one or the other
only partially true, because although the baby in different parts of our being. We may rebel
is primed to show such behaviour, she can against social injustice but be too lazy to cook
break away from this pattern. Conversely, food for ourselves. Our aim would be to
even though she had a secure childhood, she purify rajas and tamas and make sattva their
may have depressions later in life. leader, so that we understand with a broad
mind and love with an open heart. This too
The biology of who we are is determined primarily would be a stepping -stone. The final goal is

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