As I finished work for the day, I came to the living room. It was the early days of lockdown & the school break was extended. There was a strange silence in the house.
There was lot of hustle bustle during spring break with both the kids at home. When it was announced that kid's won't be back to school for an unforeseeable period, it was a new stress for kids to handle. Our high school son couldn't meet his friends in school & obviously his sleepover requests won't be honored. As he is an older kid, he had his ways to manage the stress (online gaming, home gym, time with Leo our pet, etc).
For our daughter in middle school, it was little more difficult to get adjusted. She was curled up on the living room couch with her fleece on. As I sat next to her she started making long howling noises. She was not crying but when I hugged her, I could feel a sharp pain in my heart. I told her once softly to stop howling as the sound was annoying. The burden I felt hugging her made me feel what she must be going through. I didn't stop her after that, I didn't tell her anything. I just held her as I tried to process the stress and burden I was feeling. I had never felt so out of place & helpless before when I didn't have a way to comfort her.
As the howling continued, I understood that :
- Lot of times when we speak in these times, it spoils the effort though the intent is right. Words become noise, bounces off & sometimes bounces back colored with pain.
- We know that we easily offend people and trigger reactions by speaking our mind. In our mind layer, there 'might' be logic but there is no connection. So, people just hear and don't process what we say. Hearing & not listening is a way of shielding our emotional balance.
When we speak based on how we feel, we instantly connect to people as we add less colors to our words. Empathetic words born out of feelings open the channels of listening as they are lot more refined than impersonal words from our mind. Thus, a human face to leadership is born. This is what we call emotional intelligence.
- Our words have their limitations. Most of what we feel we can categorize as "Unknown, No words, Inexplicable" as it is beyond the human mind. As our friends in psychology continue with their research to tag the feelings with a name, it certainly is like over engineering our life if we try to know what is the scientific term for every feeling we experience.
This is where, we can make people feel what our intent is, without uttering a word. The level of "Energy Intelligence". If we can harness this, we can make people around us feel that energy, yes with just our presence without us uttering a word.
- What we need in these times is energy; an energy that can give hope that everything will be alright, that we can go through this & that we can come out of this as better people.
As the howling continued for minutes (certainly looked long as I lost count of time), I had to remind myself that I am a reservoir of unlimited energy (so are all of us). Just like how the sun gives rays of hope to all living beings in this planet 'without uttering a word', I felt I too can provide the required comfort. As I felt the pain & burden in me reduce, I could hearing my daughter calm down. The moments of silence we felt after that was priceless.
In a few seconds, she threw the fleece & became her usual bubbly self. Since then I am glad to see that she has adjusted very well to the current routine of the unknown & learnt how to thrive well in the abstract.
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