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Touch the Emotion in the Air


PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.

GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

PIPPIN: What Gandalf? See what?

GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

 PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.

GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”

 ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings


Its children’s day as I write. There were mockery in the group today about wishing me for this day, as a reward for being childlike. There, childlike. Judgement free, low on baggage and little insecurity. It makes me behave in the way I do, and it’s not easy to keep away judgement or baggage or insecurity. A comment like that would have riled me up a few years back, made me hate the guts of these people who could say such a thing and even severe ties with them. It’s a perceived threat to my strong emotional shell that could have made me react that way. In the present though, I enjoyed it, smiled and felt happy that people around me can see that I am a child. It meant a great deal.

It also meant that I wear my emotions on my sleeve and am fragile and vulnerable in that manner. That was okay, it was a realization. The ability to gauge the emotion of a person, a group or a situation is hard on me but has its value nevertheless. It tells me what I feel and it also gives me a hint of what the rest of the people around me want to feel. This creates a connection to the here and now. And sometimes, rarely though I admit, it creates a situation where time and space become greyed out and I don’t consciously realize my own existence and connect to the situation. Looking for this kind of experiences did not lead to the ability in recognizing emotions, as the class exercise proved, I was not very good at even reading a person’s face to understand what emotion the person was exhibiting, but there is this skill in me to recogonize the emotion of a person and react accordingly. The days it failed were mostly with my supervisors and almost never with my team. This made life hard, the importance I placed on my team’s emotional state was much higher than that on my own, it was just my nature, a natural state of flow. This ability gave high performance capabilities in running my team, official or otherwise, with the ability to create an environment of acceptance and creativity, for the entire state of flow was grounded on empathy, towards the world and the system. It has its holes, that is for introspection rather some time else.

The most primal emotion at a work place or in a group is the fear of constant change. The uncertainty it brings can be mind boggling. A true leader is aware of this state in his team and creates an environment where the fear of change is easy to deal with. Openness and mindfulness is the key. Being open, in way that the leader expresses truly what he or she feels about the change is critical, rather than striving to create an inspirational figurine that is outside the realm of imitation. Look what happened to Gandhi. The way his face is now used, his life is now quoted, his principles have now come to be known as something that a normal man cannot aim for, quite conveniently. A leader should also be mindful, not just about his state of mind, but also about the people who look up to him or her for direction and purpose. This state creates a channel of energy that then feeds on itself and gives a network of courage to all in the team to face the challenge of change. This state comes with being open to emotional fragility, though, I would like to believe, the fragility goes away eventually

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