Often the word “cool” is used to remain in trend with the lingo used by their peer group. Even adults are seen using this word so often.

Have you ever wondered that the word’s actual meaning—of being calm and in control—is being camouflaged by a nonchalant response, when individuals might be actually suffering inside? Often, it is also used as a response to shrug off a conversation that one might not be interested in or even used as a defence to ward off a conversation that one does not want to engage in any further.

Your children are listening to your words

I saw a 10-year-old boy getting extremely angry and shouting at his classmate to stop pelting stones up in the air to a flying bird. The parent tried to calm down his son telling him, “Cool it baby. Don’t get angry.” His child was justifiably angry to watch the bird getting hurt. The parent’s correct response would have been something like, “I can understand why you are so angry. Let’s hope the stone did not hit the bird”, and further take some steps to stop his classmate from injuring anyone else. Such a response validates the child’s reaction [of objecting if he sees anyone being hit], whereas the response of asking him to be cool would make him feel that he is overreacting to the act he just witnessed. Helping his son regain his composure is important, but not at the expense of discounting his initial spontaneous response.

Expanding our emotional vocabulary is essential to improve our physical, emotional and mental levels of functioning

Take another example: When a child is able to stand up to the bully in her class and her parent says: “That was really brave of you”,  instead of “That was really cool.” The first statement is more authentic and will make the child become more aware of her inner strength.

Expressing emotions is therapeutic

Expanding our emotional vocabulary is essential to improve our physical, emotional and mental levels of functioning. Individuals with high emotional intelligence can come up with the most accurate word to describe their feelings and thus have more clarity as to what needs to be done next.

During one of her counselling sessions with me, a 30-year-old woman felt a surge of relief when she was finally able to voice her feelings over the break up of her eight year long relationship. “Today I feel real. I feel myself, as I was able to voice out what I actually feel. I feel very angry with my boyfriend. I am grieving inside. I can see my truth and I no longer feel ashamed. Life is real, it’s not just about being cool. It’s about coming in touch with oneself and rebuilding life, however painful it might be. Previously I would be hiding my feelings and telling my friends and colleagues that I am cool and that what has happened does not matter too much. Now I know I must accept reality and deal with my loss.”

There is no harm in taking shelter of the common “lingo”, provided it serves as a momentary respite to eventually leap out of our surreal cocoons and acknowledge reality. However, the need to identify and label the emotions that we are experiencing correctly is a skill that we must all develop to achieve greater emotional maturity and insight into ourselves.

The habitual vocabulary used for describing our state of mind deprives us from constructively changing how we feel emotionally about an experience

Beware of your habitual vocabulary

We all know that suppressed emotions can lead to the formation of many psychosomatic illnesses such as stomach disorders, migraines, skin problems, lethargy, muscle stiffness and many more. Therefore frequent usage of the phrase “I am cool”, although initially harmless, can reinforce a pattern of suppressing our inner emotions within and prevent us from getting in touch with our real selves and making constructive changes. The ability to acknowledge that one is anything other than “cool” requires great courage and can pave the way for greater self-awareness and emotional freedom. You could be experiencing negative emotions like “feeling used”, “broken”, “useless”, or even feeling positive emotions like, “joyful”, “happy”, “contented”—you should be able to convey them accurately.

The habitual vocabulary used for describing our state of mind deprives us from constructively changing how we feel emotionally about an experience. Another commonly used phrase is “I am depressed.” Clinical depression is poles apart from being disappointed and low. However attaching the word “depressed” to our experiences only serves to magnify its intensity and perceive it as disastrous when in reality is isn’t as bad. The more an individual keeps narrating the experience and loosely declaring that he is depressed, the more he reinforces the negative emotional state within. Rational thinking does not prevail and the consequent behaviours can be unproductive.

On the other hand, using words such as “anguished”, “sorrowful”, or “distressed” also describe what an individual is experiencing in very difficult situations, which have very different connotations from using the word “depressed” habitually.

Words convey our subconscious thoughts. It is important to use them with an awareness that would enable us to create a more meaningful relationship with ourselves and with others. Life would thus be more refreshing and cool in the truer sense, when there would be concordance in what we say with what we think and feel.

This was first published in the January 2016 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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The young adolescent had been pampered as a child. His mother had catered to his every need, not providing him opportunities to be self-reliant. As a child, if he misplaced things, she would search for them, or buy new. As he grew up, he began to view his mother’s help as molly-coddling and resent his mother’s intrusion into his privacy and space.

At times, parents are unable to disengage themselves from their children, sometimes even after the children have crossed 30 years of age. Some unmarried men and women often complain that their parents continue to put a tab on their social outings, and have to be provided the names and contact numbers of all their friends. They have to return home by a specified hour and if late, they are left feeling shamefaced in front of their peers to answer the repeated calls regarding their whereabouts from their anxiety-stricken parents.

Young married women also resort to counselling, seeking to know how they can stop their overanxious mothers from pushing onto them their views on how they must run the household finances and manage the maids. Patterns of intrusion and over-involvement from parents can be traced back to the manner in which they bring up their children, especially in the early years of development. However, it is possible to tow the line if parents look out for signs that clearly indicate that the child has matured and hand-holding would mean interference and hamper the child’s growth as a mature, self-reliant individual.

• Request for space: When as a parent the child [who is otherwise carrying out his normal daily activities and is not depressed] often says to you, ‘Mom, please leave me alone’, it’s time to check if you are questioning the child too much or demanding that he ought to do what you say, without taking into account her needs.
• White lies: When grown up children begin to lie excessively about their social outings, parent needs to discern whether the lying is to withhold information because children perceive the parents to be over-possessive, or whether it stems from the child’s dysfunctional behaviour. Grown up children with a single parent are sometimes reluctant to share information of their social group as they feel that parents may become increasingly lonely and insecure.

Why does this happen?

Often it is the insecurities of parents that make them unable to provide their children time and space to understand the flow of life. Most parents who have hectic work schedules, spend the little time that is left with their children trying to ‘fix’ their problems [out of guilt], and keeping a detailed track of their movements [out of anxiety].

Parents who are seen to be excessively guiding their children and intruding into their lives often view themselves as extensions of their children. Statements from parents who say, ‘When my child cries, I can feel the pain in my heart,’ or ‘When I see my daughter on the ventilator, I can hardly breathe myself’, reflect an inability to separate their identities from their children’s. Often, in such families, the parents are devoid of supportive systems and respond to the children as if they were only a continuation of themselves. There is lack of individualisation and an inability to step back from the problem situation to view it objectively. Overprotection and over involvement of family members with each other results in an inability to resolve conflicts in the child.

What’s wrong with it?

Over-involvement in your child’s life becomes stifling for her as she grows up. Intelligent children who have good verbal skills are able to voice out their woes to parents. However, those who lack the courage, show their resentment in passive-aggressive ways, either turning withdrawn or becoming sullen and angry.

Frequent unwarranted intrusions into a child’s life only serve the purpose of distancing the child from her parents. It prevents the child from utilising her abilities and skills to deal with demanding situations in life, as the parent is always ready with an advice or a solution.

An over controlling parent who intrudes into a child’s life by not allowing him ‘to be’, and expecting him to behave according to set family rules and regulations, is paving the way to rear a child who will be unable to relate to himself and others in spontaneous ways. Fear and rigidity often dominate the responses of such children towards themselves and others, preventing them to experience life in healthy ways.

A word of advice…

At times, parents must allow their children to learn from their mistakes. Not every knock in life is disastrous. It can be an opportunity to face life and deal with it in realistic ways.

Parents need to step back and reflect. Some questions that would need to be answered to understand one’s behaviour would be: ‘Why do I need to control my child?’, ‘Can I trust myself as a parent and know that I have done my best to equip my child with good sense and the courage to face life?’or ‘Why am I so anxious to help my child always?’

They can also ask themselves, ‘Am I helping my child to be confident of his own abilities, when I rush in to fix his problems?’, ‘Did my parents always intrude and assert their opinions on me, when I was a child?’, ‘Can I trust the forces of creation to help me and my child in the unfolding of life’s events?’

The ebb and flow of life cannot be controlled. Anxiety begets anxiety. We can only learn from life’s experiences, pray for protection, wisdom and courage and do our duties with sincerity. We need to be grateful for the gift of life and use our potential to the maximum to be of service to others. These are the lessons we can impart to our children instead of being overanxious and trying to steer their lives in a certain direction, at all costs.

This was first published in the July 2012 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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