How to Improve Your Emotional Balance
Let’s start by defining some concepts. What do we mean when we say emotional balance? Balance, or equilibrium, means stability. It doesn’t necessarily involve being equidistant from two extremes. It’s a state of calm, not synonymous with stillness, but with harmony.
The emotional part refers to an encounter with oneself, a state of personal understanding, emotional management, and the appropriate expression of feelings. How can you improve your emotional balance?
To reach a state of harmony, you need to establish a connection between your inner and outer self. If you want to reach equilibrium, you need to know yourself. To know yourself, you need self-awareness. Knowing how you define yourself, the ability to question yourself, not being afraid of exposing yourself, and being tolerant of uncertainty are all key.
This may (or may not) seem like a simple task, but it takes time and daily practice. The path to self-knowledge is a journey to your very core, that most intimate and sometimes hidden part of who you are. It’s also one of the best experiences you can have, one of the most fulfilling relationships you’ll ever be in. Allowing yourself to just be, finding yourself, feeling all of your emotions and fears. Knowing who you are and what you’re about. Knowing why you’re here and how you can become everything that you aspire to be.
Emotional balance as a starting point and end goal
After you set out on the path of self-knowledge and emotional discovery, you have to learn how to control and regulate your feelings.
Emotions are a treasure we all have. They let you know that there’s a connection between what happens out there and what you experience inside. Emotions teach, protect, and comfort you and give you strength.
Emotions depend on you and work for you. They call you to action and change. Emotional control and regulation can only happen with self-knowledge; when you can identify and understand your emotions, you can decide what to do and how to do it.
If you think that you know how to manage and control your emotions, try this exercise. Read each of these emotions and answer the following questions: love, anger, nostalgia, fear, disappointment, admiration, satisfaction.
- How do you know you’re feeling each of these emotions?
- What kind of physical symptoms and thoughts do you have when you experience them?
- How do you express them?
- How do you relate to other people when you’re experiencing each one of these emotions?
- Do you know what situations, people, or thoughts trigger each emotion?
The engine that drives you
The next step towards achieving emotional balance is developing self-motivation. When you know yourself and you’re able to appropriately regulate your emotions, you can focus your efforts towards getting what you want and what will make you happy.
Becoming the person you want to be takes time and love. Emotional control and regulation involve willpower and effort, both personal and interpersonal. To enhance your self-motivation, you need to be optimistic, know how to take initiative, make good decisions, be in it to win it, and, of course, commitment.
It isn’t always easy to channel your efforts this way, but if you’re tenacious, emotionally aware, self-confident, and persistent, you’ll be that much closer to achieving emotional balance. The path isn’t easy for anyone, but the only path that exists for each of us is the one we visualize.
Empathy and social abilities
What’s the point of growth if you can’t share your life with anyone? Once you’ve worked on personal development, it’s time to think about the social side of things. Empathy and contact with others helps you continue to develop and grow. You’ll experience new emotions and gain valuable insight and wisdom from what others have to share.
Interpersonal relationships are also part of personal development. Social skills help you grow and improve emotional balance. We’re social beings and happiness and success are worthless if you can’t share them.
Personal growth takes a lot of work, but the stability and emotional balance that you have to gain is the best possible reward.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Bisquerra, R. (2000). Educación emocional y bienestar. Barcelona: praxis.