The Emotional Sunglasses Theory

Given the high, and increasing, stress-levels, there is an urgent need to find means and ways to control stress-causing situation and, more importantly, our emotions towards the situation.

It is an irrefutable fact that stress does good and bad for us. However, when we let it get the better of us there are more bad outcomes due to stress than good. It is towards changing the impact of our own emotions and reactions, which ultimately become 'food-for-stress', that I present my Emotional Sunglasses Theory!

Just as physical sunglasses help us reducing stress caused by Sun's glare, without reducing intensity of Sun's glare, we can wear emotional sunglasses (not physical or real sunglasses) to reduce stress caused by emotional stress-generating stimuli.

It is a simple theory to understand, its practise is anything but. Simplicity of this theory comes from the fact that so many of us already apply part of this theory, almost daily…at least the physical aspect of it, i.e. wear sunglasses. The complexity of this theory, and the bit that many neither understand nor think about, is what wearing sunglasses actually does for our body and mind.

The questions to think about are:

• On wearing sunglasses - does the shining / reflecting Sun, which was disturbing us, suddenly stop shining / reflecting (and thus disturbing) OR have we changed our scenario to feel better without making any change to the problem (i.e. - shining / reflecting Sun)?

• Does wearing sunglasses, although a physical act, bring only a physical change or does it bring a psychological change as well?

• For shining / reflecting Sun, which is a physical problem, wearing sunglasses is a fitting physical action to reduce impact of shining Sun - can we similarly take an emotional action to reduce impact of an emotional problem (stress)?

• Does this hint / direct towards giving us a little more control over our problems? At least to the extent of how wearing sunglasses makes us less disturbed, without reducing the intensity of shining / reflecting Sun.

The emotional sunglasses theory suggests that we change the perceived importance and impact of emotional problems glaring at us. We must, now, consider the possible benefit against the effort required. If we are able to convince ourselves that our problems, although still existing, will have lesser negative impact on us after we wear non-physical sunglasses, the effort required to train ourselves on wearing non-physical sunglasses becomes worth-while.

Ask yourself this - in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year - how many minutes you find yourself outside in the Sun and how many minutes do you actually wear physical sunglasses to become comfortable with shining / reflecting Sun? Now consider this, how many minutes do you spend worried about something or the other - one emotional stress-causing element after other attacks you from various different aspects of life. No doubt the number of minutes for latter (emotional stress causing elements) will be many folds more than the number of minutes for the former (out in the Sun). Thus - wearing emotional sunglasses would immensely improve our stress-levels, by simply reducing the perceived negative impact of situation faced.

With just this one statistic alone, we can see the need and benefit of training ourselves in the use of emotional sunglasses theory. There are at least three other benefits of practicing this theory:

• Calm and composed mind due to more in-control emotional state. This will not only improve our decision-making, but also our efficiency.

• The reduction of actual physical harm that comes to a human body with stress, meaning a healthier and happier body in general.

• Other people - colleagues, family and friends, will notice this positive change, which could mean fewer bumps in managing people.

Without any doubt, the emotional sunglasses theory would help us see things in different light - just as physical sunglasses help change the colour, and reduce intensity of shining / reflecting Sun. The question that should be raised now is: are there any harms of this theory? 

This theory does carry some potential shortcomings. One potential side-effect may occur if the theory is over-used in one’s life. In this case, complacency or lethargy is likely to set in because a person could get mind-trained to think no problem is worth worrying about or even worse, a person may believe that the only action required when faced with a problem is to wear emotional sunglasses. Neither scenario is the intended outcome of the theory - however, it is important to know potential flaws / shortcomings of this theory when it is abused.

The purpose of this post is simply to share my theory, which potentially has strong benefits. Purposely, there are no specific suggestions on how to implement this theory. Every individual could think of implementing it in a different scenario and make use of the theory differently. The basic idea is to believe that without making any change to the problem at hand, we can choose to change our outlook and reduce the perceived negative impact of the said emotional problem.

Finally, just as wearing physical sunglasses makes us believe that we look "cool", the emotional sunglasses could have a similar impact...probably more. After all, positivity breeds positivity.

Go ahead...try out the emotional sunglasses, see how your emotional problems become pale and enjoy the control over strong-glare of stress.