Chapter 11 

Make Life Easy – Relationship Management– Emotional Management

The mental health of seafarers – good news and bad news

Ausmarine editorial – December 2011 /  Baird Maritime editorial – January 2012 

By Robert Iversen

What about the mental health of seafarers? Well, for many it is not very good. They spend months, maybe years, away from home; they get lonely; they work many hours straight without enough sleep; they face stress and fatigue, lack of shore leave, short ship-turnaround times, and harassment and bullying. These can lead to anxiety and depression, and in some cases suicide.

Depression and suicide have devastating consequences, not only for seafarers’ families, but also for shipmates and the companies that employ them. A recent compilation of 12 reports from the last two decades found that out of 9,591 seafarer deaths between 1976 and 2005, at least 625 were suicides. This is an astonishing 6.5 percent, more than three times the national rate among most Western countries. In Australia, suicides represented two percent of all deaths nationwide in 1998 and 1.5 percent in 2008. It is a disgrace that seafarer suicides should be so high. 

Several reports showed large numbers of seafarers disappeared at sea. One 2005 study found that of 835 deaths, 178 (21.3 percent) were seafarers who disappeared at sea. Another study from 2007 found that of 369 deaths, 22 (6.0 percent) disappeared at sea. The authors of these reports think that 50 percent were suicides. If they were included, the percentage of seafarer deaths by suicide would be even higher. 

On April 9, 2011, the Korean master of the bulk carrier ‘Ocean Caesar’ was reported missing about 40 nautical miles north-east of Sandy Cape, Queensland. Despite search efforts including aircraft from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), he was never found. 

Such events have a profound psychological effect on shipmates. In 2008, on a ship two days out of Melbourne, the chief engineer hanged himself. This had such a bad effect on crew morale that a priest had to go aboard to give counseling. 

Loss of crew stemming from mental illness, suicide or disappearance at sea can take ships out of service for several days, resulting in high unexpected costs for ship-owners. Large container ships, tankers and bulk carriers can cost US$10,000 per day or more to operate, plus fuel costs. In the case of ‘Ocean Caesar’, the vessel was delayed for several days while AMSA and the Queensland police investigated the master’s disappearance, at significant extra cost to the owners and charterers.

In Australia, the “Mental Health of Seafarers” project is working to address this problem. Started by the Rotary Club of Melbourne South, working with the Melbourne Port Welfare Association, Beyondblue (Australia’s National Depression Initiative), the Anglican Missions to Seafarers and the Catholic Apostleship of the Sea (Stella Maris). 

With deaths aboard ships by depression leading to suicide widely reported, the damage cannot be ignored. Everybody connected with international shipping needs to do something about it. The mental health of seafarers and the economic health of our industry will be improved as a result.

“The mental health of seafarers” booklet

Mental illness among seafarers is of growing concern and it’s believed that mental health Problems may contribute to many other physical health conditions that seafarer’s experience. Due to the nature of their work, seafarers are often separated from their families and support networks for long periods of time and may feel very lonely. 

The fast turnaround times of modern ships often result in limited time for shore leave. Recent research by international maritime organizations has shown that seafarers may be more likely than their shore counterparts to experience mental health problems. Different cultures are often found aboard ships and differing cultural expressions and stigma associated with mental illness can make it difficult to recognize and to treat effectively. 

Seafarers who are severely depressed, thinking of suicide or self harm may not tell their fellow crew members because mental illness is not discussed openly in their cultures. It is hoped this booklet will give Masters Information needed to identify crew members at risk and help depressed seafarers on their ships. Robert Iversen (Project Manager Rotary Club of Melbourne South) Quoted from “The mental health of Seafarers” You may also obtain some further knowledge and understanding of this Assistance Program from “www.missiontoseafarers.org”.

Make life easy at sea

After we read these two articles of Mr Iversen, every one will realize how serious the problem it could be for a seafarer while he is in depression. Depression by the definition of World Health Organization is “a common mental disorder, characterized by sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, feelings of tiredness and poor concentration.” From a management point of view, we may disregard his personal mood as the former part of symptoms as sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, feelings of guilt or low self-worth. Other symptoms as disturbed sleep or appetite, feelings of tiredness and poor concentration (bad communication) are surely all management’s concern as those will surely have some adverse effects on his working performances. As the beginning in part two of this book, we had stated “Leadership is to finish the goal and make members happy about their part in a group.” If a member in the group is constantly in sad mood how can we say we had the leadership skill even if no major drawback were detected yet? 

To care for people on board is part of IMO objectives of HELM training and also part of our leadership. To exercise this leadership (care for person) is our personal accountability in shipping industry if we take the accountability definition as “To see our obligations in other’s need”.

Practical ways to Help

People with depression/anxiety often don’t see the point of doing anything and may feel that no one can really help them. The type and amount of help you’re able to provide may depend upon your relationship with the person experiencing depression/anxiety.

Helping someone who isn’t ready to recognise they need assistance may be very difficult. Below are some do’s and don’ts for helping a person with depression/anxiety.

DO – you can help someone by:

• Spending time talking about their experiences

• Indicating that you’ve noticed a change in their behaviour

• Letting them know you’re there to listen without being judge mentally

• Suggesting they see a doctor or health professional

• Assisting them to make an appointment with a doctor or health professional

• Going with the person to the doctor or health professional

• Asking how their appointment went

• Assisting them to find information about depression/anxiety

• Talking openly about depression/anxiety

• Encouraging them to become involved in social activities

• Encouraging them to exercise and eat well

• Providing a change of scenery occasionally

• Maintaining contact

• Encouraging other close friends and family to adopt a similar, inclusive approach

• Encouraging them to practice stress management and relaxation techniques 

(Reducing stress: for more information www.beyondblue.org.au).

DOn’t – it’s unhelpful to:

• Pressure them to ‘snap out of it’, ‘get their act together’,‘cheer up’ or ‘calm down’

• Stay away or avoid them

• Tell them they just need to stay busy or get out more

• Pressure them to party more or wipe out how they’re feeling with drugs or alcohol

• Assume the problem will just go away.

Quoted from “The mental health of Seafarers”booklet

Beside seeking the Doctor advice in medication or some sorts, the help we can offer to our ship’s crews are providing the psychological(emotional) support to their basic human mental requirement that are “strokes” or stimulus in some way to make them feel live is more lively and vivid. Emotional support is a very important factor in human life. Emotion can penetrate into all life aspects in our intellectual growth, like our learning, judging, interpretation, decision making and our relationship with others. Most people are pessimistic and worry about the future, it is good to take slower pace to evaluate the situation and avoid any error cost. Actually optimism is never an advantage in any age, the man worried about nothing sometimes is wasted. If we see someone is always smiling and happy about everything happened we called him crazy. Human nature is pessimistic for the future and to prepare ourself. This pessimistic tendency comes from three sources: our temperance, mood and emotion. These sources differ it effects on the duration they had. Temperance is a life time character and the mood may prevail a long time, but the emotion change swiftly for every minute. To help everybody to stay in good and happy is to influence people by the emotion we had to radiate on them. The emotion of ours is a powerful weapon in our leadership. Emotion can penetrate on any state regardless of any rational consideration. The past emotion can make us happy while we still remember of it. Our colleagues/followers/patients/leaders/inner Child emotion now and then can influent our current performance. The emotional support is like kind of courtesy we had in a social situation to keep us in tune with others. But, this kind of emotional support should not overdo. 

Our emotion could blind our rational logic, like Chinese say extremely happiness leads to tragedy. While we are very happy we lost the feeling of danger which in today’s term is we lost the situational awareness. If others are in a very bad and sad mood, they were also lost the willingness to move ahead. Everything looks dangerous or useless to them now are not worth to try or do any more. Over optimism could also mislead our judgment in our daily work into unnecessary complacency state. The emotional support is to give them a push while they are low and calm them down while they are high.  

No matter how hard you try the success of your efforts are determined by your relationship with him. He may not your direct subordinate in the chain of command. The relationship between you two can not be established in a day or two while things are getting hot. Thus, the techniques of how to improve the relationship on board need to be part of our working skills or we can say it should be part of our working cultures in today’s shipping industry in the day ONE while we first joined the vessel. This is not only a basic requirement for shipboard personnel but also important to the safety of shipboard operations.     

Relation Management skills in emotional support? (cut from Chapter 9)

The emotion of our colleagues is not only influenced by our work, it also influenced by the past time or the entertainments we shared together. To work out the relationship with our colleagues by work is too hush or costly by the efforts or time we have to devote to make him feel good and happy. There is an easy way to achieve the same effect by the entertainment we could share with them. The key element in relationship management is to achieve the most fast and economic way to make out of it. 

1. 1.    To show out your inner Child to them often: People don’t show our real emotion to others very often. But it is useful if we did show our inner Chile to other to invite their kindness of inner Nurturing Parent if they are our superior or to gain their trust if they are other department worker, it is also can invite their inner Child to dialogue with us. Our inner Child part is our emotional side (also his emotional part of personality) which could the expression like “ I feel sad”” I feel bad”” I want to” “It is hard to” . By exposure our inner Child (emotion) to them can also invite their free Childish side which set them in a comfortable status. The importance of this exposure is its timing and portion in your dialogues with him, it depends on how serious your conversation is ( how much strict business inside). In a tough dialogue, your inner Child (feeling) should not jump out from nowhere. You should try to solve the problem first with your rational side of inner Adult. Whenever you feel the business part is over it time to reveal some part of your feeing which will change the business atmosphere immediately into your friendship atmosphere. The more sacred part you revealed the more impressed they got. Say the worry of your parent’s argue, the mood you had in missing your children or your sore leg that hurt you, merely complaint of the weather, these days…etc, anything can do if you know how to grasp the essences of it. In the second time you met him again, the emotional part you two had shared in the end of first met will continue to this time and now. Some cunning ( or smarter we should say) people may working in other way around to begin formal conversation with a compliment first. “I feel good today””I like your dress” “You are looking good””you got a nice body build”…etc. keep the interaction of you two going by wrapping it in health emotional mood you will get it.       

1. 2.    To establish the setting with them often: just to hang around with these guys often even you don’t smoke or consume any kind of alcohol. We don’t need to stay with them all the time just to show up and say hello for few minutes. We can use the coke or tea to join their party they will understand your intention and gratitude for these. The memory of your present in middle of his high time will easily link your image as part of the sources of his happiness. The point is to show up your face from time to time to keep their impressions of yours in right mood.     
2. 3.    To let them help you often: asking a small favor from them from time to time will increase the interaction times you have and speed up the process of familiarity. Psychologist said to have a habitual person and environment (they called it structure) is essential to everybody’s well being for it easy the quest of human hunger for familiarity to calm down our anxiety and nerves. Our interaction with others need not to business only. In the professional side, this bond is established by asking the professional question. Confucius said three thousand years ago, “Treating the questioner well is like striking the bell, he who asking small we give small echo, he who asking big we give big echo”. Are they happy about our question while it is big? Yes they are more than delighted if we did ask them. It sets up a big stage for them to express or show how they fight and strive to get through the hardest part of his career. If you don’t ask his precious knowledge is lost in no time even they themselves will forget what achievement they had got.  
3. 4.    To give them the stage often: not only Confucius needs the stage, all man need stage for it is part of our survival structure to show off our very existence. If he has talent or expertise we should give him the chance to show. If he has none we should give him the chance to talk or express their anxiety. If he has nothing to say we should ask him to do some work for us. If he has no working ability we should ask him to do some small errand for us. Everyman has his value in life. We need to give them the chance to do it and establish their life’s meaning. 

All these relationship management are common in one thing. Working is not the only thing matter in your relation, the playing part of life is also very important to our relationship with others. We don’t need to do all his works for him to get his trust. We can simply asking how is his feeling today to get the same effect or even more gratitude by him. Don’t be a tough guy there is no way to survive in 21 century by this way unless you are a sole ranger who fight by his bare hands without any want for sleep.   

Relationship is something between two people. We may have the skills to help others but who can help ourself is no warrant. Bible had said “"God helps those who help themselves"

Emotional Management: how to make me happy.

Our mental health depends on our mental state. Our mental states are fluctuated all the time, sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad. Emotions are subconscious feelings that are directed at someone or something, mostly unknown to us in the beginning. Emotion is something closely related to our subjective, subconscious experience. Most of our emotions are nature. But, the reactions to our emotions are not nature’s gift. It is the life/environment experience provide to us to survive in this world. Different people will have different experience in same situation thus their emotion reaction is quite different.      

Human has many kinds of emotion reactions; we will only focus on how to make us happy here. Emotion reactions come from our long term memory (habits/structure) even without our conscious (rational) awareness. Emotion reactions have following properties:  

(1) Caused by stimulus now and repression before (Recurrence strengthened). 

(2) Intuitive continuous process. 

(3) No brake, the most direct response to something.

(4) Physiological reaction; has some body reaction without conscious awareness. 

(5) Survival mechanism inside our blood. 

(6) Accelerate and lost control in the progress. 

(7) Could kill someone by heart stroke or leave physical and psychological damage 

(8) In certain space-time, react violently by some episodic memory.

Our emotion may not be restrained by our rational mind and could burst into disgust, anger, fear or even ecstasy before rational mind. We just use the habitual reactions to express them. Afterward people in that emotion reaction may feel bad about themselves and some people even cannot remember why he could do it in that way. Emotional reactions are our long term habits automatically response.        

That is, emotion reactions can be independent of our intellect.

Reasonable belief will cause people into proper, moderate emotion reactions and to behavior responsibly; and irrational beliefs on the contrary, often lead to inappropriate emotion reactions and behavior. When people insist on some irrational beliefs, in the long run the negative emotion reactions of being, will eventually lead to emotional disorders. We all need correct believe in our life.

Our emotion (subconscious feeling) will decide whether our life; our relationship with others, and work performance are good or not. General speaking, the one has more emotion reactions control will have more achievements in his life. Sometimes our emotion reactions control is called our Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) which is the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotion reactions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.

Our emotional intelligence is like our emotional state fluctuated all the times. A man with good EQ may still do some foolish things sometime. If we cannot manage our emotion reactions all our talents in intellectual and emotional intelligence could be wasted. This is called emotional management. This is of great importance that we understand our emotions are nature but the reactions we assigned to each emotion are our life time habits. Emotions are by Mother Nature and emotional reactions are by us.    

Emotional Management: how to cleanse your subconscious disturbance.

Emotion management is the way to modify our emotional reaction to best suit to different environments. Emotional reactions are our life time habits. When something is gone wrong or situation is changed we may not aware of its difference due to long term habits. The way to manage our emotional reactions should know how to handle the emotions as below:  

■      People sure get emotional sometimes but we should not try to depress.

■      Understand our own emotions and change the reaction to response.

■      Use sincerity to communicate. With a positive statement (I) instead of accusing (you). 

■      Trust yourself. Avoid to facing the emotional pain can only increase bad memory.

■      Learn to accept others emotional reactions and help them change it.

■      Interpret emotions positively by ration, create good memories in sensation.

■      Add new stage in our emotional reactions to alter final course.

■      Add new stage in other’s emotional reactions to divert him.

A study by Finnish researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, suggests that our emotions do indeed tend to influence our bodies in consistent ways. Across five experiments, 701 participants “were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions. They were asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while viewing each stimulus. Taiwanese, Finnish, and Swedish drew similar body maps, suggesting that the sensations are not limited to a given language.”

Some emotions are aggressive (in color red and yellow) and some are negative (in color dark blue to light blue). For those aggressive emotions we have the intuition to do something (good in love or bad in anger). For those emotions are negative we felt the energy is drained from our body (want to retreat to ourself). Our goal in emotion management is to keep us in neutral way or slightly in happier side.   

Squeeze watercolor paint

Motivation: If you do not open the lid to squeeze watercolor, paint often emerge from the hose base or fragile areas. 

Sharing: When we feel sad/bad we need to release it. Or it will come out from the most "vulnerable" place; this called emotion out control. 

How to avoid emotional reactions out control? 

Use intuitive movement to handle emotional (long term habits) disorders. Bad emotions pop out from nowhere. Don’t try to figure it out by any reasons. May it be your ancestors or your direct parents or your superior or your friends who should be blamed? You will end up by putting all the blames on yourself for your powerless in control other’s behaviors. Remember that we don’t need to take responsibility to our emotion while they are coming (it is inside our blood). We just need to find some ways to release and let it go. A baby knows to look for some kind of soothing tools like: rubber nipple, pillow, towel to release his stress before sleep. The best way is by using intuitional actions to release our emotions: scrawl; graffiti; sing/scream anything; strum on your guitar/drums or any kind/object; boxing the sandbag; rope skipping…etc. These are often seemed in brain damaged or surgery people (Acquired savant syndrome) when they had the impulse to express it in some ways (sometimes in artist form like a musician, writer, singer…) or they will simply go crazy. These activities will also help us to divert our reactions to correct way; 

l   Scrawl: write it down on a piece of paper or anything that pop out from your hands (not brain), like “I don’t like Ted. Ted is a bad guy, Ted is mean, Ted is fool….etc”. We may gear a lot thing in our brain but the moment we try to write it down we may not know what to write at all. This is good for our brain has blanked immediately. By continue writing anything comes to our hand we can release our inner anxiety or any downside. 

l   Graffiti: paint it down on a piece of paper like his ugly face, dirty look or anything else that you intuition tells you to exaggerate to release your disguise that pops out from your hands (not brain).

l   Sing/scream anything: sing in KARAOKE is a fine way to release our emotions. Also the man likes to sing is always an emotional one. If the anguish or angry are strong, you may find helpful to scream it out loud. May be you have to cover with a pillow or in an open space where no one is bothered to stop you.  

l   Strum on guitar if available or anything as long as it is OK for others.

l   Boxing the sandbag/drums or rope jumping: it good in physical and psychological. 

Feel the anguish pull out of your throat; your breath is smoother and the warm temperature feel again in your feet. 

Emotional luggage

Motivation: Check your luggage, what items are not needed everyday and we carry it all the ways. For we seldom examined it and some unnecessary things made our burden worse.   

Sharing: Emotions also had a luggage. We carry emotional luggage everyday and worry about lots things at the same time. This overweighed luggage will cause us trip or stop to move ahead freely.

Transparent water tank

Motivation: Transparent water tank gradually dropped blue pigment, whether the gesture on the back of the tank visible to us.   

Sharing: Tank is on behalf of life, blue pigment on behalf of melancholy, gloomy mood. A small amount or temporary depression does not affect, but too much will affect our lives. 

How to make melancholy tank becomes clean? 

l   Meditation: concentrate on your breath will empty your brain. Sometimes we forget to breathe while thinking. This is the proof that human brain cannot control the breath and thoughts in the same time. Straighten your spine to a comfortable angle while you are sitting. Feel your blood flow from bottom to head is unrestricted. Move your spine and head slowly to release all the strains in your back and neck. When you feel all the strains in your back and neck is gone your head should be projecting in upright position where your fore head is pointing about the horizon level. The breath pattern preferred is slow and deep. Imaging you can direct the air in your breath to circle from your nose, throat, chest, stomach, crotch, your back from lower spine up to your head and round to your nose in a breath. 

l   Prey to your God. No words speaking, just worship Him with your purest heart and imagination. If you find the breathing is hard, adjust your spine and head to some position you can breathe freely and slowly. 

l   Call His sacred name repeatedly in your mind whether seat, eat, stand or walk….nothing else.

l   Concentrate on your movement slowly in writing, painting, bathing, drinking or tea/coffee making.

l   Reduce your vision from the world to yourself only; there is no unsuccessful person in the world. You may not be the person they want you to be, but you are what you are. That’s all. Get rid of all other thoughts negative. Be yourself, not what other forces you to. You can be the person you are but also do the things they want. Don’t lose yourself to anyone.

Blind men and Elephant

Motivation: A blind man touched the trunk, said: "The elephant is a pipe"; 

Blind man B touched the elephant belly, said: "The elephant is a wall"; 

Blind man C touched the elephant leg, said; "The elephant is a pillar." 

Share: Through individual to understand things can not represent the truth, but only a small part of the story. If we do not understand the whole thing sometimes we will worry, fear and anxiety. 

How to solve our prejudice or worry? 

l   Just chat with people: they will give their aspects to you which might not the same as what you think.

l   Enlarge your vision to whole universe; nothing is a big deal in it. Your shabby apartment with two bed rooms only. His mansion has three floors to live. Bill Gates's mansion is 66,000-square-foot (6,100 m2) and took 7 years to build and cost $63.2 million. Up to the Moon looking back in Earth direction, you can see no house is bigger than a sesame. No big deal. 

Protection Precious

Motivation: When playing computer games, we may encounter some enemies or difficulties have to get through. We should check in our treasure collection what gadgets could be used to deal with the situation now. When the gadgets are not enough, we must go to collect or manufacture some more to enhance our abilities of protection. 

Share: Anger reactions are hard to manage, almost impossible once we are in later stage of the progress. When faced with anger reactions of others, our emotions easily get affected. The way to relieve anger is like “squeeze the watercolor paint”. Use intuition movements of our body to release the strains inside our brain. Sometimes we are powerless while others are in bad progress, like Israel cannot stop missile attacking from their enemies. Israel use protection by its Iron Dome defense system which is a mobile all-weather air defense system designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 to 70 kilometers away. We also need some kind of protection to keep us clear of these personal attacks by finding some gadgets to overcome our emotional distress. These gadgets can sooth our anger and other negative thoughts by offering a separation shield (Iron Dome) for us. Do you have any kind of gadgets that can protect you?  Here are some and how?  

l   Precious Stone: some people find the energy inside the stone can make them feel calm whether it is a crystal, ruby, diamond, opal or your birthday stone in your ring or paint pocket. By touching, rubbing or holding it those personal attacks were keeping away from touching our very heart at the scene. Concentrate and rest our mind inside the purest crystal form of these precious stone and absorb the energy it submit toward us after their insults. If you can see the beauty of the crystal once again you are invulnerable now (imaging you are inside the gem). 

l   Precious Medicine: Forty years ago, cigarette is part of salary to soldiers in Taiwan. It’s not an unusual scene in the movies every gangster is a smoker. And they need a smoke after trauma situation with a trembling hand to light one. The wine is another one offer to a non drinker sometimes. In our daily life at sea we don’t need to indulge us in these drugs. It is not recommended. We can use cup of tea or coffee to calm us down, or coke or 7 up. The point is to use these Medicines with our conscious in a slow and divined way of movements. Not just shooting and galloping in reckless manner. All these consumed should be in a mood of religious.    

l   Elementary Magic: Change the scene or environment to see the sun, moon, wind, water or air… Take a bath/shower can sooth our body and soul at same time. A hot shower can relieve our physical pain while the pain of kidney stone is hard to control by pain killer medicine. Change the air and feel the wind blowing on our skin. Loose your weary mind and open to the Mother Nature and the peace in your mind... these elements include air, wind, fire and water.

l   Magic Incantation: You may call on the sacred Name in your heart as your own religion whether it is “Virgin Mary”, “Jesus Christ”, “Holy Allah”,“Shiva” …… When their voices are heard shouting at you, you can read these names in heart to against them. If you are not a religious man, you might find the swear “Fxxx you”or in other native forms is useful in your mind. In a sense we are no higher or lower in our mind. We are all equal in mind so don’t shouting to other. They may shout at you as well.

l   I love You: not all annoying men are strong men. Some may need extra help in their life which they cannot control their own weakness but need our kindness. These men are the victim of Anxiety/depression. They may have forced behaviors which cannot control by themselves. Whenever you find you are about to explore by his forced symptoms please read the phrase of “ I love You” in your heart to help both of you. This phrase can give you and him extra strength to overcome the difficult time.

Emotion Facet

Motivation: Try to keep the ends of your mouth down for one minute; And

Try to lift the ends of your mouth up, for one minute. 

Share: "How is the feeling when the mouth ends upward and downward? What is the difference?" 

When mouth ends point down we can not breathe smoothly, there is a pressure sense. When mouth ends point up we can breathe smoothly, there is a sense of relax.

Most of the time we don’t worry about our mental health and we neglect what might be a negative thought/emotion to us. We take the burdens of life in a grownup man manner till the day our weary /worry heart and body break down. We had done our time, my Lord. Well, take a look of yourself in the mirror everyday. How long you can not face it? Can you see the smiling face of yours inside the mirror? If you find yourself hard to smile to you before the mirror, you are mental sick.You should try to cleanse your mood/emotion by the way mentioned above.

Emotion Programming by our will

Motivation: There is a child in the subway running around and making noise, his father just ignores it all. You are angry about this and ultimately approach to him to complain. But when the man tells you that his wife had just passed away, you lost your temper immediately.  

Share: our emotions are like the whirlwinds. It is strong but last short within 30 minutes for those things have no important to us like disguise, shame, angry……. Only those things really matter can last longer like sadness can last 120 hours and happiness can last 35 hours. When one emotion is dominate other emotions are subside immediately. We often sought one champion burst into weeping in enjoyment of winning especially when she/he had a hard time to prepare for this glorious moment. The winning of the game could release all his hidden emotions.

Motivation: African American ghetto. A professor did a research about the future predictions to 200 children in that area, almost all have been identified as "useless", "mediocre life," and so on. 40 years later, the old professor died, his successor came to do follow up research. He was surprised to find that: Those 200 children, 20 of them had lost contact. Most of remaining 180 people have quite achievements, among many of them are bankers, businessmen, lawyers and elite athletes! They say: all these should thank to the teacher that year. She who had 90 years old by the time they find this elementary school teacher. She can not speak clear but there are phrases everybody can understand. She said: I love these kinds.  

Sharing: Her love had dissolved these kids anxiety of the future which further give them a sense of self Pride. With these pride in their head (see the drawing below), they are eager to do something positive. Those kinds like the sport become successful athletes in later ages. Those kids prefer reading become lawyers something and those like to do mathematic become good businessman. The power of love gives these kids a motivation to pursue their own interests and finally success. 

Motivation: Left hand or right hand. Each time the teacher asked a question in the class, one student always raised his hand. When teacher asked him to answer the question he could not answer it anyway. Other students were giggling incessantly. The teacher privately asked him why, he said that if he did not raise his hand, the students would call him a fool. Then, the teacher had an agreement with him. When he really knows the answer he should raise his left hand, otherwise he should raise his right hand. Gradually, this student had increasingly raised his pride left hand. He could then answer teacher’s question better and better each time.

Sharing: This could sink into ridiculous life’s child had transfer into an excellent student by the coding set up between his teacher. Reprogramming of other’s emotional reaction is important to help their life.  

Motivation: When I was a young father with short temper and firm believe that physical punishment is necessary for children education. It is alright to my elder daughter. She won’t step back after been punished the day before. But it is not right for the younger, he will afraid of my approaching. Been a seaman away from home for a long time, there is no time to waste while they are only kids. I decide to quit the physical punishment for all. But I got angry from time to time as usual and this emotion had to show to the kids. The program of emotional reactions has to change from raise my hand to something else. I decide to smile falsely to the children while I am angry. Kids are just to busy to notice while they are exciting. To emphasize the false smile I will raise my eyebrow several times in front their faces. 30 years had passed, they had grown up already. One night, my family has dinner with my son’s girl friend together. My daughter warn this young girl: you should beware of my father. He is different. While he is smiling he is angry. She was surprised and cannot believe some people can do that. She also had a bad temper father who even hit her mother in very rare occasion while drunk.                  

Sharing: people learn to express their emotion since child. If it works without any setback then it just become a habit (or structure). There is no moral judgment in our habit. Nothing is right or wrong felt while we are doing the routine. We need the will which want to make some change to improve it or the wisdom which can see what result we want to have. If we have no willingness to change it is because our punishments had not come yet. The habit is nothing good and nothing bad only the price we are willing to pay will define it moral.

Our emotional reaction is our habit which could be easily diverted by our own programming. The way to re-programming other’s emotional reaction is by distraction which could be disrupted by your tea/coffee offering or your body calls for sleep, hunger, thirsty or toilet as an excuse. If he is not keen to these calls you presented you may tell him directly of your concerns of his emotional reaction. If in any way you have no power to override his temper you can always use the PP (protection precious) we had mentioned before to save the space you needed for survival. One thing is important to make you more comfortable if you can maintain certain physical distance from him by moving your hip back a little and relax the muscle in your neck. This gesture will also serve a more willing personality of yours. Never mind the lady, be the man in the right.    

End of Chapter 11