Self & Mind

Emotional Literacy

Emotions are information, not drama

PaidSelf-paced

In a lot of Pakistani homes, emotion showed up in only two shapes: a father's anger and a mother's silence. Being emotional came to mean being dramatic, and feeling things became something to hide or apologise for. This lecture starts from the opposite place. Emotions are real, they are biological, and each one exists to tell you something. Once you can name what you are actually feeling, you stop being pushed around by it, and you start to make sense of the people around you.

Format: Recorded, so you watch in your own time
Length: Two lectures
Language: Urdu, with some English
Fee: PKR 1,000
Access: One month from the date you register
Certificate: E-certificate on completion

Fee: Fee on request for the complete course. There is no annual registration fee, and the recorded lecture library is open to everyone.

Payment: NayaPay to 0321-0911127 (Ayesha Kashif). Full details are on the enrollment page.

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Who it is for

Is this course for you?

Anyone who was told they were too sensitive, and started to believe it
Those who grew up watching one parent explode and the other go quiet, and want to understand what they were actually seeing
Anyone who falls back on fine, angry or sad because there are no other words to hand
People who react in the moment and wish they had not, once it is over
Mothers who want to hand their children something better than what they were handed

None. You do not need any prior study of psychology, counselling or Islamic studies.

Syllabus

What you will cover

Part 1

What an emotion actually is

Every feeling is an instant plan, built by evolution to help you handle a situation. Anger raises your heart rate and floods you with adrenaline so that you can act. Fear pulls blood away from your core and down into your legs so that you can run. Surprise lifts the eyebrows to take in a wider sweep of what is in front of you. These are biological signals rather than moods, and none of them is a sign that something is wrong with you. You also meet the two minds: the rational one that thinks, structures and ponders, and the emotional one that feels, reacts and drives impulse. Usually they work together. Under stress, the emotional mind hijacks the rational one.

Part 2

The illusion of simple feelings

Most of us read our inner life through a blunt lens: fine, angry, sad. Without a real vocabulary, everything arrives in blurry extremes. This part puts a prism in front of it. A student who says she is sad after a debate result may in fact be disappointed and ashamed. A boy left out of a cricket match is not simply angry, he is excluded and lonely. A man whose work was claimed by someone else is not just angry, he is resentful and disrespected. Underneath the surface word there is always a more exact one, and finding it is the whole skill.

Part 3

A vocabulary for what you feel

Four spectrums, and the words inside each. Under anger: irritated, frustrated, jealous, resentful. Under sadness: melancholy, lonely, grieved. Under fear: anxious, apprehensive, panicked. Under the pleasant feelings: hopeful, zestful, content. You also see why feelings overlap, because you can be anxious and hopeful about the same exam at the same moment, and both are true.

Part 4

Name it to tame it

Choosing a precise word for what you feel does something physical. It shifts energy out of the alarm centre of the brain and back into the part that manages and decides. Saying that you are feeling frustrated right now is not a description of the problem. It is the first step of handling it.

Part 5

The stoplight protocol

Three steps for the moment feeling arrives. Stop: halt the physical impulse, calm down, and refuse to act immediately. Evaluate: name the exact problem and the exact feeling, then think of several different ways to react and map out where each one leads. Act: choose the most rational response and go with it.

Part 6

Calming the alarm, and why this matters

When the emotional mind has taken over, you have to settle the body by hand before you can think again. Place a hand, or something soft, on your stomach and give your whole attention to feeling it rise and fall with each deep breath. The deliberate rhythm sends an all clear back to the brain, cools the hijack, and restores access to the rational mind. The lecture closes on why any of this is worth learning: being intelligent was never about grades or IQ. It is having the character to manage your own impulses, read your own inner world, and understand what the people around you are feeling. That is a skill, and it can be learned at any age.

The method

How the course works

Tools you will practise

The blunt lens and the prism lens, for getting past fine to what is really there
The four spectrums: exact words to choose from instead of three vague ones
Name it to tame it, one sentence that moves you out of alarm and back into judgement
The stoplight protocol: stop, evaluate, act
The breathing buddy, for settling the body when thinking has stopped working

How the sessions run

Two recorded lectures: Part 1, Upgrading Your Human Operating System, and Part 2, The Iceberg and The 3-Second Rule
Teaching drawn from the psychology of emotion, with examples from everyday Pakistani family life
Situations you diagnose yourself: the debate, the cricket match, the workplace, the home
Tools you can use the same day

Language

Taught mainly in Urdu, with some points explained in English as well. The slides are in whichever language suits the group, so they may be in English or in Urdu.

Access

Access to both recordings lasts one month from the date you register.

Certificate

An e-certificate is provided on completion of the lectures.

How to join

Three steps

Press Enroll and send us your name, email and number.
We confirm your place and send you the payment details.
Once it lands, we email you the link to the recordings, yours for one month.

The recordings are shared only with students who have enrolled in this course.

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