Emotions: The Universal Language
The score was 3-11. My team was losing…by a lot. Once the other volleyball team got to 15 points, they would win. By the looks on my teammates' faces, I knew that there was an unspoken assumption that there was no way my team would be able to make a comeback. Sports here at Bangla Hope are taken very seriously, and the word competitive has brought on a whole new meaning since I have been in Bangladesh. When the kids play any game, they play to win, and losing is absolutely unacceptable. Our nightly volleyball games have been known to go downhill if players' competitive spirits override their ability to think clearly, resulting in hurtful comments or even kids getting beat up. Due to the current attitudes of those on my team, I was worried that things were about to get ugly. We had already lost the first game we had played, and by the looks of this one, it was evident that we would lose again. Finally, my team got the ball back, and it was our turn to serve. Jokingly I say, "comeback time." Everyone looks at me and laughs at my ridiculous comment because, in their minds, this was impossible. The server serves the ball, resulting in an ace. The score is 4-11 now. "One point at a time," I say, not really believing this myself but finding amusement in all the skeptical looks from those around me. The ball is served again, and after a quick rally, we get another point. It is 5-11 now. I began to feel a bit of hope for the game and decided to experiment to see how far I could change the outcome of the game just by trying to change my team’s attitudes. I wasn't expecting to win necessarily; I just wanted to see how many points we could make in a row. By now, I was obnoxiously encouraging everyone on my team, insisting that it was still possible to come back from our low score. The ball is served, and we get another point. Slight looks of hope begin to appear on my teammates' faces, and their scowls are replaced with smiles. By now, the other guys on my team have joined in with encouragement. Instead of berating each other for not hitting the ball correctly, they celebrate and congratulate teammates on every great serve, pass, and hit. Point by point, we began to catch up. We ended up winning that game. And carrying our optimistic attitudes into the next round, we were able to win that one as well.
That volleyball game was a real eye-opener for me. I believe the only way we were able to win those games was due to our attitude change. At Bangla Hope, the kids struggle with showing mercy and compassion when their friends mess up at anything. When playing sports here, if a team makes a mistake, instead of talking about it to allow for future improvement, teammates spend their time verbally chastising each other and defending themselves, so the blame isn't cast on them. This creates a negative tone for the entirety of the game. From playing sports with the kids here, especially the older guys, I've realized that it starts with ourselves. If we don't believe in ourselves and allow embarrassment to control our emotions, we constantly look for outlets when we feel like we have failed. This can take the form of criticizing other teammates, which initiates a chain effect that brings the entire team down emotionally. All it took for that volleyball game was for me to personally change my attitude. Encouraging those playing altered the game's tone and started another chain effect, however this time a positive one. Performance improves as mentality improves.
Keeping this volleyball game in mind, a thought that has been on my mind recently is how easily humans are influenced by other individuals' emotions. God has, in a way, created us to have intertwined emotions that can fluctuate solely based on what others say/their actions. It's amazing how this works, and I've grown to appreciate the communication method emotions alone has to offer now that I've been in a country where sometimes, due to the language barrier, words don't hold very much power. For example, I often find it verbally challenging to discipline the kids because sometimes they don't understand what I am saying, thus not understanding how much their actions are hurting me. In the United States, if someone is acting in a way you do not appreciate, all it takes is the assertiveness to walk up and talk to them about it to set things straight. That method is frequently ineffective here, and it's difficult to devise alternative techniques. A couple of times, when trying to explain to girls that they are not treating me nicely, I have become so frustrated to the point where I have begun to cry in front of them. All of a sudden, every communication barrier drops. Everyone understands, and the mood in the room suddenly shifts. Guaranteed, every time I cry, at least one other girl cries, too, even if she doesn't know what I'm crying about.
Out of curiosity, I researched this idea of the universality of emotional behavior to confirm that this concept is scientifically based and not just from my own experience. Sure enough, there have been studies performed to support this assumption. One, in particular, was a study conducted by UCL that sought to determine which emotions were the most easily recognized between two vastly different groups of people. The research team chose two groups, with one group being from the country of Namibia and the other residing in Britain. Each participant listened to a story based on a specific emotion. After listening, they heard two emotional reactions to the story and had to pick which one fit best with the emotions felt after hearing the story. Results showed that the emotions of anger, fear, disgust, sadness, and surprise were the most easily recognized by the individuals. Laughter was one of the most easily recognizable signs, and both sample groups associated laughter with amusement. However, other emotions, such as relief or a sense of achievement, did not appear to be universally understood, signifying that reflections of these emotions differed based on culture. Yet, it was obvious that, for the most part, there seems to be a ubiquitous understanding of basic emotional behavior.
An additional thought on my mind has been the association between authenticity and our expressed emotions. Often it takes a willingness to be vulnerable and let our barriers down to successfully convey our feelings to others. This concept, for me, is best illustrated by the recent experience I had with one of the girls here, who will go unnamed in case one of the kids finds my blog on my Instagram page, lol. This junior high girl and I had problems from day one. My debut with her was one sabbath morning when she suddenly appeared in my apartment during sabbath school time and refused to leave. Her reasoning was that she was Hindu and wasn't a fan of sabbath school. I remember standing by my apartment door, quite unsure of what to do because across the room was a teenage girl staring me right in the eyes, telling me she was not planning on moving. It felt wrong to force her to go to sabbath school, so I let her hang out with me while I was having worship of my own. We listened to the Christian music I had been playing and sat in silence for the entirety of the hour she was on my couch. Then she left. I thought it was a pretty odd experience, but up to that point, most experiences I'd had at Bangla Hope had been pretty odd, so I was unphased. From that day on, I had many problems with her consistently disturbing me. She was constantly stealing my things and had a lack of respect for anything I did. Words were meaningless to her. If I asked her to give me my water bottle back, she'd simply say no and run off with it, leaving me angry and still without my water bottle. I tried to sit her down and explain how much her actions were hurting me, but my words did not get through to her. In desperation, I asked for help/advice from a former missionary who told me she had had problems with her too. She gave me a couple of tips and tricks on how to handle this particular individual and told me she would be praying about the situation. This girl's pestering continued until, one day, she broke me emotionally. This day I happened to be already exhausted when she pulled one of her routine moves of taking my hair clip and refusing to give it back. Feeling completely powerless and fatigued from trying to make her obey me, I looked the girl in the eyes and simply said, "I don't know what to do anymore. I can't force respect from you." Then I cried. She was stunned by my vulnerability/sudden weakness displayed and ran out of the room. That day this girl had a complete change of heart. She wrote me a note that night apologizing, saying she didn't know how much her actions were affecting me. I think my crying made her realize human limitations. My emotions had an effect on her that changed her whole perspective. Instead of trying to control her and discipline her for not behaving, I practiced complete authenticity at that moment by crying, and that was the key to her heartstrings.
This certain girl is currently one of my closest friends here. She now listens to me, has respect for me, and even helps me with the other kids. This girl has many qualities that remind me of myself when I was younger, and I think it's pretty ironic how I was faced with the challenge of dealing with someone who struggles with some of the same problems my parents had to work on with me growing up. This girl is stubborn, a trait that I know very well. What I've come to realize is stubbornness can be both a blessing and a curse. However, lately, this girl has been using this quality for good. If used correctly, stubbornness can give individuals the stamina to reach their fullest potential. I see this girl using the benefits of her stubborn attitude in academics as she shows an unyielding spirit that is currently driving her to study and strive toward her career goals. Before finals week, she spent hours in my room as I taught her how to do a particular type of math problem. She wanted to ensure she had this math concept completely down before taking her exam. Each time we would finish a problem, she would say, "again!" and we would do another one until she felt confident in her abilities to solve it for the test. The next day she came up to me smiling with her exam paper. She had gotten the problems we had worked on correct.
The other day I pulled her into my apartment and just told her how proud and appreciative I was of her attitude change. I told her that I could not only see her expressing love towards me, but that I could see her extending that love to those around her. I told her how I could see her maturing and that I had so much faith in her future and believed that she was capable of achieving anything she set her mind to. As I was telling her this, she suddenly began to cry. She cried for about an hour in my room. She later told me that she was crying because the only person who had ever believed in her was a sister she sees only every couple of years. Authenticity on my part came first by allowing my genuine emotions to shine through the day she stole my hair clip. An understanding of my feelings brought about a change in this girl which, months later, caused her to practice authenticity and cry when I praised her for her attitude change.
Emotions are powerful. What if we used this interconnectivity emotions have to offer to our advantage? Instead of spreading negative emotions (which is often much easier), if we take it upon ourselves to think positively, it is a spark that can ignite a fire. In looking through an article in PubMed, I read that negative emotions such as fear and anger result in specific actions. For instance, the feeling of fear leaves an individual wanting to escape, and anger results in the need to fight. These specific action tendencies are also associated with physiological changes. For example, adrenaline triggers the body's flight or fight response, increasing their chances of survival from dangerous situations. Positive emotions, however, tend to have less specific responses, most likely due to the result not being a life-or-death situation. The actions associated with emotions such as joy, pride, and contentment are more ambiguous and often result in a broader range of repertoire responses. While responses to positive emotions vary, the article claimed that positive emotional behavior broadens social capacities and intellect.
Often when I'm mad at the kids, I do the same thing each time. I feel my face get hot, and I grab a kid or speak sternly. But if I practiced other (positive) emotions, would my perspective on the difficult situation change, and would this stimulate creativity to induce different responses that may be more beneficial to the situation? For the girl mentioned above, one thing that has also really helped in her journey to change her attitude is me praising her. I've noticed that if I point out the minor daily behavioral improvements, she swells with pride, and this makes her want to continue acting good. With other girls, sometimes, when they are driving me absolutely crazy, I find it in myself to just give them a hug. And don't get me wrong…giving someone a hug when you feel like punching them takes a whole lot of self-control, yet surprisingly, a hug usually solves the problem. Moving forward, I would like to focus on optimism because even if the kids don't understand what I'm verbally saying, I know that they can recognize the difference between positive and negative affect. And don't get me wrong, I know life is not all butterflies and rainbows, and sometimes positivity just isn't gonna happen. But as human beings, and especially as leaders, emotions can be our most excellent tool and most effective weapon. And we need to decide daily, even moment by moment, how we are using them to affect others.
Anyways I know this blog post was more a collection of my thoughts instead of recent experiences so below are some pics and a lil life update :)
I went to Thailand in January which was so much fun and a much needed break from the chaos of this place. I'm now back on campus and spend my days teaching my 3rd and 5th graders and hanging out with all the kiddos. The weather has been getting warmer which is nice because for awhile it was super cold at nighttime. It was warm enough the other day to have a water fight which was wild! One girl even decided to shampoo my hair in the middle of it so I left soaked AND with soap all in my hair. Oh and a couple weeks ago the missionaries went on a walk and we saw an elephant just walking down the road. We didn't get a chance to take very many pictures cuz the man riding it was yelling at us that we had to pay him money in exchange for pics. We still got a few though while running away from the yelling man!
Valentine's Day was really special here. The kids made all sorts of beautiful cards for the missionaries and I was blown away by how creative their card designs were. In the morning we had a Valentine's program which was basically a talent show. Somehow the girls convinced Katherine and I to do a dance with them which was completely out of my comfort zone since I literally never ever dance. It turned out to be kinda fun though!
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