In this article we are going to talk about negative emotional states.
Why?
Shouldn’t we all be trying to be more positive???
Well, that’s lovely in theory, but emotions do not discriminate. They affect our ability to lead in every area of life.
From my point of view, emotions are our most critical feedback tools.
If you think about where emotions comes from, it is our lower brain, our brain stem and spinal cord. They are chemical cocktails meant. to trigger specific behaviors.
We share same physiology with all the invertebrates.
We share the same hormone spectrum and survival instincts as them too.
Whatever goes on around us or whatever is happening in the world triggers particular feedback to deal with that kind of situation.
We are not only one that feels emotions; the phenomenon is the same in cats, rhinoceros and every other mammilian species.
The only thing that differentiates the emotions for human vs other mammals is the language we ass to the feedback and how we interpret (or misinterpret!) the emotions.
Emotions in animals are pretty clean, if they are angry, there is no other way to represent that emotion, angry animal = angry behavior.
But because of our thinking capabilities, imagination facilities and impulse control responses in our frontal lobe we experience the emotions with the added complexity of language and observation as compared to the other animals.
So angry human might equal anger repression, anger delayed for use on others or self judgement for feeling the anger.
Now if we are angry at something then the severity of the situation can be predicted by our emotional reaction.
If someone is little ticked off, he or she is experiencing the anger emotion, but that anger emotion will have a different intensity compared to the man or woman who has just been scammed for their life savings.
The different scenarios define the intensity of the emotional reaction.
Big event = big emotion.
If someone is running at you with a knife, in that split moment you would rightly have the fear feedback.
Fear feedback triggers specific behavior luke is to run for our life, fight for our life or freeze and process the problem later.
It’s the same phenomenon with the other animals. We have instant feedback. It is very clever and in humans, very complex due to our moral, legal and philosophical explorations.
Each emotion, or feedback, has a strong unique message that we humans have not been taught by our role models how to RESPOND to.
So we rarely respond…. Instead we repress and react.
In repression we turn off the particular emotion with the help of distraction, denial or diversion.
Whenever the problem comes up, repression forces our brain to avoid that situation.
Addiction is one effective way of repressing the emotions temporarily.
People can get addicted to anything while repressing feedback.
Wasting time on social media and scrolling through the timeline with no purpose is a great repression strategy.
Substance abuse is another way of tuning out and the list goes on and on.
Repression is like pushing a snooze button though, it comes back louder and takes a tonne of energy to maintain.
Reaction is no impulse control at all.
Think of an unhinged toddler. Angry? Smash it all! Sad? Wail and flail! Guilty? Hide in a cupboard!!
What gives us power to make the critical decisions while under the pressure of our feedback tools?
What impacts our ability to lead in a business or any life aspect?
The answer to all these questions is RESPONSE.
If you know how to respond to the environment masterfully you have masteres the feedback with an appropriate response.
Read on in this series for the response to each major negative emotions and watch it change your life.