September 2022 – The Emotions Doctor

Mastering emotions as tools: Anger, and your car’s “smart cruise control”.

There is a widely held belief that our emotions control us and make us do things we may later regret.

The problem is that this is an emotional myth!

I have attempted to address this myth in my blog posts, my responses to questions on Quora.com and in my podcast appearances because belief in the myth prevents people from taking control of their lives by utilizing their emotions as strategic tools.

In this post I will address this myth in a different way.

I will use your car’s cruise control as a metaphor for mastering your emotions.

Some definitions...

Classic or “dumb” cruise control: The traditional mechanism in your car that keeps you traveling at a set speed.
Smart cruise control: Technology which both allows you to set a specific speed and gives you additional options by automatically adapting to the surrounding situation and kicking in when an obstacle is present.
Set point: This is a specific number or limit which tells the device with a feedback loop that a specific designated action needs to be initiated. It could involve a thermostat turning on the furnace or air conditioner or the cruise control speeding up the car.
Emotional set point: The degree to which you perceive a specific situation as a threat which initiates an emotional reaction.
Your perception: The meaning you give to any situation you observe.
Emotional reaction: The subconscious physical changes which your brain (amygdala) initiates in your body when a threat is subconsciously recognized.
Emotional response: The action you choose to take to allow you to effectively interact with the perceived threat.

The “Tools” We Use

There are many tools which you use on a regular basis.

“Task oriented” Tools

Task oriented tools are designed to complete a specific task.

Sometimes this “task” is simple. A screwdriver is just a screwdriver unless you don’t know the difference between a flathead and a Phillips.

At other times the “task” is very complicated. Your cell phone can do many things very well but it won’t replace a screw in your cabinet.

Examples of task oriented tools include your cell phone, your computer, your car, your TV remote, your sewing machine and a screwdriver.

While you may not think of your cell phone and computer as “devices”, they are also “tools”.

“Set point” tools.

Devises with set points make your life easier by automatically maintaining whatever “status quo” or set point you choose.

Examples of set point tools include:

The thermostat in your home or car that controls the temperature.
The spell checker on your word processor that monitors your document as you type.
The cruise control on your car that keeps you going on the freeway.
Your brain which encourages you to keep doing the same habits in the same way.

Everything is fine…Until it isn’t!

In most cases, our tools work fine and there is no problem.

(Thermostat)…The house/car stays warm (or cool) and comfy.
(Spell Checker)…The correction that is made is appropriate.
(Cruise Control)…We merrily move along on the road at a chosen speed and get to our destination.
(Brain)… The actions we take fit the situation, are appropriate, and lead to a desirable outcome.

The tool does what it is programmed to do.

It is not able to make adjustments for unique situations. In other words, it does not typically think about or take into consideration “exceptions” to the norm.

It is these “exceptions” that are often problematic.

The spell checker that changes the name of an important client in an email or changes a word that gives the sentence a totally different focus than what you intended. You missed the changes in the overview before you hit “send”.

Your brain elicits an angry outburst which is hurtful, inappropriate and unnecessary because you misread the situation.

You get the idea.

Emotions as Tools

Emotions are hardwired tools..

Your emotions unconsciously perceive threats
They unconsciously prepare your body to react and insure your survival.

You are hardwired to perceive threat in your surroundings. This has been the case since humans lived in caves and this “ability” helped us survive as a species.

This is the first part of the emotions cycle and is mitigated by the Amygdala in our brain.

Each emotion has a set point at which it recognizes a significant event such as a “threat”. This is the message of the emotion.

Your definition of threat is your set point and when that set point is reached, your emotional “cruise control” kicks in.

Below this set point, or threshold, there is no experienced emotion.

The characteristics of this process are that it is automatic, out of our awareness, and quick. This is our emotional reaction.

The characteristics which comprise your emotional reaction are critical if your survival is at stake. But, they are also the foundation for the myth that our emotions control us.

The critical difference is that when the emotional process “originally” appeared in our cave dwelling ancestors, all threats were survival based and this fast emotional reaction saved lives. Today, most threats are psychological and our brains have evolved so that we now can evaluate the threat and choose our emotional response.

When the emotion is compelling, uncomfortable, or debilitating, this automatic process is viewed as undesirable.

Let me break it down….

compelling

The emotion seems to “take over” and “compel” one to act in a particular way. Examples include anger (aggression) and jealousy (driven to take back what you believe is yours).

uncomfortable

The emotion just doesn’t feel good. We call this its hedonic quality. Examples include sadness, anxiety, guilt, and jealousy.

debilitating

The emotion seems to sap us of energy and leave us feeling unable to take effective action. Examples include anxiety (an inability to take action) and guilt (a sense of unworthiness).

But, this automatic process is only part of the story and this is where the concept of a smart cruise control becomes important.

So, you may ask:

“What does the concept of cruise control have to do with emotions?”

The short answer is that people believe their emotions function the same way their classic (dumb) cruise control operates.

They get into a situation in which the emotion is automatically triggered.

(Set point is reached.)

The emotion engages and elicits physical and psychological events

(The brain and body are engaged just like the car speeds up.)

The emotion is experienced as acting autonomously and without conscious input.

(The cruise control, once set, functions without additional input.)

The implication is that the emotion reaches some set point after which it takes over and the individual has no choice but to give in to the feeling and either act out or do nothing.

This is the Myth…but, there is more to the story.

Most people relate to their emotions from a classical (or dumb) cruise control model.

I am suggesting that it is much more adapative to adopt a smart cruise control approach.

Your Cruise Control

Classic, or “dumb”, cruise control

This technology enables you so you to set a desired speed. This is the “set point” for speed. The tech monitors your speed and, if the car falls below this set point, the automatic system engages and you speed up.

I call this accessory “dumb” not because I want to put down the technology but because it is blind to changing road conditions. Once set, it does its job and maintains a certain speed.

As long as you are in an unchanging situation such as a stretch of road with limited or consistent traffic, you are golden. The car stays at speed.

But, if traffic should slow and you are not alert, the car in front of you may have slowed or stopped, you remain at speed and plow into the stopped car in front of you!

Your “tool” is happy to keep you going at 69 mph. It is doing its job.

In order to avoid an accident, however, you will need to remain constantly vigilant, continue to assess your driving environment, and override or disconnect the cruise control as needed.

Smart Cruise Control

Your smart cruise control has a set point which it maintains. This tech, however, is designed to monitor your surroundings and when there is a car stopped in front of you, it slows you down. Once the obstruction is removed, you go back to your set point.

Our emotions CAN function the same way.

Indeed, the second part of the emotions cycle involves the cerebral cortex and gives us the option to assess our situation and choose our response.

Just like your smart cruise control monitors your speed and your surroundings, kicks in to both slow you down and give you a choice about what you want to do, and then defaults to your set point once the obstruction is dealt with, your cerebral cortex can automatically kick it and give you choices about how you want to deal with a threat.

Emotional mastery involves experiencing the emotion, slowing down, assessing the situation and choosing a response.

Emotional mastery is NOT automatic and must be learned!

Anger as a Tool and an Example.

Your anger is a tool that is designed to help you survive.

Your anger cruise control kicks in when you experience a threat that you believe you can handle if you throw enough power at it.

When you get angry:

You have perceived a threat to your life, your goals, your ego, your values.
Your brain has sent chemicals all through your body telling it to prepare for battle.
You are ready to go to war with the threat.

When all threats were survival based, your emotional cruise control worked perfectly.

The problem is that nearly all of the threats we face today are psychological and not survival based.

Consequently, what may seem to be a threat may, in fact, only be a misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, your anger does not know the difference between a survival based and a psychological threat and you automatically go into self-protection or go-to-war mode.

If you lash out and say, or do, something you later regret, it is just like plowing into the car in front of you at high speed.

This is where the smart cruise control metaphor, the Emotions as Tools model and anger mastery come in.

Just as you should constantly monitor the traffic when your cruise control is on, you should constantly monitor your surroundings when you become aware that your anger (or any other emotion) has been engaged.

Once you become aware that you are angry, you should manage your anger by lowering your arousal and master your anger by assessing the threat and deciding whether to let your anger move you forward to take action (if the threat is real) or override the anger and shut it down.

The same idea works for other human emotions such as anxiety, sadness, guilt and shame.

The point, here, is that your smart emotional “cruise control” should always be set on automatic. This will let your emotions alert you to possible threats. When a threat is perceived, your “smart tech” will kick in and, before you react, you can evaluate what is going on and decide what you want to do.

This is called mastering your emotions:

You accept and validate the automatic nature of your emotions.
You monitor your emotions and assess the situation.
You choose an adaptive response and initiate it.

The bottom line is that you want to approach your emotions from a smart cruise control model to get the most out of them as strategic tools.

Your Brain VERSES Your Feelings? Nope! Your Brain AND Your Feelings.

How do I train my brain to be stronger than my feelings?

This is a question Barbara asked me to address on Quora.com. I wanted to share my answer here because the question contains a common (but incorrect) assumption that there is a competition between what one thinks and what one feels.

Barbara:

While I am not exactly sure what you are asking, I will do my best to address what I think you want to know.

Your question seems to address a common misconception and the two emotion myths that are implied by this misconception..

The misconception in that there is a competition between LOGIC (the brain) and EMOTION (feelings).

Note: the terms emotions and feelings, while different in the scientific literature, are basically the same in every day usage.

The two emotion myths are:

1. that your emotions control you and cause you to take actions you don’t want to do.

2. that you must control your emotions using your brain.

I will explain the above in some detail below.

But first, I need to add that there is some “training” you will need to do. It isn’t, however, what you expect.

The emotions cycle delineates how your emotions “work”.

The emotions cycle has 5 components. The first two operate subconsciously and the last 3 operate consciously.

This is the emotions cycle:

The Subconscious Components:

I. You are constantly (and subconsciously) scanning your surroundings for any threat.

Humans have done this since we lived in caves.

II. When you perceive a threat, your body (through the Amygdala in your brain) automatically prepares you to deal with the threat. The message of the emotion communicates the nature of the perceived threat.

This process is subconscious, automatic, and very fast as it should be if every threat you faced would kill you. As a caveman, every threat would kill you so having this process happen automatically was a life saver for you and all of our ancestors.

The physical changes in your body are related to the threat you perceive. This is the physical message of the emotion. Anger: your muscles tense, your heart rate increases, your eyesight narrows. Your are prepared for war. Sadness: your energy seems to drain, you are prepared to withdraw. Fear: you find it hard to focus your thoughts, you need to decide to freeze or flee.

Note: The subconscious component of the emotion cycle is the basis for the emotion myth that our feelings control us because this process happens automatically.

The Conscious Components:

III. Once you become aware that you are experiencing an emotion, you need to control your emotional reaction to create “safety” and lower your emotional arousal.

This is where your “control” comes in.

You are not controlling the emotion. Rather, you are controlling your emotional reaction.

Control consists of two actions…

You do take a physical step away from the situation. This creates a physical safe space.
You take a deep breath (or two). this lowers your emotional arousal and creates a psychological safe space.

Note: This is where you need to train yourself.

You do this by thinking about emotional situations you might encounter and visualizing yourself taking a step back and a deep breath. Remember that you are developing a new habit and that it will take time and practice.

IV. You now use your logic to assess the nature of the threat and whether the threat is actually a threat.

It is here that your cerebral cortex kicks in and you can use your logic. The cerebral cortex evolved to give us an advantage our ancestors did not have. We can move beyond our instincts and built-in reactions and choose how we want to respond to our situations.

V. Based on your Assessment of the situation, you choose an adaptive response that matches and resolves the “threat”. Your response can involve having a conversation, withdrawing, going on the attack, or doing nothing and everything in-between.

So, Barbara, it is not an matter of strengthening your logic or your emotional “abilities” as your logic and your feelings are not in opposition to one another but need to work together. The goal is to learn to master your emotions as strategic tools to improve your life and your relationships.

While mastering your emotions as tools is not easy, it is doable and I have provided you with a free resource you can use to educate yourself about your emotions.

Emotional Empowerment: Focus on “reclaiming” your emotions.

In my last post, I discussed the concept that our emotions are always valid but might not be appropriate. If they are not appropriate, we should choose not to express them.

Another reason why someone might choose not to express an emotion is that they feel estranged from that emotion based on…

a set of “rules”,
their upbringing,
issues surrounding how they might be perceived should they directly express the emotion,
inadequate skill sets for dealing with that emotion, or
situational risk.

When a person believes they can’t express the emotion they are e I am suggesting that when you do this, you include some emotions in your “tool kit” and eliminate others.

The cost is that you cut yourself off from many emotions that you could strategically deploy to improve your life and your relationships.

It’s like saying you will only include one type of screwdriver in your tool drawer. That’s great if every screw required a flat head driver. But, if you come across a Phillips head screw, you are “screwed”. Sorry for the pun!

You reclaim your emotions when you validate all the emotions you experience and learn to “express” those emotions to improve your life and your relationships.

Let’s dive in.

A secondary emotion is one that is expressed instead of the primary emotion which is what the individual man or woman is actually feeling but chooses not to express.

A secondary emotion is expressed because it is more “comfortable” or “acceptable” than the primary which is more accurately matched to the situation.

For men, the secondary emotion is often anger which is expressed to avoid emotions such as hurt, sadness, embarrassment, anxiety and guilt.

For women, the secondary emotion is often sadness which is expressed because women get “punished” by being marginalized, demeaned or negatively labelled when expressing anger.

More on this below.

As we grow up, both sexes may learn that there are rules which dictate that we might need to “distance” themselves from certain emotions. This is true in many cultures across the world.

There are at least 3 types of rules:

There are cultural display rules which dictate which emotions are acceptable in that culture. These rules could be based on gender, custom, religion, etc.
There might be family rules that you learned growing up.
Finally, these rules could be self-generated as in “The last time I expressed that feeling, I (You fill in the unwanted consequence.) so I’ll avoid that feeling going forward.”

The bottom line is that while you may become estranged from one or more emotions in terms of whether you express them or not, these emotions still exist “within you”. They have, however, been sent to the proverbial attic and archived.

In addition to various sets of rules which may cut you off from some of your emotions, you may label some emotions as good (or positive) and others as bad (or negative) based on the kinds of experiences we have with emotions,

I should point out that in the scientific literature the terms “positive” and “negative” have a specific meaning when applied to emotions.

A positive emotion is one that is experienced as pleasurable. It feels good.

A negative emotion is one that is experienced as uncomfortable. It feels bad.

In both cases, it is the hedonic quality of the emotion that is being labelled.

For years, now, I have advocated that the terms “positive” and “negative”(as applied to emotions) be eliminated or, at least minimized, because I believe these terms take on a different meaning than just the pleasurable nature of that feeling. Indeed, the terms positive and negative are taken to imply that some emotions should be “kept” (the positive ones) and others (the negative one) should be eliminated.

The basis for my concern is the meaning that we associate with the terms positive and negative.

We tend to label those emotions we feel competent to express as positive and those we do not feel competent with as negative.

Think about it for a moment. Do you want a negative review at work or a negative balance in your checkbook? Of course not.

An emotion may be negative because..

we do not feel very competent in expressing
we don’t like how it makes us appear to others (weak)
it leads to actions that we would like to avoid.

The end result is that you keep the emotions you label as positive in your behavioral repertoire and and archive those emotions you label as negative.

Avoiding primary emotions…

Here is how it works in real life.

You find yourself in a situation which elicits an emotional reaction. The situation represents some kind of threat and the primary emotion you experience automatically alerts you to the nature of that threat and prepares you to deal with it.

This alert is the “message” of the emotion and is unique to the emotion…

Anger: You are prepared to go to war to deal with a threat.
Sadness: You are prepared to withdraw to deal with a loss.
Guilt: You are prepared to address, atone for, and make right something you have done.
Anxiety: You are facing a possible threat and must choose what actions you want to take.
Hate: You are prepared to eliminate an evil threat.
Shame: You become self-critical and view yourself as damaged, dumb or worthless.

In responding to the situation, you acknowledge the emotion and consider how you want to respond.

As a man, you might view the emotions of anxiety, sadness, and guilt as messy and uncomfortable. As you are not really “prepared” to deal with this discomfort or you do not want to appear weak based on the actions these emotions are pushing you to take, you might label these emotions as undesirable or negative and decide to avoid them by expressing anger instead because anger “feels” good, powerful and in control.

But, in avoiding those emotions, you create additional “problems” for yourself.

Here’s how it might work.

You do something dumb and feel guilty. This is an appropriate emotion. Instead of mastering your guilt and righting the wrong, you “get on your own case” and experience shame which feels even worse. To avoid the “pain” of shame, you decide to express anger as a secondary emotion and direct your anger at someone else. Since the anger probably is not appropriate for the situation, it might elicit an unwanted reaction and you are back to guilt. This could create an emotional chain reaction.

As a woman, you might view the emotion of anger as dangerous because it elicits aggression from those to whom it is directed. You get negatively labeled, demeaned, or marginalized. The same behavior that in a man is viewed as demonstrating power, leadership and initiative is viewed as “hormonal” or “bitchy” in you. As you might not want to take the risk involved in expressing your anger when you have been wronged or taken advantage of, you might decide to do nothing and default to sadness as a secondary emotion. As sadness is not appropriate to dealing with a real threat, you feel inadequate, unappreciated, and weak. You might also continue to feel angry which, if unvalidated, might lead to rage and uncontrolled lashing out.

The 5 steps to reclaim your emotions.

You reclaim your emotions when you acknowledge and accept your emotions as an authentic part of you and utilize the energy of your emotion, when appropriate to adaptively master the situation in which you find yourself.

Step 1: Acknowledge, or validate the emotion.

Step 2: Assess your situation and determine, as objectively as you can, whether the emotion accurately reflects your situation and is. therefore, appropriate.

Step 3: Decide what needs to be done (under the best of circumstances).

Step 4: Determine whether it is “safe” to outwardly express the emotion.

Step 5: Make a plan to express the emotion and deal with the situation.

A note on expressing an emotion…

Keep in mind that expressing the emotion can be direct in which case you assertively inform the other person about what you feel and what you believe needs to be done in your situation. Examples include: “I believe you published my report under your name. I wrote it and this needs to be corrected.” Or, “I appreciate what you are doing but I am feeling really sad and just need some alone time to sort things out.?”

Expressing your emotion can also be indirect in which case you might choose to keep the emotion such as anger, anxiety, or sadness to yourself and utilize the energy of the emotion to facilitate a change in your surroundings which validates the emotion but does include informing others about what you are feeling.

The bottom line is that you empower yourself when you reclaim all of your emotions.

You become more honest with yourself and, maybe, others.
You are more in touch with your surroundings.
You have additional choices about how you want to interact with your surroundings and improve your life and your relationships.

Again, let me say that you may need to educate yourself about your emotions and I have written numerous, easy to understand, posts in this blog to help you do that. You can access all of these posts directly through the Index tab above.