Category: Other Emotions

A few weeks ago, some friends of mine entered into a contract to buy a house. They asked many questions and secured the best deal they could.  When they took ownership and looked further into the house, they realized that they had “failed” to add a clause to the contract regarding any problems they encountered once they moved in.

Upon realizing their error, they began to engage in “regretful” thinking..

“Regretful” thinking involves thoughts which imply both that what you did was, in some way, wrong, inadequate, hurtful or damaging to you, the situation, or another person and that, by some unknown means, you could go back and change what you did.

Here are some examples of regretful thinking..

Shoulda’s…

as in “We should have …”

If only ida’s…

as in “If only I had…”.

I wish I hada’s…

as in “I wish I had…..”

There are several maladaptive issues with regretful thinking..

Regretful thinking can be rather powerful because it has a veneer of truth to it.  Yes, if you had acted differently, the outcome would have been better. The main issue, however, is that you can’t go back and change what you did or did not do.

Secondly, depending on the emphasis you place on your regretful thoughts, other emotions will be elicited by those thought which could be problematic  for you including:

• regret (I did something dumb and I can’t change it),
• sadness (I lost something important),
• shame (I’m really a bad, dumb, or worthless person),
• anxiety (My future will always be messed up.), or
• anger (that seller really screwed me).

The Emotions as Tools (EaT) Model informs you of the steps you need to take to deal with “regretful” thoughts and the emotions these thoughts elicit.

The EaT steps..

1. Take a deep breath and a step back from the situation. This might involve taking a walk, putting the situation “on hold” for a moment, doing some other important task and so forth.
2. Acknowledge and label the feeling you are experiencing and the message of each emotion. (Deal with only one emotion at a time.)
3. “IWBNI”      Explain to yourself that you did what you did (We’ll come back to this below with the BRR) and assertively invoke an IWBNI (It Would Be Nice If) you had acted differently. Viewing your situation through the lens of an IWBNI enables you to acknowledge both what you did (or did not) do and the actions you wish had done instead.
4. BRR.   Eliminate judgement by remembering (and applying) the BRR (Basic Relationship Rule) which states that everyone (including you) always does the Best they can (not the best possible) given their Model of the World (how they are perceiving, viewing or conceptualizing) what is going on in the moment and their Skill Sets (the tools, behaviors, abilities, emotions, knowledge) they bring to the situation.  The BRR does not justify or excuse any action or inaction.  It only helps to understand what took place and eliminate any personal condemnation.  Any judgement of one’s actions, if appropriate can come later.  So, if what you did was not what you have preferred to do, take a look at how you perceived your situation (your Model) and the tools you used to determine what actions you did take.  Did you fail to fully understand what was going on or did you not use some tools to help you act differently than you did?
5. Forgive Yourself.  Forgiving involves letting go of any self-condemnation as in “I should have…”.
6. Learn from the situation so that you can make a different decision in the future.  This involves learning from the information you now have to be more aware in the future and make a different decision.
7. Acceptance.  Acknowledge that your situation is what it is, you’ve extracted whatever learning you can from it, and it is time to move on.  In other words, “This, too, shall pass.”

My friends basically did all of the above.  They finally decided that they would just have to live with their actions and “In time, it would pass.”

As a follow-up to the above, in my next post, I will republish a post from July 2022 dealing specifically with the emotion of regret.

 

I was listening to a podcast recently (The Anxious Achiever) and the topic of being authentic came up in the context of women expressing their emotions.  In all of my writings, I must admit, I never considered the subject of authenticity.

During the podcast, authenticity was discussed as directly expressing the emotion in the given situation.  While it was acknowledged by the host and the guest that it was not always “possible” to directly express an emotion such as anger, the connection between being authentic and emotional expression was never really established.

As I began to think about authenticity, I realized that I had a different point of view.

To me, being authentic was baked into the emotional cycle and the concept of mastering your emotions as tools.

I alluded to it but never used the label authenticity.

Recall the emotional cycle which involves the following steps:

1. unconscious scanning of your surroundings for “threat”
2. unconscious physical reaction to perceived threat
3. conscious awareness of the emotion via the body’s physical reaction
4. take a step back and a deep breath
5. acknowledge the emotion
6. assess the validity of the emotion by comparing what you perceive with what is actually taking place
7. choose an adaptive response
8. respond

The above is, of course, an overview as there are many elements involved in each of the above steps.

The idea of being authentic applies to step 5 acknowledging the emotion and steps 7 and 8  choosing an adaptive response and responding.

The common misconception is that in order to be authentic (and its sister..being honest), you need to be true to your emotions and take direct action by directly expressing that emotion in your immediate situation.

To put it another way, you are being authentic to the situation.

While this is certainly desirable and, yes, authentic/honest, it isn’t always adaptive.

And, to me, being adaptive, in the situation may be more appropriate to both short and longer term goals as well as safer and more expedient.

I’ll address this in more detail below.

As there are situations in which the direct display of an emotion is problematic, I am suggesting that authenticity be reframed as being open to the message of the emotion (and, therefore to the emotion, per se) and acting in such a way that the message of the emotion is acknowledged and validated by the individual regardless of whether it is directly expressed in and acknowledged by others in the given situation.

If the display rules in any given situation are going to expose you to consequences that it is in your best interest, in that situation, to avoid, then you might need to take an indirect approach to expressing your emotion.

This is what I suggested in Chapter 10 of my book Beyond Anger Management for Professional Women and in several subsequent blog posts (checkout the Anger category under the Index tab above).

Anger can be problematic for women.

When a woman directly expresses anger, she tends to be marginalized and demeaned by men and (sometimes) women who feel threatened by her anger.  Cultural display rules dictate that women are “supposed”to be nice, caring and supportive and anger isn’t appropriate to this view of women.  So, an angry women is viewed as bitchy, hormonal, etc.

So, for a woman to be authentic, she may have to acknowledge that her anger is correctly both infoming her that a threat exists in that a boundary has been violated and preparing her for battle to right the violation

But, how she chooses to manifest (be authentic to) that anger as a motivator to take action may involve a more indirect approach.  In addition, if she is being authentic, she should avoid deploying other emotions such as sadness or hurt as a secondary emotions or being nice.  She doesn’t have to get excessively angry, but she can be irritated, annoyed, upset or even highly concerned and question what is going on but not nice, sad or supportive.

In doing the above, she is still just as angry and is moving to deal with the threat, but is not exposing herself to unwanted negative consequences  in her given situation

She is being true to emotion while acquiescing to the reality of her situation.

A man in that same situation might just get pissed off and be “rewarded” for his assertiveness.

Men, however, have other issues.

Anxiety, uncertainty or even sadness can be problematic for men…

For a man, expressing anxiety or uncertainty might be considered as weakness.  And emotions such as sadness, empathy, support, or love might be experienced as overly emotional or unmanly.

When a man feels inadequate or unmanly, he may express anger as a secondary emotion.  This, by the way, is the basis for the myth that anger is a secondary emotion

The truth is that anger is a primary emotion that humans and subhumans are born with.  Anger can, however, be and is expressed as a secondary emotion to cover over other, often uncomfortable for men, emotions.

So for an man to be authentic, he needs to learn to acknowledge and accept all of his emotions and then assess the degree to which he can, or cannot, directly express that emotion in a given situation.

If he is anxious about a situation, he can acknowledge the perceived possible threat to himself and go into problem solving mode (publicly) to assess his options. Similarly, if he feels inadequate, he may not state this but he can evaluate his own skill sets, what may be missing, and work to get some help to shore up his weak areas.

Or, he can, in a safer setting, reevaluate the real risk of being vulnerable, discover that he can survive that risk, and choose to express his emotion and be vulnerable.

This is the approach that Arum Weiss, Ph.D. takes in his podcasts and books.

So, to bring it all together, cultural, social, or work display rules may render the direct expression of an emotion problematic, non-adaptive, or even dangerous.  Because of this, viewing authenticity as being emotionally true to the situation can be maladaptive or disempowering.

Defining authenticity as being true to the emotion and choosing the most adaptive way to express, honor and utilize the motivating energy of the emotion is adaptive and empowering and consistent with the emotional cycle.

If you google authenticity, you will find a variety of articles on the subject that go into much more detail than is possible here.

In my last post, I talked about how I justified stealing pocket patches as a Boy Scout by rationalizing that my actions were okay because my patches had been stolen by another Scout.

Let’s explore this idea…

A physical example:

Have you ever taken a rusty item such as a lawn chair and put a coat of paint on it without having properly prepared the chair by sanding and applying a primer?

I have.

The veneer I applied looked great but did nothing to deal with the underlying “issue” (the rust).  The unresolved “issue” worked its way through the veneer and came back.

The chair looked great until the rust came back!

This is the physical equivalent of psychological rationalizing.

What happens when you rationalize your behavior?

Psychological rationalizing:

Merriam Wester defines rationalizing as:

a way of describing, interpreting, or explaining something (such as bad behavior) that makes it seem proper, more attractive, etc.

Let’s say that you are thinking of engaging in an action that you know is “wrong” in some way because..

• It violates an external “code of conduct”
• It is violates an internal “code of conduct” such as your values by being dishonest, or “wrong” for a variety of reasons
• It utilizes a “short-cut” by cutting corners, disregarding accepted practices,   ignoring important information etc.

The emotion you experience as you contemplate engaging in a “wrong” act is discomfort or guilt.

You know what you are doing is “wrong” and you initially feel uncomfortable about what you are doing.

Rather than utlize the message of your discomfort/guilt as a motivator to stop what you are  (or contemplating) doing, you  minimize the “wrongness” by applying a “logical veneer” which appears to justify or explain your actions.

Rationalizing allows you to continue what you are doing and quiet the guilt which comes up as a reaction to your knowing what you are doing is indeed “wrong”.

It works for a while.

Until, it doesn’t!

The knowledge of the “wrongness” is like the rust on the chair.  It most likely comes back and results in unwanted consequences.

In my last post, I discussed how I felt guilty about stealing pocket patches as  a Boy Scout and “nullified” my guilt by noting that my patches had been stolen previously so I was justified in stealing someone else’s patches.

Let’s unpack this (rationalize vs rational lies)

A word about “rationalizing”..

While the correct spelling of the word rationalize is, indeed,…

r a t I o n a l I z e

the psychological spelling of the word is…

r a t I o n a l    l I e s.

When we rationalize, we tell ourselves plausible lies to justify whatever the issue is that is eliciting discomfort. The “reasons” you give yourself are plausible because they sound logical but are actually lies because they do not really fit or justify your actions!

In my earlier example,

I noted that some of my patches had been stolen.  This was true.

The lie was that I was justified in victimizing another person because I was a victim. This was not true but it sounded plausible.

And, it worked for a while to keep my discomfort/guilt away.

No “wrong doing”…No guilt.

In my last post, I laid out the emotional process.

In summary..

• step back
• take a breath
• assess (this is where rationalizing may come in)
• choose a response

The Take-away…

When you notice yourself feeling uncomfortable (guilty) about something you are about to do and you begin to justify (or rationalize) your actions, stop and reframe (redefine) the (plausible) reasons you are giving yourself to justify your actions as rational (or logical) lies.

However reasonable they may sound, or even if they are true by themselves, they are lies because they are not appropriate in your situation.

When you accept that you are lying to yourself about (rather than giving plausible reasons for) what you are thinking of doing, you validate your discomfort/guilt as a strategic tool and, possibly, avoid any future unwanted complications which will come about from the “wrong” actions you are about to engage in.

In my next post, I will address two processes which, like rationalizing, contribute to your misperceiving what is going on and the actions you take in an emotional situation: assuming and acting as-if.

 

You are standing, as a defendant, in a court room and the judge asks you “How do you plead?”

Your answer is “Not guilty Your Honor.”

At the end of the trial, you are either “guilty” or “not guilty”.

In this context, the meaning of the word “guilty” is directly connected to the event in question (the crime) and whether you did, or did not participate in that event.

The word guilty also applies to the emotion of guilt and the belief that you have done something “wrong”.

Let’s briefly explore the emotion of guilt.

The emotion of guilt communicates to you the message that you believe that your actions  have in some way violated..

• your values,
• your ethics,
• your sense of right vs wrong or
• some stated set of rules of conduct

Two examples…

Example #1:  Rationalized Theft

Many years ago, when I (as a young Boy Scout) attended a Boy Scout Jamboree, I was trading pocket patches with another Scout.  I did not realize until later that this Scout had stolen some of my prized patches.

I was incensed.

Later, when I had the opportunity to steal from another Scout, I did so and justified my actions by rationalizing that it was “okay” because it had happened to me.

(As a head’s up, in my next post, I will discuss the concept of rationalize vs rational lies.)

• Did I know that what I did was “wrong”? Yes.
• Did it bother me that I did it? Not at first.
• Did I feel guilty as I thought about what I had done?  Yes

The emotion of guilt that I experienced was doing its job….

1. by informing me that I had violated my own value that stealing was wrong
2. by motivating me to take action to make right the wrong I had committed.

This is what guilt (as an emotion) is designed to do.

When you strategically deploy guilt as an emotion, your task is to go through the steps of the emotional process which includes:

• correctly labelling the emotion as guilt
• taking a deep breath to decrease your emotional arousal
• taking a “step” back from the situation to increase your objectivity
• assessing the validity of the actions you have taken by attempting to determine whether it was right or wrong according to your values not the context
• choosing an appropriate response to rectify what has been done (if needed)

When it comes to dealing with the emotion of guilt, there are four options..

1. assess the situation and realize that you did not do anything wrong, based on the situation, context, and objective reality of what you did that  and let the guilt dissipate
2. stop the behavior, make the situation right and eliminate your guilt
3. continue the behavior and attempt to deny your guilt
4. continue the behavior, rationalize your actions, and move past your guilt.

Options #1 and #2 involve mastering the emotion of guilt and are the most appropriate responses.

Option #3 doesn’t work because the emotion will always come back

Option #4 is just masochistic  in that it rationalizes an unwanted behavior and makes you vulnerable to negative consequences  at some future date.

In this space, I have attempted to give you the tools to understand your emotions, utilize the message of your emotions as motivation to engage the emotional process and strategically deploy your emotions as motivators to improve your life and your relationships.

From this perspective, the best option for you to take when you experience the emotion of guilt is (depending on your assessment) either #1 or #2.

Closure for example #1..

By the way, I acted on my guilt by finding the Scout whose patches I had stolen, explained that I had found them in my backpack, realized that they were his, and returned them.  I still got in trouble but the “sentence” was reduced for “good behavior”.

Example #2:  Exaggerated Guilt

While working as a Psychologist for the California Youth Authority, I treated several young women who had killed their children.

While the “facts” of each case were not in question, treating the impact of the emotion of guilt was an issue.

Specifically, these young women not only felt guilty for what they had done but viewed themselves as “monsters” based on the seriousness of their crime.

My therapeutic approach was to “normalize” their guilt and help them realize that while their actions may have been monstrous, they were not monsters because the context of their actions (including their own abuse) made their actions “understandable”.

Now, I need to emphasize two points…

First. I never exonerated them for what they did.  They did it, their guilt was appropriate, and they were being “punished”.  What I did, therapeutically, was to put their guilt in perspective so that it could function as a learning tool and not as an impediment to their psychological growth.

Secondly, I need to point out that I was never rationalizing or justifying what they did.  The context, in each case, did make what they did understandable.

The context, however, never made what they did right!

All of the emotions (think anger, anxiety, sadness, guilt, shame, envy) which either do not feel good (their hedonic quality) or elicit (lead to but do not cause) unwanted behavior are mislabeled as “negative”.

In fact, while it is true that some emotions are experienced or misinterpreted as negative as opposed to others (happy, excited, enthusiastic, optimistic),which are viewed as positive because they “feel” good…..

there are no negative (or positive) emotions.

Let me put it a different way using some common examples..

• Your smart phone doesn’t do what you want it to and seems to have a mind of its own
• The spell checker totally messes up your message
• The remote control for your TV won’t pull up the channel or app you want

When any of these “tech disconnects” happen, do you label the “tool” as negative and toss the device in the trash or do you get annoyed, pour your self some Chardonay or Cabernet, settle down at some point, and get some help (google, your kids, The Geek Squad)?

Of course not…

You figure it all out and get on with your life.

The exact same situation exists with your emotions.

Every emotion is an adaptive tool that, once you learn to master it, can be deployed to improve your life and your relationships.

Understanding Emotions

The function of each emotion is to both alert you to a situation you are facing which requires your attention and to prepare you to deal with that situation.

To put it another way:

Your emotions empower you to…

• assess the situation
• choose a strategic response
• adaptively take action to deal with the situation.

Empowerment means that you are more capable of handling your situation.

The elements of empowerment include:

• the message of the emotion which is the alert you get from your emotion regarding your perception of what is happening.

With the alert you now have…

• awareness: you are mindful (present and in the moment) and focused on your situation and…
• motivation: you are driven to take adaptive action.

Taking adaptive action involves…

• assessing: your situation in terms of its validity or the match between what is happening and your perception of what is happening and …
• choosing: deciding on a response that works for you and others in that situation (if there are others).

The action you feel compelled to take when you experience the emotion is the physical preparation your emotion is eliciting in you.

Let’s demystify the emotion of Anxiety

Anxiety is the emotion you experience when you are looking into the future and anticipate that a pending situation might go bad and result in a negative outcome.

Examples include:

• Having to give a speech that might result in your looking bad, being ridiculed, making a horrible impression, etc.
• Asking your boss for a raise and being turned down.
• Going into an interview for a job or a promotion and botching it.
• Asking someone out on a date and being rejected.
• Expressing yourself in an important meeting and getting marginalized, criticized, or negatively mislabeled.

In each of the above examples, there are at least three possible outcomes…

1. It could lead to a disaster.
2. It might not go exactly as you want but it isn’t a disaster, you learn from your mistakes and you do better next time.
3. It could result in success.

The reason anxiety is a so-called negative emotion is that it leads us to withdraw from the situation in order to avoid the negative outcome we assume will happen if we participate in that situation.

This is called “anxiety as distress”.

And, it can be debilitating.

Anxiety as distress happens because…

• we assume the worst,
• act as-if it is the only possible outcome and then
• withdraw to avoid that undesired outcome.

To put it another way.. we ask ourselves the question “What if I do XYZ (the situation) and (the undesired outcome) happens?” And the answer we give ourselves confirms our worst concerns and strengthens the desire to avoid that outcome.

Or, in other words…

• I’ll look like an idiot.
• My reputation will be ruined.
• I won’t be able to find that perfect job.
• I’ll get fired.

While these negative outcomes are possible, it never occurs to us that there are two other possible (or even probable) outcomes…

1. The assumed negative outcome never happens
2. Our preparation leads to a desirable outcomeSo, how do we master anxiety as a strategic tool?

First some definitions..

Master: become so familiar with the tool that you know how it works and how to make it work for you.

Strategic: applying the tool to the specific situation in such a way that it both matches the situation in which you are deploying it and accomplishes what you need it to do.

An example from your own experience..

When you started your current job, you didn’t really feel that you knew what you were doing.  You may have been somewhat slow or tentative in your work, maybe asked a lot of questions etc.  As you spent more time doing what you do, you began to master the job in that you understood what you do, did it more successfully and found ways to do it even better (strategy).

That is mastery.

As a tool, anxiety is a future based tool which alerts you to a situation which MIGHT be problematic for you and prepares you to take action which preserves your safety in dealing with that situation.

The key to mastering anxiety involves how you choose to view that situation and what you do to “protect” yourself as you face that situation.

So, if you view the future situation as a certain disaster, avoidance might be an appropriate response.  This is anxiety as distress I noted above.

But, what if you view your anxiety as a warning beacon alerting you to the need to take action to prepare for the situation you are facing?

This is anxiety as eustress and is exactly what you need to do to master your anxiety.

This, by the way, is what my successful students do regarding any upcoming exam.  They get anxious about the exam and use that nervous energy to motivate them to study.

There are two interventions for dealing with anxiety.

1. Turning a disabling “what if” into an enabling “if–then”!

So, in each of the above examples, your anxiety can motivate you to prepare.

• You can write and get feedback on your speech.
• You can role-play an interview.
• You can think about future actions you might take if your idea, your proposition (asking for a date or a raise) isn’t accepted.
• You can gather all your facts before you speak up in that meeting.

When you prepare, the calculus changes..

• If I (prepare and have my ducks in a row), then (it is likely that things will go my way)

and

• if (they do not go my way), then (I have a plan for my next move).

2. Survival

You need to at least think about the possibility that the situation could end in disaster.

You do this by asking yourself this question…

“If the worst possible outcome happens, can I survive it?”

The answer will in the vast majority of situations be “yes”.

If you know you will survive even though it may involve disruption or discomfort, you no longer have to avoid it at all costs.

When you are prepared, you still have no assurances that the situation will go your way, but you can anticipate that you will both survive the situation and be in a better position in your next encounter.

That is mastering anxiety.