Category: Other Emotions

fear, anxiety, empathy, regret, jealousy, stress, and more

The Power of Words 3: “Feeling Stuck”?

                                                                                    This is the third post of a three part                   series on the power of words.  My intent has been to highlight the psychological impact of words we commonly use but rarely think about in terms of what these words actually mean, how they  impact us, and how to choose more adaptive words to facilitate psychological progress.

The words you use to describe how you perceive the situation in which you find yourself are often highly significant for several reasons…

  • The words reflect your perception
  • Your perception reflects your assessment of your situation and elicit specific emotions.
  • Your emotions lead to and elicit behavior which may, or may not, contribute to your successfully dealing with your situation.
  • Like most people, you may use these words almost habitually and not think about what they mean (or what they do, or do not, communicate).

    A not-uncommon scenario…

You are “working” on a project and find yourself unable to make any progress.   

Someone asks you:

                                                                                                       “How’s it going? ”            

You say,

                                                                                            “I‘m stuck.”

What exactly does it mean to “be stuck”?

Let’s take a look at what stuck might involve.

“Being stuck.”

These words only communicate that forward progress on the project has stopped.

That’s it.

There is no information in this communication that you can use to restore the progress you were making before y0u “got stuck”.

Let’s dig deeper…

What is the underlying reason that you are “stuck”?

This information is crucial if you wish to get unstuck because you have to know the obstacle you are facing in order to do something about that obstacle.

Are you….

  •  facing a “wall”?
  •  in an emotional quagmire?
  • have misaligned priorities?

The wall —-

  • There is some obstruction preventing you from moving forward.
  • You need something you don’t have such as an approval, an idea, or a change in something  like a policy.
  • You are lacking resources/authority/understanding/courage.

An emotional quagmire—

  • Your emotions are holding you back.
  • You are procrastinating.
  • You are seeking perfection.
  • You are anxious and focusing on what could go wrong.

Misplaced priorities—

  • You are being “forced” to do something ( it is someoneelse’s priority)
  • There are burdensome time constraints.
  • You have other priorities.

Once you have identified the underlying obstacle that you are facing, you can use the correct words to describe that obstacle and you can make a plan to deal with, move through, and, thereby, eliminate the obstacle.

Examples include:

  • I cannot progress until I get the needed authorization, resources, data sets, etc.
  • I am not making progress because my approach to this project isn’t producing useful ideas.  Perhaps, I need to step back and take a different perspective.
  • I’m not making progress because I am so anxious about how the project will turn out.  The message of anxiety is that there MAY be a future threat.  I need to examine the validity of possible threats, move on if these threats are not credible or take action to nullify them.
  • I am not making progress because I am annoyed that I am being redirected from my priorities to work on this project. Oh well, suck it up. This is the job and, while I might not like it, it is what it is and I need to focus to get it done so I can get back to my priorities.
  • I’m procastinating because I want this project to be perfect.  Yet, when I think about it, perfection is impossible so I will do the best I can and go from there.  That is all I can legitimately expect.

In the last three posts, I have attempted to put a spotlight on the words you use to describe/define the situations you find yourself in.  These words are often not challenged or even given a whole lot of thought.  They just come out and are accepted as valid,. informative and accurate.

The challenge is that the words you use are often not accurate.

Whether accurate or not, the words you use impact your emotions and the actions you take.

Now that you know this, you will be better able to question the words you use in situations that are important to you.

By changing your language, you empower yourself to  take adaptive action. When the obstacle is nullified, you are no longer stuck and you can move forward.

These are links to posts which address other relevant topics to “being stuck”

other emotions

other words

mastering emots as tools

The Power of Words 2: “Divorced” or “Single”? Psychologically, It Makes a Big Difference!

Your marriage was legally dissolved 5 (2,10, 15) years ago.     Do you think of yourself as “divorced” or “single”?

One day as a friend of the family and I were chatting about her “X”, I asked her this question……

“Are you divorced or are you single?”

She looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language that she did not understand and said… “Huh, what does that mean?”

In my last post, I talked about the power a questioner on Quora had given the innocuous word “ok” to elicit anger.

I’m continuing here to discuss the power of words but in a different context.

Context

If you have gone to court to dissolve your marriage, you are legally divorced.

Disclaimer

Now, as a matter of disclosure, I am not an attorney so I can’t address any legal or financial issues that involve the label “divorced”.  I am only addressing the psychological issues.

That said..

Once your marriage is dissolved, you are also  “legally” (in quotes based on the above disclaimer) single.

The power of words…

Divorced

What this word should mean is that you are now legally separated from your “X” and can move on in your life with a fresh start.

However….

As I explained to my friend, as long as she psychologically considered herself “divorced”, there remained a connection to her marriage and her “X”. To the extent that this connection indicates unresolved feelings including anger, guilt, shame, or regret, she was stuck in the past and was not able to grow beyond her marriage and get on with her life.

This is what was going on.

She believed her “failed” marriage was her fault.  This led to feelings of shame and guilt (self-blame) and regret.

She was pissed at her “X” for cheating.  This led to the feeling of anger.

She wasn’t sure she could fully recover.  This led to feelings of anxiety.

While she was aware of her anger and vaguely aware of her shame and guilt (not the same), anxiety and regret, all of these feelings were wrapped up in, and elicited by, the word “divorced”.

She was emotionally attached to, and looking backward at, her (unresolved) dissolved marriage.

Single

If you were never married or single, you would proceed in your relationship with others as an individual without “legal” encumbrances. Your decisions would involve only you, not someone else.

Again, I am talking psychologically here.

So, I said to my friend, you are a single woman, now and can act accordingly as you go forward.

I also explained, that she needed to resolve the “unresolved” issues which connected her to her marriage and that the Emotions as Tools Model would show her way to do this.

Label, validate, and Assess

The emotional process involves labelling your emotions so you know what they are, validating them so that you don’t deny or minimize them and assessing their message so you can decide whether they accurately reflect your initial perception of your situation.

The words she used to describe her situation and the emotions those words elicited….

In describing her “divorce”, my friend asserted (paraphrased)…

  • I screwed up and should have known better. (shame, guilt, regret)
  • He screwed up.m (anger)
  • Marriage sucks and I don’t want to hurt in the future. (anxiety)

We examined each of her assertions (perceptions) in terms of the “facts” including her actions and his actions, her strengths and weaknesses, who she is a person, etc.

Once the “issues” were addressed (resolution would come with time), the emotions subsided, she was able to acknowledge that she is, indeed, single and that moving on with her life now made sense to her.

The bottom line…

The takeaway here is that the words we use to describe the situations in which we find ourselves can be very powerful in their ability to elicit strong emotions which can negatively impact how we view ourselves and our situations as well as our ability to move forward in our lives.

In my next post, I will address the power of the word “stuck”.

Below, I have given some links to past posts which are relevant to this discussion.

It is important to note that you can access all of my past posts by clicking on the Index tab. When you do this, you will get a drop down menu with several categories for my posts.  Click on the category and you get a listing of all the posts in that category. Click on the post you want and the post will appear.

Note:  There are so many posts on anger, I suggest you click the anger category and pick the one that grabs your attention.

What is the difference between guilt and shame?

You Verses Your Anxiety: 3 Secrets and 4 Steps to turn Your Inner “doom sayer” into an inner “motivator”. Part 1

You Verses Your Anxiety: 3 Secrets and 4 Steps to turn Your Inner “doom sayer” into an inner “motivator”. Part 2: The 3 secrets.

You Verses Your Anxiety: 3 Secrets and 4 Steps to turn Your Inner “doom sayer” into an inner “motivator”. Part 3: The 4 steps.

Mastering the (So-called) Negative Emotion of Anxiety

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.

 

 

Using Your Emotions as Motivators to Changing Your Life: A new Approach to the Upcoming Holiday Season

YOU WANT TO MAKE SOME CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE IN 2023?  

  • Forget making resolutions.
  • Use the emotions of gratitude and anticipation as motivators.
  • Try a new approach starting TODAY.

Here is an overview of the process (Some dates are flexible.)

  • November 9, 2022: Introduction to a new approach to the Holidays
  • November 24, 2022: Thanksgiving Day
  • November 29 through December 10, 2022: Revisit your list.
  • December 25, 2022: Christmas Day
  • December 26 through December 30: Enhance your list (if you can).
  • January 1, 2023: New Year’s Day
  • January 9, 2023: Begin to change your life.

Today (11/9/22)

In two weeks, we will enter the Holiday Season with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.

A Different Approach

I’d like to suggest to you that, this year, you take a somewhat different approach  to the upcoming “Holiday Season” and these three holidays using your emotions as tools to change your life and your relationships.

The holiday season typically puts us in an upbeat mood.

This positive mood can be used as a motivator to pursue both the emotion of gratitude which is a powerful emotion and anticipation if there are aspects of our lives we would like to change.

Today, and for the next week, take a few minutes and think about 2 to 3 changes you could make in different arenas (personal, family, work, relationships, finances, health) of your life that, when done, will make your life better in some way.

Write down the changes you believe would be beneficial to you (notice I did not say “would like to make”.

Wanting to do something or liking something won’t go far as a motivator.  Being beneficial begins to engage your interest which is a motivating emotion.

Thanksgiving

Gratitude

For most of us, this holiday is about getting together with family, eating too much and vegging out in front of the TV.  All of this is good and doesn’t necessarily need any adjustments.

I am suggesting that you use this Holiday to really reflect on what you have to be grateful for in your life.

Whether you share this with your family or not is up to you.

This is a link to a post I wrote in 2019 specifically addressing the emotion of gratitude.

Here are some highlights..

According to an article posted on  positivepsychology.com, gratitude can:

  • help you make friends
  • improve your physical health
  • improve your psychological health
  • enhance empathy and reduce aggression
  • improve your sleep
  • enhance your self-esteem

November 29 through December 10, 2022….List of changes.

Once you have begun to express gratitude for all that is going right in your life …

you then use the “glow” that gratitude elicits and begin to think about those aspects of your life you want to change.

This sets you up for making a list of “changes” for 2023.  The “changes” you thought about earlier and wrote down now become your list.

Revisit your list and develop some action steps.

“No” to New Year’s Resolutions.

I don’t want you to make New Years resolutions as they do not work.

During the next few days, go back to your list and add 1-3 action steps for each item that are within your ability to accomplish. I did not say that they had to be easy.

Not Easy… But doable.

Anticipation

Because these steps are doable, the emotion of anticipation will kick in.

These action steps will turn your list into a plan of action by noting what you will need to do to make the changes you previously listed.

Once you have this updated and expanded list, put it away and get into the Christmas Spirit.

Between Christmas and New Years … 

Revisit your 2023 Action Plan and tweak it as needed.

Ask yourself these questions for each item.

  • What desirable changes will occur in my life when I successfully achieve (this change in my life)?
  • How will my life (relationships, job, family, health, finances) be improved when I successfully achieve (this change in my life)?
  • How will I know that I have begun to successfully achieve (this change in my life)?
  • What emotion can I anticipate I will experience when I successfully achieve (this change in my life)? Examples include: happy, accomplished, successful, secure (financially, relationships), etc.

Write your answers down for each item.

Note that just thinking about these changes in your life can elicit the emotions associated with those changes and serve as motivators.

January 1, 2023

Put the list away and welcome in the New Year.

January 9, 2023

Once your life gets back to “normal” (a week or so), take out your list and begin to take action on the first action step of your action plan.

Note:

If the week between Christmas and New Years was so hectic that you didn’t get to enhance your list, no worries.  You can begin this process now, without any guilt, because asking and answering these questions is, indeed, the beginning of your journey to changing your life.

If you follow all the steps listed above (to the best of your ability), you will be on your way to changing your life and using your emotions as tools to motivate you in that process.

 

 

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.

 

 

Regret: An emotion I misunderstood. Until Now.

Regret is an emotion that, like anger, has gotten a lot of bad press.

The image we often see is of a tattoo on a buffed arm that reads “No Regrets”.

Or, if you are into humor…”No Regerts”.

In a new book, Daniel Pink writes about the emotion of regret and notes that when you ask people if they have regrets, they will answer that they do not. If, however, you ask them if there are things they did (or failed to do) that they wish they had done differently, they will  say “yes”.

This is, in fact, the essence of regret.

The message of regret is, indeed, that you either did something, or failed to take some action, that led to an outcome that you strongly wish had progressed differently than it did.

This could involve an action you took such as

  • selling the stock just before it split and hit a new high
  • losing a bunch of money because you got scammed
  • “acting-out” and destroying an important relationship

or

It could be a missed opportunity to..

  • get an education
  • tell someone you loved them before they died
  • reestablish a relationship that ended badly
  • start a business
  • buy that house

You get the idea.

The emotion of regret is often labelled as a negative emotion because it hurts.

An example from my own life..

When I was in graduate school, I was home for vacation and my mom was taken to the hospital. I had visited her in the hospital and was going to visit her a second time.  I was outside the hospital in my car and decided that I would run an errand and then go and visit her.  She died while I was on my errand and I was both not there for her and unable to say my final good-byes.

It is important to note that the “errand” was not at all critical.

I, maladaptively, held on to my regret for many years.

I’ll explore my regret in this situation below.

My issue with regret stemmed from my belief that the emotion could only lead to a downward spiraling rabbit hole from which there was no escape.

My self-talk regarding my mom went like this…

  • I screwed up. I was not there for my mom in her moment of need.
  • My actions led to a bad situation which I can’t change.  She died and I will never be able to comfort her and tell her how much I loved her.
  • I should have  made a different decision. I knew that the errand was not significant but I “bought” my rationalization. I acted in a cowardly manner.
  • My actions will always haunt me because I can’t change what I did.
  • There must be something wrong with me that led me to screw up. I was in grad school and knew about rationalization.  I did not acknowledge my own inability to cope with my mom dying. I should have acted differently.
  • I screwed up because I was unable to deal with my anxiety.  I will always be haunted by my guilt because there is no way for me to make it  right.

Experiencing an emotional maelstrom involving self-criticism (guilt), self-denigration (shame) and being stuck (regret) was horrible. But, it is exactly this negative emotional soup that is associated with the emotion of regret and that gives it its bad reputation.

As a Psychologist with the Youth Authority, I had 5 young incarcerated women all of whom had killed their children.  I need to say upfront that while I always maintained that they were responsible for their actions, I needed to help them deal with their regret so that I could help them grow and develop into healthy adults once they left the institution.

In order to help them and deal with my own regret, I developed and embraced  the idea of IWBNI which allowed me and my clients to “eliminate” the emotion of regret by approaching the event as an IWBNI (It Would Be Nice If).

Viewing what I did through the lens of an IWBNI solved two issues which, to me, embodied the worst aspects of regret..

  1. We (My clients and I) screwed up.
  2. There was nothing that could be done to make it right.

How IWBNI works.

Noting that “It would be nice if” the (screw-up) had never happened…

  1. tacitly acknowledges and validates that it DID happen
  2. detaches the “screw-up” from any attached self-recrimination
  3. puts the undesired outcome both in perspective and in the past
  4. allows us to acknowledge and move past whatever was done and the negative outcome it elicited and
  5. allows us to learn from our actions.

While using IWBNI’s, per se, is still a viable and effective approach to events which elicit regret, I now believe that regret ought to be considered a valid emotion that can be mastered like any other emotion.

I’ll explain.

I paid too little attention to the learning potential of regret and it is this potential  that is the key to using regret as a strategic emotional tool.

It is important to note here that there are two categories of regrettable actions.

  1. Actions you have no opportunity to change.
  2. Actions you can do something to reverse the past and create a new outcome.

Category 2 was easy.  If I could change my future behavior, great, regret could be strategically deployed as motivating me to avoid future similar screw-ups.

I, however, had viewed the emotion of regret only in terms of the first category.

Indeed, if you could not do anything to change, or reverse, what happened, I reasoned that you were powerless regarding the focus of your regret and, therefore, your only choice was to validate the emotion, accept your actions, and move on.

To put it another way, the emotion of regret informed me that I screwed up.  Okay.  But, it also reminded me that there was nothing I could do to change what I’d done.  Therefore, there was nothing to learn. Consequently, regret could not be strategically deployed.

I was mistaken.

My epiphany about regret was that you could, indeed, learn from both categories of situations.

And, to the extent that you could learn from your actions, regret could become an emotion you could master.

To utilize regret as a strategic tool, there are 4 steps…

  • Acknowledgment— IWBNI
  •  Context —The BRR
  •  Compassion and Understanding—Self-forgiveness
  •  Consolidation and Moving on—List of what you learned

Step #1 Acknowledgment

As I discussed above, viewing what you regret through the IWBNI lens allows to acknowledge and validate the situation without judgement.  You may still judge yourself and I will address that below.  The IWBNI, per se, simply acknowledges what happened and the truth that you wish it had not happened without any inherent placement of blame.

Once you have acknowledged the situation and your actions, you are ready to progress to step #2 which involves understanding what you did.

Step #2 The Basic Relationship Rule (BRR)

As I have discussed in other posts, the BRR states that everyone in every situation does the best they can given their Model of the World and their skill sets.

While I don’t have room here to go into the BRR in depth, its relevance to the emotion of regret is that you now have a context to understand the actions you took that you now regret. What was your understanding about your situation, the perspective you took in the situation and the resources you had available to you to deal with that situation?

Now that you have acknowledged and gains some insight into what you did, you are ready for step #3 which involves compassion.

Step #3 Compassion

In step #3, you approach yourself as you would a good friend who did something you did not like.  You express compassion toward yourself and you forgive yourself for what you did.

Self-forgiveness, like forgiving others, does not mean justifying what you did  or letting yourself off the hook, per se, for the regrettable actions you took.  Self-forgiveness simply communicates that it did happen and self-blame is no longer needed.

You can let go of your judgement.

Now that your actions have been acknowledged, understood and removed from self-blame, you are ready for step #4.

Step 4  Consolidation and Moving on

The final step involves listing what you have learned about your actions and making a plan to act differently should a similar situation arise (if this is possible) or if a situation that resembles (in any way) what originally took place happens again.

This is you consolidating what regret has painfully reminded you that you to do.

Once you have consolidated what you have learned, you are ready to move on.

What did I learn from my regret?

Whenever I am in a situation in which I know I need to act but I do not or I rationalize, I will step back, take a deep breath, reassess what is actually going on and what I am trying to avoid, and do what I know needs to be done.

I have mastered my regret.

Indeed, I still regret not going up to my mom’s room to be with her in her last moments on earth but I do not feel guilt and, in several situations, I have taken action I might otherwise have avoided because it didn’t feel absolutely right.

 

Mastering Grief as a Strategic Emotion

Grief is an emotion that is well known but little understood.

Today’s post is designed to give you both insight into this important emotion and, should you find yourself in its “grip”, hopefully give you some suggestions for mastering your grief as a strategic tool.

Grief is an important emotion because its purpose is…

  • to focus our attention on what we have lost,
  • prepare us to effectively deal with that loss, and
  • allow us to grow beyond the loss and get on with our lives.

Grief

  • Grief is the emotion we experience when we experience a significant loss.
  • The message of grief is that we have sustained a significant loss and that we need to withdraw from others so that we can heal.
  • Grief, as an emotion, hurts.

Grief and Pain

The experience of grief can involve..

  • tears that seem to come on their own
  • a sense of emptiness inside
  • an inability to function normally because we are consumed by a sense of unresolvable loss

Other feelings which can go along with grief

  • sadness
  • anxiety
  • guilt

Two significant Grief myths

  • It is important to be “strong” (whatever this means) in the face of grief
  • Moving on with your life means forgetting about your loss

So, let’s dive in..

If you never experience grief, I hope it is because you have never experienced a significant (however, you define this) loss.  If so, I am thrilled for you.

It is, however, more likely that you will experience such a loss in your lifetime and you have at least two ways to approach the grief that accompanies the loss.

The unhealthy way…   suppress the feelings, power through it, and keep going.  This denial is equivalent to looking at the growing red spot on your skin, ignoring it because you don’t want to know more about it or don’t believe in skin cancer, and, down the road, having to deal with your cancer when it finally reaches a point where you can no longer avoid it.

The healthy way.. mastering the grief by validating it and working through it including experiencing the pain and the “symptoms” associated with the pain.

Pain explained.

A few years ago, a close family friend “lost” his wife after some 40 years of marriage.  They were high school sweethearts, got married and spent their whole adult life together as a couple.

When his wife died, he felt as if an important part of him had been wrenched away leaving a void which could not be filled.

He was right (almost).

An important part of him had been wrenched away and there was a void. However, while he would never be able to replace his wife of 40 years (nor would he want to), he would learn to heal the void.

While he expected to miss (grieve for) his wife, he was blindsided and totally (but intermittently) immobilized by  pain, tears and irreconcilable emotion.

There are at least two important elements to understanding the pain of grief.

I. The pain he experienced happened because of, and was a direct reflection of, his incredible 40 years of marriage.

In other words, the amount of pleasure he experienced in his marriage (however, he would define this term and what it included) was the “cause” of the pain he experienced when his wife died.

If the marriage had not been a source of pleasure, the ending, or loss, of that relationship would not have been that painful.

So, one important question he had to address (directly or indirectly) at some point was…

Do the benefits (love, companionship, etc) he gained from the marriage outweigh the cost (pain) he experienced when his wife died?

Or, to put it another way..

If he was given the choice to go back in time and not marry his future wife, would he do it in order to avoid the pain he felt when she died?

When he was ready, he acknowledged that the upside (benefits) of his marriage far outweighed the relatively minimal downside (his pain) and he wouldn’t change anything.

 Note: Some people do choose not to get involved in a serious relationship in order to avoid having to experience this pain. While it has consequences, this is a valid choice.

II. His ability to relive, revisit and relish the memories of his wife and the 40 years he considers himself both blessed and very fortunate to have been able to spend with her could not happen until he experienced and worked through his pain.

This is an often overlooked component of the pain of grief and, by the way, is an argument for listening to, validating, and mastering grief.

Denying the pain of one’s grief does not eliminate the pain.  It may mute the degree of discomfort you experience with your guilt.

What happens it this.

Every time he tried to revisit a fond memory, he would get a jolt of pain.  Our friend would cry uncontrollably when these memories came up.

And, they seemed to come up almost spontaneously and unconnected to anything that was going on with him in the moment.

Mastering grief as a strategic emotion…

The message of grief is that you have experienced a significant loss.  Grief prepares you to withdraw and begin healing.

You master your grief when you take all the time you need to validate the emotion and all the experiences that accompany the emotion.  You withdraw as much as you can from your regular activities so you can experience the pain.  You avoid judging yourself and your actions (like crying, feeling weak and vulnerable, etc) and treat yourself with the same compassion as you would a close friend going through his (or her) grief.

The process..

As I explained to our friend, when you allow yourself to experience both the pain and the memories, you validate the loss, the emotion, and your willingness to grow through it.

What happens, over time, is that the pain subsides and you are able to enjoy your memories.  The pain may be experienced as sadness at the loss but the happiness which accompanies the memories far outweighs the sadness.

In addition, over time, the emptiness gives way to an acknowledgement that the relationship was deep, satisfying and real and that the memories which retrieve that relationship can never be lost.  The person may be gone, the experiences are not.

As you master your grief and grow though it, you will find that you are increasingly ready to reengage with the world and maybe even consider new relationships.

I recall a story told to me by a deeply religious friend.

His wife contracted cancer.  She didn’t want to do radiation or chemo so he and his wife changed their diets and lifestyle together until the cancer eventually took her.

He grieved for his wife for several years and didn’t date.

One night he had a dream in which his wife appeared to him and told him that she was safe with God and it was time for him to move on and begin dating.

He took her advice, started dating and eventually remarried.

Now, whether you believe that his wife actually spoke to him in his dreams or his dreams reflected his own growth and he was “talking” to himself is not critical.  The focus of the dream was that he had reached a point in his growth where he was able to both enjoy fond memories of his deceased wife and begin to form new ones with his new wife.

He never forgot his first wife and is currently happily married.

Our friend followed a similar course of action and returned to a very fulfilling life.

This is mastering one’s grief.

 

 

A New Podcast-Different Topics

These are links to my recent podcast on PositiveTalkRadio. In this interview, I discuss topics which were not addressed in the podcast I noted in my last post.

I’ve included these podcasts because some of you may prefer to get your information in a video or audio format rather than reading it.  If this is your preference, click on the Contact Me button above and leave me a message.

Audio only...

https://www.positivetalkradio.net/ed-daube-the-emotion-doctor/

Video…

https://www.positivetalkradio.net/videos/ptr-ed-daube-phd-the-emotions-doctor/

Here are some specific issues which might interest you:

11:47 The problem with asking “why” questions and how “what” may be better.                                                                                                                                          19:10 The value of apologizing                                                                                          20:28 Personal responsibility and the challenge of believing that emotions control us.                                                                                                                                                 23:42 Jealousy
24:34 Hate
28:23 Fear and anxiety
32:10 Emotions gone astray and two issues… immigrants and the lady who called police on a black man walking his dog
37:34 Healthy disagreements with a spouse.

This is a link to a recent podcast I did on emotions with time stamps.

In this podcast, we discuss how I became interested in the topic of emotions, what emotions are and other informative issues.

Here is a summary (First number is minutes into the interview. Second number is seconds both of which are approximate):

3:47. Where did my passion for emotions come from.

6:08 How to understand the emotions cycle.

8:46 Understanding men, women and emotions.  Men default to anger, women default to sadness.

14:26 Basic Relationship Rule

17:12. Emotions inform and motivate.  The next step is mastery.

20:24 Develop new emotional habits.

24:38 My best success stories

28:23 Working with incarcerated young women

30:02 Anxiety

35:00 Sadness and IWBNI’s

31:00 Happiness

41:56. Primary and Secondary emotional progressions

52:25. Explore the blog

52:43. What would I tell a younger me?

54:47. Final Words.

Enjoy.

Jimbo Paris Podcast

Mastering and Strategically Deploying the Emotion of Frustration

Note: You can learn about all the emotions you experience by hitting the Index button above and clicking on any post that addresses your issues.

As I am writing this, we are entering the 2021 Holiday season.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and experienced a lot of gratitude.

The material for this post came to me as I was watching the news.

While certainly happy about getting together with families, people are facing  crowded stores, supply-chain  issues, differences in approaches to vaccinations, and other issues.

Taken together, I wondered what emotions people might be experiencing this holiday season.

Here is what I came up with.

Let’s explore a possible scenario…

You are trying working on a project or pursuing a specific goal and your progress slows down or stops.  

Your “project” could involve:

  • Trying to buy Holiday gifts
  • Trying to book seats on a plane to visit relatives
  • Trying to organize an “event” such as a wedding and keep everybody safe while balancing different viewpoints toward vacinations (a real example, by the way)

You are facing an…

OBSTACLE.

What emotions do you think (or know) you might be experiencing?

While frustration is an obvious emotion in the above scenario, and I will address this emotion in detail below, you could experience several different emotions depending on your interpretation of the obstacle and its impact on you  including:

  • anger (if you perceived the obstacle as a threat of some kind),
  • sadness (if you perceived the obstacle as signaling a need to end the project),
  • anxiety (if you perceived a possible future loss because of the obstacle),
  • guilt (if you perceive yourself as having done something wrong)
  • amusement (You just knew this would happen!)

In the Emotions as Tools Model, each emotion informs you about how you are perceiving what is happening in your situation.

This is the message of the emotion.

The emotional mastery cycle (EMC) enables you to both understand the emotion and choose how you want to strategically deploy that emotion to your benefit.

Some basic definitions:

  • Strategically Deploying an emotion

Strategically Deploying an emotion involves adaptively applying the energy of the emotion to the situation in which you find yourself so that what you do (your behavior)  improves, resolves, responds to, or, at the very least, does not exacerbate, that situation.

  • Emotional Mastery Cycle (EMC)

The EMC describes the process by which we experience, recognize, label, analyze and utilize our emotions as tools to improve our lives and our relationships.  You can download a PDF of the Anger Mastery Cycle  by clicking on the link provided.

The EMC can be summarized in 5 steps:

  1. Experience the emotion (physical and automatic)
  2. Take a deep breath and “step back” from the situation (create “safety”)
  3. Acknowledge the emotion and its message (cognitive)
  4. Question the validity of the emotion  (begin mastery)
  5. Choose and initiate a response (strategically deploy the emotion)

Frustration

The message of frustration is that your project has stopped and you are annoyed because an obstacle is impeding your progress on your project.

While many articles recommend a passive approach to frustration including distraction, relaxation, exercising, or doing yoga, the Emotions as Tools approach advocates actively validating the emotion and dealing with it strategically. The passive approach, while not always inappropriate, won’t work here because it ignores the feeling and moves away from the goal.

Once you have experienced and acknowledged your frustration, you are now in a position to use the energy of your frustration as motivation to question (and master) the emotion.

Two important questions you need to ask (and answer):

  1. What is the nature of the obstacle?
  2. If there is an obstacle, what can I do to eliminate or overcome that obstacle?

Strategically Deploying Frustration:

Question #1 serves to validate whether an actual obstacle to your forward progress actually exists.

Two major possibilities exist here.

  • There is an actual obstacle and you have identified it.
  • There is no actual obstacle and you have in some way misinterpreted what is going on.

The answer to question #2 is the basis for a plan of action which emanates from your frustration.  Your plan of action determines what you do with (or how you deploy) your frustration.

(Note: This is the essence of emotional mastery.)

Turn your Frustration into Determination

When you decide that you can (and will) overcome the obstacle,  the obstacle becomes a challenge and your frustration morphs into determination.

The debilitating emotion of frustration becomes the enabling emotion of determination and you begin to move forward.

You master the emotion when you….

  • recognize and validate it,
  • understand the information it provides about how you are perceiving your situation
  • choose how you want to respond to, adaptively deal with, and strategically apply the energy of the emotion to effectively change the situation which elicited your frustration in the first place.

Happy Holidays.