The Balanced Life, Huntsville Alabama

“Every day in every way, I am getting better and better!” (Emile Coué)

 Isn’t this what so many of us want this January? This new year? In this brand new decade?

 We want to be better parents, better friends and coworkers, better cooks and TikTok dancers and lovers and students of oh-so-many things! Despite our best intentions, however, our brains can be hijacked by our emotions. More specifically, by the amygdala, which acts as a security guard the rest of the brain (cortex and the hippocampus) and completely locks things down when a potential threat to our well-being is detected… even if that ‘threat’ is just a hurtful email from a friend or a nasty look from one of our kids when they don’t get their way.

Daniel Goleman talks about this in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ and he also talks about the why and how to increase our own emotional intelligence (EI). Now, there are many books on the subject of EI and a lot of them address the physiology behind various emotions, what emotions do for us, how to identify them and how to manage them.

When we get emotional, it’s typically because we’re experiencing more than one intense emotion at a time and we’re having difficulty sorting them out and processing them. Literally, inside the body, we’re being inundated with various ‘chemical cocktails’ that are released into the blood stream by the hypothalamus (your body’s inner drug store). For example, various neurotransmitters and hormones (catecholamines, adrenaline, noradrenaline) are released which provide a burst of energy and increase heart rate and blood pressure and muscle tension, etc.

What’s crazy is that we can get addicted to our own emotions! (Seriously! Google it or do a search on YouTube!)

These physiological symptoms create what we refer to as urges (urges to run or cry or fight) and will last approximately fifteen minutes as long as you don’t think, say, or do anything to feed that emotion. The physical side effects for anger linger a bit longer- on average for about three hours! So, while we can manage the urges by urge surfing after the emotion hits full force, we can also learn to identify the beginning stirrings of an emotion and head it off at the pass!

Did you know that there are essentially TEN primary, universal emotions? Fear, Anger, Disgust, Happy, Sad, Envy, Jealousy, Guilt, Shame, and Love.

Envy and Jealousy are often confused as we typically will use the term jealousy for both. Jealousy, however, indicates that I have something and I’m afraid that someone or something will take it away from me. Envy indicates that someone else has something that I want and don’t have.

Shame and guilt are also often confused as we typically use the term guilt for both. Guilt, however, means that we feel bad about something we did or didn’t do or said or didn’t say. Shame is when we feel bad about ourselves.

Knowing their names and being able to identify them when you’re having them is critical to being able to manage them so that you can keep your wits about you/i.e. keep your head in emotionally provoking situations! In fact, learning to name them is a strategy we can learn and teach others called “Name It to Tame It!” and it’s only one of the strategies to help increase EI that Dan Siegel talks about in his book The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind.”

You can practice this week! Start by noticing when you feel like you might be experiencing jealousy or guilt… and check to see if it might be envy or shame instead! Name and TAME those emotions so that you can keep your thinking brain intact so that you can accomplish the goals you’ve set for yourself this week and this year!! Contact us at The Balanced Life to reach your goals in 2020! Email us at info@thebalancedlifellc.com or call 256-258-7777.