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April 21 - June 3, 2019
“If you think about it,” I said, all-knowingly, “you will realize that I don’t make you feel. People make themselves feel
We make ourselves feel by the way we talk to ourselves, inside our own heads – with our self-talk. We have to change the way we think, our
So, if we imagine we are being treated intolerably, using some perspective of the past to predict the future, we will think in those terms and our bodies will respond chemically to our thoughts and perceptions, sending stress hormones throughout our body to help us fight what we believe to be intolerable, unbearable or insufferable.
Emotional intelligence theory (EQ), joined with rational emotive behavior theory (REBT), proposes that emotion is both the philosophical and biological language of the mind. A language learned through exposure and repeated experience, repetitive self-talk – shaped by thought and expressed through behavior.
“If we tell ourselves we cannot be content until we reconcile and understand our past, how likely is it that you will ever be content?” “Probably never, using that kind of logic.” “Can you tell yourself that you can be content, in spite of your past and the unfortunate things you experienced? Can you accept your past?”
Our beliefs are habitually confused with facts. If we are convinced our beliefs are facts, we will behave as if they were.
it is not the events we experience that make us feel. It is our view of the events.
Social rules were once the things that ensured that humans would pass on the most useful traditions for cooperation, collaboration, and copulation as members of a unique society. It has been many, many centuries since these rules were so explicitly necessary that to defy them would threaten the survival of humankind. We still tell ourselves such things as: I should be treated with respect. If I am not, it is awful and I couldn’t stand it. I must force that person to show me respect, or I will be ridiculed and lose my place within the social structure. I need affection. If I don’t get it, it is
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I prefer to be treated with respect. If I am not, I can still live contentedly. I don’t need anyone’s cooperation to live contentedly. I enjoy affection. If I don’t get it, I can still be a valued human being. I don’t need anyone’s cooperation to live contentedly. I appreciate not being criticized. If I am, I can stand it. I don’t need anyone’s cooperation to live contentedly. I like to succeed when I try my best; but it isn’t a condition of my contentment. I don’t need anyone’s cooperation to live contentedly. I would rather be valued by others, but I can live contentedly when I’m not. I
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Many of our beliefs are warnings, personal messages, morals, and ideas conveyed to us by someone we respected or something we experienced that proved important to us. “Don’t let anyone roll over you!” “Don’t let anyone step all over you.” “Don’t take anything from anyone.” “You are perfect. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
People can be counted on to hold on to and defend their beliefs until they have some other belief, something better with which to replace it. We cannot simply point out the errors in our thinking and expect to surrender them without a fight. We must first accept that our belief is harmful and then we must be willing to replace it with a new belief.
It has been suggested that less demanding, more flexible beliefs can help improve emotional intelligence.
Exchanging one belief for another seemingly exposes an individual to vulnerability. Even the slightest threat to one’s physical and psychological safety can be perceived as a threat to the individual’s very existence. So, to give up a belief, we will have to have a new belief, one we can trust and count on for safety, to replace the one we are forfeiting.
REBT’s ABCs can be used to better identify thoughts and emotions, while providing a logical method for taking action against self-destructive and maladaptive thinking.
The ABCs come from Albert Ellis’ Rational Emotive Behaviour theory (REBT) and rely on the idea that human beings derive emotion from the way we think about a particular situation, circumstance or person.
emotional
Before proceeding, write out your own activating event (A) and the beliefs (iB) you have about the issues you are now or have experienced in your life, just for practice.
The C in this paradigm represents the emotional consequence (the emotion we have as a result of experiencing the A and iB). The emotional consequence (C) may be described as sadness, anger, anxiety, depression, disgust, angst and worry.
depressed.
People do not become upset because something happens. People make themselves upset because they tell themselves something about what happened: A
in the ABC paradigm represents the essential process of disputing or asking for the evidence we use to support our irrational, self-defeating beliefs (iB).
Disputing (D) our irrational beliefs (iB) is a learned technique that, like using the ABCs, is an acquired skill that takes practice. Disputation (D) provides an opportunity to make new judgments about unfamiliar and familiar dilemmas. By challenging our customary self–talk, our roles and scripts, we can actually see how we create our own emotions (C) and, by disputing (D) the thoughts that lead to the emotional consequence (C), impede the generation of unhealthy, unproductive emotion. Disputing (D) requires us to challenge our firmly–held beliefs. We might ask ourselves to provide evidence, a
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The D helps us challenge the veracity of our beliefs and to hold them to a rational (truthful) standard.
The E in the ABC paradigm is simply the end result of using the ABCs to manage emotion. The E represents what is possible when we learn to think about our thinking. We can change our thoughts, and by doing so, evolve our emotions to something that will result in a more manageable emotional state. If we were successful at disputing (D) our irrational thoughts (iB), we will likely be capable of exchanging our emotional response (C) for something less burdensome and more life-improving (E). The E represents the totality of that effort!
“If I tell myself things must be a certain way in order for me to be content in my life when they’re not, I will make myself depressed, anxious, fearful and angry. If I tell myself I would like things to be a certain way if I would prefer them or hope for that outcome, and it doesn’t happen, I can be sad or something like that, nothing near as bad as angry and anxious.”
Pay close attention to how you use the words should, ought, must, have to, and need in your daily life. These words are demanding of a perfect and ideal standard, one even you cannot meet all the time.
Deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, releasing an array of anti-stress enzymes and hormones such as acetylcholine, prolactin, vasopressin, and oxytocin. Deep breathing notifies the heart, lungs, upper digestive tract and other organs of the chest and abdomen that we are safe and not under attack.
The man’s emotions were a product of his thinking and imagination. There was nothing factual or true about what he was telling himself to make himself angry. The minute he changed his thoughts, however, he also changed his emotional reaction to the very same event. He had no buttons, of course; and he could have begun his thinking from a framework of patience and forgiveness.
If the condition for our contentedness is based on how others behave, we are likely to be discontented quite often.
To begin to improve our emotional intelligence, we will have to own our emotions, know that they come from us and our own thinking, rather than placing their origin on others.
Recognizing and accepting that people have a perfect, inalienable right to choose to act foolishly and irresponsibly will go a long way to improving emotional intelligence.
Sometimes when you are feeling anger, you are also feeling fear. What are you afraid of?
I would suggest that you, first, begin to realize that you are neither good nor bad. You are a number of things, unequal in value and significance. You are too many things to be called by just one name. You can begin to view the things people say to you, both good and not so good, as suggestions. No more than suggestions. Elliot: So, if someone tells me I am a no good, stinking rotten person. That is a suggestion? Therapist: Of course. And it is a suggestion we can either accept or reject. Simply because someone believes this about us is not proof enough that it’s true.
Well, how do I get rid of my anger? Therapist: You can change your thoughts. Elliot: Like thinking what he’s saying is insane? Therapist: How would you respond to an insane person who said these things to you? Elliot: I get it. Therapist: Good, but how would you respond? What would you tell yourself? Elliot: I would tell myself that he doesn’t know how to behave. He is hallucinating about something. He is saying things that are crazy and he can’t help it. Therapist: What emotion would you feel then? Elliot: I guess I would feel sad. Maybe I would think it was funny.
Elliot: I can still be content in my life, even if people are acting crazy and saying crazy things. I don’t have to fight anyone or yell back at them. I can think, ‘Boy, this person is really making a lot of poor choices. They are saying all sorts of crazy shit and behaving strangely. I think I should just move away from them.’
In China, few people if any line-up and take turns, as we do in Western cultures. Most Chinese choose, instead, to push and shove their way to the front, showing very little if any Western-style courtesy or emotional constraint. Ticket booths and train stations that cater to tourists have begun constructing metal fences, similar to stockyard panels, to force people to line up in front of the money–taker /ticket–seller; but, short of these accommodations, there are few native Chinese willing to stand in line, and it is not considered rude in China not to do so.
I discovered what I had witnessed was a Filipino greeting called Mano Po, mano meaning hand; po is placed at the end of a sentence when addressing elders. I learned that Filipino children and young people greet or say goodbye to their elders by taking the right hand of the elder with their own right hand and touching the back the elder’s hand lightly on their forehead. Mano Po is a Filipino custom for showing respect to elders and receiving their blessing. This gesture of deference is not, as I had supposed, reserved for the wealthy, the famous or the politically connected. Mano Po is
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Emotional intelligence refers to our individual capacity to perceive, control, evaluate and monitor our own feelings and emotions and those of others.
The term locus of control was first introduced in the 1950s by psychologist Julian Rotter. The concept is usually divided into two categories: Internal and External. If a person has an internal locus of control, that person attributes success to h/er own efforts and abilities and is more likely to learn from the experience. Conversely, a person who attributes h/er success to luck or fate and, therefore, likely expend more effort than necessary, is believed to have an external locus of control. People with an external locus of control are believed to be more prone to experience anxiety since
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Emotionally intelligent people do not seek to demonstrate their goodness by displaying their talents and skills, hoping for applause and approval. Emotionally intelligent people seek to build self–acceptance in place of approval from others.
comparison leads to competition and anxiety.
We’ve discussed the idea that we have a tendency to externalize (external locus of control) the source of our emotions and expect emotional and behavioral change from others, rarely from ourselves. We have a tendency, as well, to make negative and critical whole person evaluations of others who do not cooperate with our expectations of them.
We might begin that journey committed to the aspiration goal to do it better than our parents did. Not too soon after birth, however, that goal becomes more and more difficult than we had imagined. After all, our parents are our primary parenting models. So, eventually, we begin to behave precisely as they did – but with a broader appreciation for the responsibility of child-rearing.
Anxiety is frequently generated from focusing on the negative aspects of an experience and forming negative expectations of similar, future experiences.
Self–talk, as we discussed in previous chapters, can create an expectancy of some preconceived outcome; what may be called anticipatory anxiety.
We’ve built our current level of emotional intelligence through a series of personal observations, trials and errors, punishments and rewards.
Paul Eckman suggests that the human face is capable of articulating more than 7,000 unique and distinctive expressions. Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions identifies only eight basic feelings: joy, sadness, trust, disgust, fear, anger, surprise and anticipation. I would propose, by contrast, that there are only two dominant human emotional potentials, Fear and Not Fear, and that these two emotional potentials are the basis for building our emotional range.
Likewise, if we believe we are being treated disrespectfully, contemptuously or dismissively, we will initiate a similar perception, a belief that we are being threatened. Only in this case, the warning signals are entirely imaginary.
Danger does not have to be real, immediate or pending. It can manifest in response to thoughts from the past, the present or in anticipation of some future event.
As previously mentioned, if we are criticized, ridiculed, mocked or scorned, we initiate a fear response.
