Keep Your Emotions in
Perspective
By Jeffrey M. Bowen
Do emotions control our decisions? At times they can. My first reaction to many situations is how I
feel about it. I think this is only human. Remember Spock from Star Trek? His stone-faced lack of emotion originated
from another planet. This came in handy
in emergencies, but it drove the volatile human Dr. McCoy (Bones) to
distraction.
Bones had a
point. Real-world life without emotion is
impossible. Neuroscientists and other experts
agree that perceptions, reactions, and motivation are shaped by our emotional
presets. When exposed to certain
situations repetitively, we experience emotions that become habitual
predispositions. Often these become a
lifelong feature of our identity.
To illustrate, in high school I was fortunate to compete in
many speech contests. Having an audience
and getting positive reinforcement produced an memorable emotional high. Accordingly, I chose a career that depended
on public speaking. Standing before a
group, I always felt an adrenaline rush, but never fear.
On the other hand, years ago, a long period of river
flooding caused a massive bridge on the state thruway to collapse without
warning, drowning several families. I
get a creepy feeling every time we cross that bridge. Similar mishaps, dramatized by media photos
of cars teetering on the edge, stoke my fears of unrepaired bridges.
When emotions galvanize action and are purposeful, they can
be quite productive. Anger, for
instance, can prompt us to join a political campaign, while love may nurture
caring and forgiveness. The problem is that fears driven by negative
experiences leave lasting emotional scars.
My wife’s anxiety
about moving is linked back to the seven disruptive times her family had to
move when she was a child. My own fear
of boating in the fog derives from my dad’s terrifying nautical habits. As for high school algebra, I won’t even go
there. Although reason and logic may
temporarily overrule such fears, our emotions embed themselves in our views of
the world. Bad judgment and bias, mental
or physical illness can result.
Why is this apt to happen? In his current best seller, “Factfulness”, Dr.
Hans Rosling stunningly documents how instant news coverage sets off alarm
bells. Journalists and activists
typically focus on bad news. Even
though reported violent crimes in the U.S. have declined by about six
million since 1990, the media mission to report worst case scenarios makes us
feel just the opposite.
We don’t stop to
think that natural disasters, plane crashes, murders, nuclear leaks, and
terrorism explain only a tiny proportion of deaths annually, compared to causes
dominated by diseases, infections, and strokes. Yes,
the big causes are serious, but we confuse imminent danger with fear. Despite minimal odds of exposure, we stress
more about spider, snake, and shark bites than most anything else.
The paradox of all this emotional upheaval is the plentiful
factual information available to counteract our sense of crisis. Dr. Rosling marvels that our data-based
knowledge of world trends is worse than random guesses by chimpanzees. Of course bad things happen out there, but in
recent years virtually every indicator of our social, economic, physical and
psychological health has dramatically improved.
Our depressing
insistence that the “world is going to hell in a hand basket” stems from the
fact that we persist in remaining ignorant, misremember the past, or cling to outdated
knowledge in a world that is changing much
faster than we realize. I live in the
present, but my data biases are locked in the 1950s and 60s.
Emotional control responds to strategies of mindfulness. Here are a few suggestions that might help:
Ø Avoid
the “chicken little” trap. Remind
yourself in any stressful situation, it is unlikely that the sky is really
falling.
Ø Step
back and don’t rush to resolve emotional situations. Give them time to resolve themselves.
Ø Blame
bad situations on a gremlin, especially small emotional hassles. Gremlins are always hovering about. Displace blame in ways that don’t do harm to
others.
Ø Don’t
fight your emotions. Identify them, and
apply reason of course, but denying the emotions just makes those worse.
Ø Remember
that your emotions are influenced by your past and often misremembered
experiences. These tend to become your
vulnerabilities. Accept this, and
remain alert to it. Your emotions are you.
Ø Practice
reading other people’s emotions as it will attune you to your own.
Ø Go
to your happy place, get a good night’s sleep, put food on your stomach
(especially ice cream), and remember intently those people who made you feel
good, and just when that was.
Accept emotions as a big feature of life. When we realize that our feelings are more about
us than anyone else, we can change them. On balance, we live in a world that is improving
all the time. Let’s feel good about it.
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