A Proactive Alternative to "Managing" Emotions

Emotionally driven responses in our childhood were not only understandable, but sometimes required for us to effectively cope as children with reality. And as part of this process we attached perceptions and associated meanings to our reality, a psychological necessity for us at the time. As adults, however, though our reality has changed, our formative memories have not, nor likely has the meaning (hashtag if you please) we attached to them. So when we find ourselves in scenarios that resemble those of our childhood (or perhaps mirror traumatic adult experiences), we tend to unconsciously attach the same meaning, thus viewing reality through a very limited and distorted lens. This can prompt us to react as we did when young or traumatized, with emotionally driven decisions and behaviors, neglecting the rational and moral reasoning capabilities we now have at our disposal. These capabilities can be hijacked by the inner child that is alive and well in our unconscious limbic system, especially if we enable it.

For me personally, the conflict-avoidance tendencies learned in my youth caused me to avoid a new executive I reported to, with unpleasant implications that took over a year to play out. There were several similarities between this situation and my childhood that I should have recognized (e.g., controlling authority figure), but did not until after the fact. As is typical when our inner emotional child starts making decisions in an adult reality, I made some irrational decisions, violated the Golden Rule with my behavior, and paid the price with an unnecessarily stressful year. I cover this scenario in much more detail in my new book, The Power of Moral Leadership.

In every scenario where our rational and moral dimensions are hijacked by emotions, violations of integrity and the Golden Rule are sure to follow. Thus, in addition to all the relationship and career consequences, we add the guilt and stress of violating our moral compass to the mix.

To avoid this toxic mix and its painful consequences:

• Don’t suppress or ignore your inner child, or it will act up and act out as immature children are inclined to do.
• Work to understand your inner child so you can teach it, but don’t reinforce or enable it. Beware popular advice that all emotions are OK, equal, to be accepted, etc. as this just reinforces to your inner child that it is acceptable for it to remain in its immature comfort zone.
• Instead, help your inner child to grow up by identifying scenarios and the related emotions that tend to hijack your rational and moral capabilities. Work to discover their root causes by asking “why?” repeatedly until you can connect the root cause with a scenario in your past most likely to trigger that emotion. Then write a letter, make a phone call, visit a grave and talk to the deceased, or do whatever your heart tells you is required to forgive or be forgiven, let go and move on from your hijacking inner child.
• Once you've discovered the root causes of unproductive emotional responses, and mastered them, turning your pain into purpose is a powerful mechanism for healing both yourself and serving others.
• Recognize similar scenarios in the future (in my case conflict with a strong authority figure), and slow down your responses by asking yourself a Golden Rule question (e.g., what is best long term for everyone affected?) before reacting. This activates your moral compass so it can intervene and lead your thoughts and behavior as intended. Your inner child will quickly learn to be subordinate, as it’s likely already felt enough pain and will welcome some mature adult intervention.

It only takes a second for your brain to fully calculate the long-term consequences in any scenario and give the right moral answer, and the whole process quickly becomes unconscious and natural with a little practice. It works even if we don’t believe it will, because of the universal values within each of us, but we have to have the discipline to do it until it becomes second nature.

Finally, we can capture the natural power of neuroplasticity to help our minds and hearts to heal. We can unravel and rewire old toxic synaptic patterns by focusing more on meaningful service to others, because each act of service creates new healthy synaptic connections and positive emotions that motivate us to be more present and future focused and less captive to our past. What we do in the present has great power to heal our past, often more than revisiting our past too deeply in the effort to make sense of it...for there is often little sense to be found. Obviously, there are exceptions in cases of severe or complex trauma, but even in those scenarios more proactive and future-oriented forms of psychotherapy are proving remarkably effective at discovering and removing the root causes of such trauma.

As credible research progresses, the more we learn that we can be the masters of our emotions and not the victims of some mysterious primal processes controlled by our amygdala. It was upon the research of Professor Joseph LeDoux, one of the most prominent figures in neuroscience, that Daniel Goleman coined the now popular term “amygdala hijack,” referring to how quickly and powerfully our primal emotions can override our rational mind. Yet LeDoux’s more recent research found that emotions rely on “higher-order” brain states within our cortical (conscious) brain, rather than being controlled by subcortical (nonconscious) brain circuits within our amygdala, with further research confirming his findings.

Some of us are not surprised by research showing that our brains are more complex and integrated than previously thought, nor by findings that our conscious processes have more influence over our unconscious processes and emotions than previously recognized. All this is good news, of course, to anyone hoping to proactively create the emotional health and resilience required to have healthy relationships and lead others effectively.

Because the more we need to reactively manage our emotions, the higher the costs of lost time and missed opportunities as we attempt to control and repair the damage, spending a lot of psychic energy that could have been used far more productively.

Elevate your relationships and leadership with the simplicity beyond complexity that proactively creates healthy emotions and emotional intelligence. The path is outlined in my new book, now at Amazon, et al. and reviewed as "one of the most significant leadership books ever written and a work of art that you never stop learning from" by Harry Flaris , and recommended "to anyone who is looking for a path forward from the cliff of fear and forest of confusion in business and personal situations” by Rebecca Chou , both of whom are exceptional executive leaders.