Emotional Competence
Emotional Competence is a learnable competence. My domestic violence mentor, Tony Kubicki, long ago taught me that awareness gives me choice, and that awareness is the key component to emotional competence.
Personally, I like emotions, all of them. Anxiety, fear, sadness, melancholy, nostalgia, joy, excitement, contentment, desire, and all the other subtle nuances of the root emotions of mad, sad, glad, fear, and I add in shame, are what give life its ‘juice’ as far as I am concerned and I want to feel them all, and I have come to understand there are some very important components to managing the intensity of those feelings.
Remember, awareness gives me choice over intensity.
If you are a student of Czikszentmihalyi’s work on FLOW, then you will remember that he says our Central Nervous System processes sensory input; sound waves, photons for vision, pressure for touch, smell, taste, at the rate of seven bits of data every 1/18th second, which is about twice as fast as you can blink your eyes.
Pretty quick.
And then you will be creating thoughts or words which interpret those sensations darn near as fast, and those thoughts will be what brings your feelings, and those feelings will be linked to hormonal and neurotransmitter changes in your brain and body, so you might go from joy at level 10 intensity to anger at a level 10 intensity (10 point scale) which is a 20 point switch from one pole of emotion to another in 1/18th second based on changing thoughts. Not much time to manage your emotions, right?
The good news is that you have done this hundreds of thousands of times, the bad news is that when you do not switch thoughts or ‘break the chain” of negative thoughts, your behaviors will be pushed by intense feelings which are demanding an expression.
If you are a guy, and find yourself experiencing this kind of intensity, give yourself 20 minutes minimum to clear the neurotransmitters and stress hormones from your body.
So emotional competence demands an awareness of your inner experience so that you can change thoughts or breathing patterns, even brain wave patterns, or heart rate variability, for example, and change the intensity of your emotions.
That is emotional intelligence to me.
I liken it to how you drive your car. As you drive, you are constantly adjusting the position of the vehicle on the road, its speed, etc. with minor adjustments according to constantly changing traffic variables.
Those minor adjustments are what keep you safe on almost all your automotive adventures, whether its from the inconsiderate road hog, or the trucker needing to make a wide right turn, and that mindful attention is what keeps you prepared to respond to a sudden emergency.
I want to drive my body the same way, with mindful awareness, so that I can make quick decisions about emotions and their intensity and the thoughts I might have about those inner experiences. Paul Ekman and Facial Expressions I have been fascinated by non-verbal communication since I was a kid, and was truly delighted to come across the work of Paul Ekman, who has been studying facial expressions and attempting to catalog or categorize them for a long time.
Some of his work has been across cultures, and he has discovered that humans respond very strongly to some expressions across cultures. In other words, if a person from another culture looks at me with an expression of contempt, I will respond emotionally just as fast as if my own kids had looked at me with “that look.”
So another factor for us to be aware of is facial expressions and our response to them. Ekman says that facial expressions can play across our face in 1/25th second, so fast that I do not register it like I normally would register an expression.
For me, it is just another reason to pay close attention to my insides, my emotions will tell me something about what another individual is experiencing, and I will get a chance to dispute any thought I have of my being the cause of that individuals feelings.
My favorite tool for regulating my inner experience is heart rate variability biofeedback, which is an easily learned method for controlling the time between my heart beats. I like it because it feels good, and once I have learned it, in 5-10 practices using a program on my PC or the hand held version, I can cue the pleasant feeling on demand. I can even begin to change my inner thermostat so that I am cooler all the time.
Heart rate variability biofeedback is based on research about the heart’s own nervous system, and the ability of that brain in the heart to learn and make decisions independently of my cranial brain.
It turns out that the heart plays a key role in emotional regulation, mostly in the affiliative and cooperative range. So if I am operating from my heart intelligence, I am typically cooperative and affiliative, offering choice in conversation, playful, and able to make quick changes in my inner experience, even if the other person is sending me messages about anger and aggression. I call that mindfulness.
Other very important tools for me in my emotional competence tool box are deep breathing, frequent internal expressions of gratitude, because I could be in some other persons shoes, physical exercise, decent nutrition, lots of affirmational thoughts, and study.
Technology is making new information about the human experience available almost by the second it seems, and I want to keep up with it.
Besides heart rate variability coherence, which was unknown not too many years ago,brand new information is available about something called brain fitness, and there are some great tools available for us to use which makes our brains more plastic, which means they can rewire in minutes, based on what we are paying attention to. Brain fitness tools then make the brain flexible, especially when that brain is nourished well, meaning get all the omega 3 fatty acid you need, among other things. (Makes your neurons supple and soft, very good).
Brain fitness means encouraging the growth of neurogenesis also, which is the growth of new brain cells, which migrate to the hippocampus where memories are stored.
A healthy brain will be a valuable ally in the inner attention work involved in emotional competence.
Emotional Scale
It is useful to understand the order in which a person will experience emotions from negative to positive in relationships. By doing this, people can practive each of these emotions from lowest to highest so as to get a feel for how they progress one into the other. Below is the scale:
Death
Dying
Apathy — Giving Up
Making Amends — Complete turning over of your will to another
Grief
Propitiation — “I’ll do anything to make it up to you!”
Sympathy — “”There, there, poor dear, it’s all right.”"
Fear
Hidden Hostility — He’s smiling in your face and stabbing you in the back. Two-faced, dishonest, says one thing and then does another.
No Sympathy — “You made your own bed, now go sleep in it.” “Tough Love”
Anger — Out of control; lashing out at the world
Pain
Positive emotion Antagonism is the border between negative emotion and positive emotion
Antagonism – “Hey! Come over here and I’ll kick your butt!”
Boredom — Yawn!
Conservatism or Contentment — “Things are fine just the way they are”
Interest — “I like that.
Let me see!”
Enthusiasm — “Wow! Let’s do that again!!”
Exhilaration — “I feel fantastic!!!”
Serenity / bliss – Complete connection with the God self and a feeling of oneness with all life
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This scale is a measure of increasing (or decreasing) life force energy, intellectual capability, and happiness.
How to Use the Emotional/Vibrational Tone Scale
As an example lets take Barb and Jill, who had planned to go out for lunch. Barb is apathetic about her life, and calls Jill up to cancel their appointment. Shes moping around at home and Jill says”Ill be right over.” Lets say that Jill has a good knowledge of the emotional/vibrational scale.
Barb and Jill
“Whats wrong Barb?” says Jill.
“Oh, I just dont care anymore,” Barb says apathetically.
Jill is just about to fire off an angry comment about Thorpe, her former boyfriend (that big jerk) but she realizes that a very large vibrational gap exists between apathy and anger. Apathy is very low on the scale of emotions and Jill doesnt want to overwhelm her friend, so she says gently,”Its Thorpe isnt it?”
Suddenly Barb bursts into tears, an activity that used to really piss Thorpe off.”Damn women,” hed think,”what the hell is wrong with her now?” But Jill knows that grief is the next harmonic of vibration on the scale of emotions, so to her Barbs reaction is perfectly logical. Barb is wailing on about Thorpe and how lonely and rejected she feels. Jill is a good counselor, and even though she thinks to herself,”Youre a whole lot better off without that loser honey,” she says nothing and lets Barb vent a little. She knows that although being around grief is uncomfortable, matching Barbs vibration would result in failure, for two vibrations of grief would just reinforce the other, sticking both women right in it. Jill knows that only by maintaining a high vibration can she be of any use to Barb at all.
After several minutes Barb is cried out and looks up at her friend. Jill recognizes that Barb is poised at an emotional brink; and that a word or gesture from her can send her friend up the scale or back downward. She also knows that people can hit an emotion and pass by it very quickly on the way up or down, so shes not sure exactly where Barb is going next, but she knows its going to be some version of negative emotion, and is prepared for it.
Jill says,”You had some good times together, didnt you?” hoping to bring Barb up a little. She doesnt say,”Still feeling sad about Thorpe?” because that might stick Barb back in grief.
Barb says, sympathetically, and a little defensively, “Yeah we did! I remember the time we went to the putt-putt golf course and he put his arms around me”
Jill lets Barb go on a bit, because she recognizes the emotion of sympathy, which is a little bit up from grief.
After a time Jill suggests,”Maybe youll meet somebody else.”
A look of anxiety comes over Barbs face and she says,”Do you really think I can? All the guys Im attracted to treat me like crap.”
“Yes I think you can. Youre such a great person.”
Barb can proceed as above to bring Jill all the way up the scale. If you know which emotions follow in order,
you don’t get surprised and it’s a lot easier to help another person.
You can also use this Emotional Scale to bootstrap yourself up the emotional ladder.
If you’re in apathy and begin to cry, that’s a step UP. Mostly what happens is that a person begins to cry and says “Oh what’s the use! I still feel rotten” and gives up. Giving up is the same as apathy. So you’re right back where you started.
When you are fearful and make a step forward, you get angry. Society does not like angry people; the authorities like to put such in jail. In school angry kids are drugged to make them conform. This puts them lower on the scale, in apathy mostly. The fact is, an apathetic person is easier to control and easier to get along with.
Why is anger more positive than fear or grief? Because an angry person is more animated.
When you are in anger and take a step up, you might feel antagonistic. An angry person is spewing, he’s out of control. An antagonistic person is more directed, more under control. He’s resisting much less and feeling a little better. And he’s more rational.
Why is boredom higher than antagonism? Because there’s less resistance. Boredom is a higher harmonic of apathy and a lower harmonic of serenity, antagonism is a higher harmonic of anger, and a lower harmonic of exhilaration. Emotions are just vibrations, and they have higher and lower aspects.
Of course, the emotions on this scale will feel more comfortable to different kinds of people. For example, I used to know a guy who much preferred antagonism to boredom or conservatism. Once you get out of the deep negative emotions it’s just a matter of where you feel most comfortable.
Related Tags:
how to get out of anger in the vibrational scale, vibrational tone scale
Emotional Power
Experiments have been done on DNA to prove DNA has a direct effect on the world. They have also proven human emotion has an effect on DNA and DNA has an effect on the immune system. Therefore, it has been proven your emotions control your world.
In one experiment, DNA was taken from a volunteer and placed in the lab for testing. After the initial tests, the volunteer was taken to a different area and was tested, by provoking emotional reactions. At the same time, the DNA in the other laboratory was tested. The DNA responded to the emotions of the donor, even though there was no longer any physical contact between the two.
Similar experiments were done with donors specially trained to feel emotions intensely. The DNA responded to the emotions. It responded at exactly the same time the emotions were felt no matter what the distance. Emotions seem to use non-local energy to influence the DNA.
This means that the effect is instant no matter how far apart.
Another exciting find is that the shape of the DNA is affected by the emotion. Love, peace and serene emotions tend to have a positive effect on shape of the DNA, while anger and hatred have a negative effect.
When DNA is influenced by loving emotions, it has a positive influence on the immune system. This explains why positive people have less severe illnesses than people with a negative outlook on life do. Imagine the powerful effect of positive, loving thoughts on your immune system being able to protect you from all illnesses and disease. You can even use your positive thinking and emotions to influence the health and well-being of others.
The power is in the emotion, so the stronger the emotion, the more powerful the effect.
We have the power to change the world, starting with our own bodies, so let’s start loving ourselves and the world.
Let us get passionate with our emotional power.
Emotional Intelligence
Some executives are better at budgets, analysis, research; the logical stuff. Some, on the other hand, are better at relating to people, motivating their team, gaining an understanding of how customers might think. Of course, some people believe themselves to be good at both skill sets but if you ever think you could improve on the second then think positive because the concept of emotional intelligence might just be of help.
There has been research on emotional intelligence – often referred to as EQ to distinguish it from the more academic-related IQ – throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, but the book that popularised the idea in business circles was Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence in 1995. Increasingly it has been incorporated into training and coaching practices.
The basic message of Goleman’s work was that success is strongly influenced by personal qualities such as perseverance, self-control and the ability to get along with other people.
That doesn’t sound too controversial to the business world these days. Most of us can probably think of a mid-level executive who may be highly intelligent but whose career has stalled. Perhaps because they don’t understand organisational politics or upset too many of the wrong people or their reputation puts people off wanting to work with them? This person may well need to boost their EQ.
Fundamentally there are two main aspects to EQ:
understanding yourself (your aims, motivations,behavioural responses, etc.) and understanding others.
The business benefits to developing these skills are numerous: increased motivation, productivity, engagement, commitment, harmony within the team; and decreased workplace stress, conflict and unhelpful politics.
The two aspects are divided into five main competence headings, as follows:
PERSONAL COMPETENCES
Self-Awareness – understanding your own emotions, being able to assess yourself accurately, your level of self-confidence.
Self-Regulation – being able to control your emotional responses, being seen as trustworthy, the degree to which you are conscientious, adaptable and innovative. Self-Motivation – your drive to achieve and your commitment, initiative and optimism.
SOCIAL COMPETENCES
Social Awareness – your degree of empathy, the ability to understand customer needs, developing others, the ability to use diversity positively, political awareness. Social Skills – your communication and influencing skills, leadership, change and conflict management, networking and ability to effectively lead a team.
Certainly, put like this, these are all essential skills for the executive in today’s corporate environment. However, there is an argument that for most of us, these skills (or lack of) are set at an early age, usually in childhood. This then begs the question: can these skills be developed and improved or are we stuck with what we have?
The good news is that yes, one can become more socially and emotionally competent. That said, most corporate training focuses on cognitive learning methods, which encourage you to take new information and fit it into your existing framework or world view EQ requires emotional learning, which may mean using the new information to actually change the way you perceive the world. But think positive, because that change of world view may just break you out a static pattern and bring you the career you always wanted.
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