Integrated_Emotions.pdf

7/28/2019 Integrated_Emotions.pdf

1/7

Six Seconds Integrated Emotions

Page 1

Integrated Emotions: Rethinking the way we evaluate our

feelings

By Joshua Freedman

What does it mean to feel, and what does it happen? Today, most people see emotionsas "good" or "bad" -- which leaves us in a constant state of internal struggle againstour own feelings. Is there another option? And how did we come to this point?Imagine the archetypal child and parent; lets take a boy, about eight years

old. His parent is busy dealing with 3.3 million tasks and chores, its been a

long day and everyones on thin ice. The child is going about the business of

childhood and something happens almost irrelevant what it is, perhaps his Wii

stops working and, unsurprisingly, he gets upset its been a long day for him

too. Lets suppose hes highly upset, unreasonably upset, and acts that out: he

slams something down, he kicks something, he shouts, and overwhelmed bythis rush of feelings (and afraid of his parents reaction) he starts to cry.

What is the parents typical reaction?

Perhaps asking a question, perhaps comforting, but more likely dismissing:

Stop crying honey, its not that big a deal. You shouldnt get so angry. Or

even the absolute dad-classic: Knock it off or Ill give you something to cry

about.

What did the child just learn about these feelings?

What have you learned about these kinds of feelings feelings like anger, fear,hurt, or jealousy?

Around the world, people have told me much the same thing: Those are

negative feelings. Even bad feelings. We find them uncomfortable,

overwhelming, scary, out-of-control (and now were having bad feelings about

our bad feelings).

So, the natural, reasonable, response to something bad? Control it. Push it

away. Cover it over. Squish it. Or at the very least, hide it. Maybe after some

therapy, manage it.

What about embracing it?

Increasingly were happy to do that with positive emotions and, the current

fad is that if somehow were not flooding our families, schools, and offices with

bliss then perhaps were just mean (because happiness is seen as the ideal).


2/7


Page 2

But even this attitude is fraught with

judgment; were limiting the motivating

power of feelings to a select few. Were

deciding that some emotions are good

which requires that others are bad.

In the last 14 years of teaching about

emotions as a driver for positive change, Ive

come to consider that this vilification of our

own emotion is the single biggest obstacle to

emotional intelligence.

So Id like to propose a different way of

thinking about emotions. First, lets explore

an intriguing model from a scientist named

Robert Plutchik.

Plutchik studied the way animals experience,

express, and respond to emotions. He saw,

following in Darwins tradition, that there is

an adaptive purpose to emotion. Feelings

help animals survive by alerting them to

threats and opportunities, and by providing a

universal, cross-species communication mechanism. If youve ever heard the

angry snarl of a wolf, or been enchanted by a puppys playful grin, youll

understand this viscerally.

Plutchik proposed a model of eight basic emotions that each has a physiological

response. He said that each of these could be more or less intense, and they

could combine. They are portrayed as opposites because they provoke opposite

physiological responses:

Emotion (physiological response) Emotion (opposite response)

Anger (attack) Fear (protect)

Disgust (reject) Trust (accept)Sorrow (close) Joy (open)

Surprise (stop) Anticipation (go)

Emotions are signals of

opportunity or threat.


3/7


Page 3

There are many different ways of defining emotions, but researchers in this

adaptive tradition tend to see that these basic physiological responses each

serves a different survival need and (a) focuses our attention to a threat or

opportunity, and (b) motivates a response.

Anger, for example, is a signal that our pathway is blocked. We want to bepromoted, we perceive someone is interfering with that, we are angry at the

person. The anger serves to focus our attention on the threat and motivates a

response of fighting or pushing through the obstacle.

Here is a chart of the eight basic emotions and a likely description of the focus

and motivation provided:

Basic Emotion Focus Motivation

Anger Problem Fight or push through

Anticipation Opportunity Move toward

Joy Opportunity Do more of this

Trust Safety Connect with others

Fear Threat Protect

Surprise Uncertainty Stop and look

Sadness Loss Stop and clarify

Disgust Problem Reject

We can use this table to decode our

emotional experiences. It shows us that

emotions serve a purpose, that there is

value in all feelings. But its still easy to

say that some are negative because

theyre tied to problems or threats.

We can try to remove the judgment and

call some of these pleasant or

unpleasant, but that doesnt quite

work: Sometimes when I think my son isdefying me, it feels very pleasant to

express my anger. When my dad died, it

felt right (not exactly pleasant, but good-

hard) to feel sad.

Fear is a question: What are

you afraid of, and why?

Just as the seed of health is

in illness, because illness

contains information, your

fears are a treasure house of

self-knowledge if you

explore them.

Marilyn Ferguson


4/7


Page 4

Another approach is to characterize them as contracting versus expanding.

Feelings tied to problems narrow our attention and cause use to zero-in on the

issues, to slow us down, to restrict our risks. At the other end, some feelings

energize us to look outward, to become more open, and to take risks. Of all the

polar characterizations this is my preference because its genuinely non-

judgmental. However, Id like to go a step further.

In Buddhism, and many other faith traditions, there is a notion of non-duality.

Rather than good and bad as opposites, they can be seen as one, a whole with

balancing sides. This is visually represented in the yin-yang symbol. In that

graphic, the universe (a circle) is half and half but not actually divided. The

black and white are interlocked they are one circle with two aspects.

As the yin-yang expresses two sides balanced into one, is there a way to

see opposite emotions as a linked whole?


5/7


Page 5

Could we take a non-dualistic view of emotion?

Rather than characterizing feelings as opposites (good/bad,

pleasant/unpleasant, contracting/expanding), is there a way to see them as a

linked whole? Often people in my work describe emotions on a continuum a

spectrum from one extreme to another, taking an emotion and its opposite asends of the number line. This has some merit because were starting to link

them as part of a whole, but its still dualistic: There are positive and negative

integers on the number line.

Lets go back to the definition of anger: You feel angry when you want to go

someplace, but your way is blocked.

So anger arises from that sense of an obstacle. What, then, could we call that

feeling of wanting to go someplace? Perhaps anticipation? Or maybe

commitment is a more powerful version of that word?

In that case, we could say that there is actually no such thing as anger without

commitment: If you dont want to go anywhere, you wont get angry! In other

words, they are not two separate things: Anger only exists in contrast, in

balance, in context of commitment.

How about fear? Fear is a message of potential threat a signal that something

you care about is at risk so if you dont

care, you wont feel fear. In other words,

fear and caring (aka love) are also a non-

duality.

Sorrow arises when you are losing

someone or something that matters a

meaningful relationship, a significant

person. But when we feel that sense of

meaning and significance, we experience

it as joy.

Finally, disgust is a signal of violation. It

means rules are broken, agreements atrisk, the systems and structures of

relationship are in peril. Yet if we did not

feel trust in those very same things, if they

did not signal a sense of safety and

Is sorrow a signal of a

problem or something weneed to suppress? Consider

this ancient wisdom:

Let tears flow of their

own accord: their flowing

is not inconsistent with

inward peace and

harmony.- Seneca (Roman dramatist,

philosopher, & politician, 5 BC -

65 AD)


6/7


Page 6

balance, then we wouldnt care if they were imperiled.

At this point, Im fairly content with a hypothesis of these constructs not as

opposites, but as wholes. The dark and the light of the candle. Yet I find them

a little awkward because I dont have a name for them.

Ive been thinking about this problem for several years, and recently I heard an

idea that Id like to consider. I was privileged to be on a panel with Dan Shapiro,

a professor at Harvard Law & Medical Schools, and the co-author of Beyond

Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate. The conference was on emotional

and spiritual intelligence in negotiation at Harvard Law School.

In describing the challenge of first identifying and then actually dealing with

emotions in the complex dance of negotiation, Dans succinct summary: Its

really tough! So his proposal is to notice emotion, but to go to a deeper

question: Whats the basic need driving the emotion? Since there are a

relatively small number of basic needs, perhaps five, it may be easier to handle

this set. If we can attend to these five basic needs, Shapiros compelling case is

that its far more likely that a true negotiation will arise.

Typically when talking about basic needs, the premise is that a whole range of

emotions will surface in response to a need being met or not met. In Nonviolent

Communication, Marshall Rosenberg and colleagues have done wonderful work

illustrating these dynamics. Hearing Shapiro use basic needs as a way of

explaining the emotional dynamics of negotiation, I wondered if we could look

at the emotional non-dualities through this lens:

Anger-Commitment is tied to wanting to move, a need to achieve. Its pretty

easy to see that this emotion-pair arises in conjunction with a basic need that

could be called accomplishment.

When we feel Disgust-Trust, it means the social contract that produces order is

vulnerable (this contact can be within ourselves, and when we violate our own

precepts we feel disgust turned inward). While fear also signals risk, its not

usually tied to the contract but to the human implication. And its trust that

signals safety; so perhaps the specific surety of trust balances with a specific

peril of disgust, in which case this construct is tied to the basic need ofsafety.

While the Fear-Love dynamic can arise a connection with an inanimate object

(fear of losing a home), I suspect its most deeply rooted in a desire to nourish


7/7


Page 7

others, to be in a balance or harmony. To be connected. This could be called

the need for belonging.

Again, the Sorrow-Joy dynamic seems to arise in a range of situations, but Ive

been thinking about the biology of joy. Joy is produced by opiates that are

absorbed in many parts of the brain, but especially in the frontal cortex, theseat of evaluation. This is an intriguing pairing because it implies that

somehow when we truly understand, well get the reward of inner bliss. We

could call that pursuit of meaning the need for purpose.

Its likely that in our day-to-day lives, there are more basic needs than these,

and certainly many, many wants. The needs and wants are tied to a big range

of feelings. But perhaps if we can distill down to a simple level, the complexity

of our feelings becomes easier to understand and to manage. While Im

uncertain if these labels are wholly adequate, there are three key messages that

I hope youll take away:

1. Emotions are signals that serve a function. They should not be blindlyobeyed, but nor should they be ignored.

2. There is an innate connection between needs and emotions. In trying tomake sense of your own or anothers feelings, consider that they might

be signals about a core need.

3. Although feelings can be uncomfortable and overwhelming, resist theurge to judge them and to judge yourself and others for having them.

Instead, consider that each feeling is part of a larger story, a story of

whats truly most important.

2011 Joshua Freedman, Six Seconds (www.6seconds.org). All Rights Reserved.

Thank you to Ayman Sawaf for sharing Lazarus work and explaining that emotions come in pairs, to David

Caruso for teaching me about the adaptive value of feelings, and to Dan Shapiro for the thinking about needs.

Documents

Integrated_Emotions.pdf