If you would like to submit a question or make a comment, please email Dr. Taylor at thebrain@arlenetaylor.org.
My question would be, “Has assigning blame solved the problem, corrected the process, resulted in a positive outcome, or improved the system so that this type of situation may be avoided in the future?”In most cases, blame is a red herring. My experience is that in and of itself the assignment of blame really doesn’t solve anything. It can make the person doing the blaming believe that this has solved the problem—when in reality it has not. And it can trigger downshifting in the person who is “blamed.” That can cause a whole plethora of additional problems. I’m interested in your perception that you can move on. Unless the situation is corrected, my brain’s opinion is that no one has really “moved on.” It’s like the elephant in the room that everyone pretends is not really there simply because a red “X” has been drawn on its trunk….
High levels of Emotional Intelligence involve behaviors where there is no need to blame. Rather, the focus is on the system or process and how the process or system could be altered in a way that would result in a positive outcome if the same situation arose in the future.
If your own behavior contributed to the negative situation, high levels of EQ require that you accept responsibility for your part and figure out what you could do differently another time. Avoid taking responsibility for anything for which you could not really be responsible (e.g., outside your control, something done by another person for which you do not have responsibility). Taking inappropriate responsibility is as dysfunctional as failing to take appropriate responsibility for your actions.
I am so glad you asked the question. That is a very adult thing to do, when you are unclear about what another person actually meant. Identifying your brain’s perception is a good thing. Identifying whether or not your brain’s perception is completely accurate is quite another. I have no idea the reason your mother gave you up for adoption—that doesn’t mean she “rejected you,” it may simply mean that she saw no way to take care of you. And if she did consciously reject you, it is undeniably traumatic and painful. However, your brain also decides how long you want to hang onto that pain and allow it to continue hurting you in negative ways.
Research at the University of Connecticut, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, showed that regardless of race, culture, or gender, most people (children as well as adults) tended to have a similar response when they perceived rejection from their parents or caregivers. Rejection by either parent is traumatic for children. However, since fathers tend to be viewed as having more power or higher prestige, rejection by a father can be harder on you and can cause more long-lasting emotional damage than being rejected by your mother. As a result, such children tend to become more anxious and insecure and may also become more hostile and aggressive towards others. The emotional pain generated from the rejection registers in the same part of the brain as physical pain and can remain into adulthood, preventing the individual from developing strong, trusting relationships with other adults. This can negatively impact their own life in a myriad of differing ways unless the individual chooses to actively recover and heal.
How can you recover from parental rejection? The steps are much like those used in other instances of emotional pain. First, identify what you believed happened and describe it to yourself. If possible, tell your parent(s) you felt rejected as a child and ask what was going on with them because you “might have misinterpreted something.” If they are willing to talk, just listen, then thank them for sharing with you and being honest. Now just think about what they said or if you cannot ask them, ask an aunt or uncle; and if that is not possible, move into your mind’s eye and ask your brain what might have been going on with them. You cannot undo the past. You can create a healthier future by resolving the emotional angst and letting it go. Sometimes the best you can do is acknowledge that it was their baggage and not yours. If you hang onto “why” and “if only,” you are allowing the rejection to continue to taint your life. If you have the opportunity and choose to ask the question, sometimes there are amazing results. If not, you at least can validate that your perceptions were accurate and move on.
For example: while waiting in line recently, the woman next to me began to chat about recently reconnecting with her parents 40+ years after she had left Asia as a small girl with her older brother—whom she was very close to. During all those years she had wondered “why my parents rejected me.” Her parents said that she had begged to go to American with her brother but they had refused and locked her in her bedroom. Somehow she had climbed out of her bedroom window, caught up with her brother, and he had taken her with him to America. As they talked together, the woman began to get glimpses in her mind’s eye of running down the street after her brother, crying, and calling to him to take her with him. The woman said “I’m so glad I finally got up the courage to ask them why they had rejected me. Turns out they hadn’t!” Admittedly, things don’t always turn out like this—but unless you try, all you are left with are your own perceptions. There are always two sides to the same story and your brain only has your side—until and unless it is willing to look at the other side. If you cannot do that with actual people because they no longer are alive, you can do that by imagining what the other side of the story might have been. In that process, you just might recall a tidbit or two that may be very helpful.
And finally, if you did not receive the quality of parenting you wanted, one of your developmental tasks and personal growth can be to re-parent yourself. That means, taking care of yourself in the way you would have liked your parent(s) to take care of you.
I doubt there’s anything wrong with your brain. I regret he doesn’t seem to believe you are important enough to reserve his sexual activity for you alone. I wonder what his other conquests would think if they knew they were just for letting off steam?
Nevertheless, this represents a loss for you on several levels:
Grief and sadness are what happen with loss. The fastest way I know of to get a handle on this is to work through the process using the Grief Recovery Pyramid. It is available on my website, articles section. Originally it was designed for survivors of a loved one who died, but it can also work with the death of a relationship as well as with other losses. I suggest you work through that process and then get outside of your head and so something to help someone in your community. Serve at a soup kitchen, volunteer for an hour or two at a local hospital, read to shut-ins who can no longer do this on their own. Almost anything done with gratitude can help to give you a different perspective.
Along with that, I encourage you to evaluate your level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). It may be helpful to raise yours. Generally people partner with those who are at a similar level of EQ. The higher your level of EQ, all things being equal, you are more likely to be attracted by and be attractive to individuals whose EQ is comparably high. Starting a relationship with someone whose EQ is relatively high can make a big difference in how much energy the relationship requires to keep it afloat and how much conflict you may need to deal with.
When your grief is prolonged for weeks or months, this may indicate that your brain may have had unrealistic expectations (e.g., he will be faithful to me even though he wasn’t to his last partner) and then feels really beat up when your expectations are not realized. The best predictor of the future is the past… unfortunately. That doesn’t mean brains can’t change; it’s just people aren’t always willing to put in the work that is needed to achieve change. Even positive change.
You decide how long you want to agonize over something you didn’t create and can’t fix. Forgive yourself for making an unfortunate choice that turned out badly. Learn what you need to learn, and move on. Congratulate yourself for caring enough about your own future to face some loss now and to take some pain now rather than face a great deal more if you had married him. Oh, and forgive him for exhibiting behaviors that don’t work for you.
When colleagues and I were working with young people who were in Youth Authority for misbehaving, it quickly became clear that behavioral outcomes were uncannily similar for two groups of kids. One group came from lassez faire environments with little functional guidance and healthy role-modeling, and that contained dysfunctionality in the form of addictive behaviors, either poverty or extreme affluence, and/or abuse. The other group were the produce of very rigid (often rigidly religious) home environments with a plethora of rules and/or extreme patriarchal-styles of parenting and leadership, where they were micromanaged and kept so busy that there was little time for play. Typically, the behaviors exhibited by both groups were very similar and one could rarely tell who was who and which was which without reading their case histories.
I suppose that would depend on your definition of the term shortsighted. One definition is nearsighted or myopic or blind as a bat. Another is lacking foresight. Under the theory that “a brain convinced against its will is of the same opinion still,” my goal is not to convince another brain of something but rather to challenge that brain to think.
I am crystal clear that no one knows everything and it would be arrogant to suppose one did or to act as if one did. When asked a question, my modus operandi is to use one or more of the following:
Once I’ve done one of the above, I move on to another question. I have no agenda for others to take my opinion as their own and I refuse to argue. Arguing, especially if one is trying to convince another person of something, tends to create angst and tension and can suppress immune system function. That is not my goal.
When I was asked previously the reason that I do not argue or try to convince another person against their will, this was my response: “Perhaps a true test of humility is that when you have been asked for your opinion and have given it as honestly as possible, you are indifferent to whether it is taken or not, and you never persist in trying to convince the questioner otherwise.” My brain’s opinion is that to do otherwise would represent low levels of emotional intelligence.
For starters, hone your Emotional Intelligence, or EQ. Pay attention to what others actually do rather than just to what they tell you they will do. They may mean well but not care enough to follow through or they may say almost anything in an attempt to manipulate you to their ends or they may have some antisocial characteristics. Brains that are antisocial, sociopathic, or psychopathic (terms tend to be confusing and can overlap) often exhibit low to non-existent levels of empathy and conscience. It can be tricky to identify these types of brains because they are often quite charismatic and will tell you almost anything, promise almost anything, to get their way and keep you in their clutches. Repeated excuses, frequent forgetting, and rationalizations are major clues.
Some estimate that twenty percent of prisoners fall into these categories. Outside of jail, estimates range from one to five percent of the general population. Interestingly, the profession said to have the most psychopaths is that of CEO. According to Eric Barker (Barking Up the Wrong Tree), some psychopathic traits are more common in CEO’s than in mentally disturbed criminals.Martha Stout PhD (The Sociopath Next Door) suggests that using the “Rule of Three” can help you identify honest human mistakes from manipulative behaviors. One lie, one broken promise, or one neglected responsibility may be a genuine mistake or misunderstanding. Two of these is a signal to pay closer attention. When you identify three of these instances, especially lies, there is a high likelihood that you are dealing with conscienceless and non-empathetic behavior.
My own personal boundaries prompt me to run the other direction from these types of behaviors. Any brain who thinks so little of me as to lie, break promises, manipulate, and fail to follow through with responsibilities or promises is a brain I choose to avoid and one I monitor very carefully when some interaction is required.
I guess it would be important to know if you are talking about casual acquaintances or a about whether a person would like you for their good friend. Every brain is different and Emotional Intelligence would say that likely no brain really “likes” every other brain on the planet. I’m sure you don’t. How do I deal with knowing that? You can’t very well ask someone else to do something that you don’t do, i.e. like everyone. I suppose the easiest answer is the one Charles Schulz, creator of the comic strip “Peanuts” wrote. In the words of Snoopy: “I don’t have time to worry about people who don’t like me. I’m too busy loving the people who love me.”
Think of delayed gratification as the ability to “wait” to do a specific activity until another activity has been completed. Stanford University research with four-year-olds, sometimes referred to as the Marshmallow Experiment, concluded that the quality of self-control at age four—defined as the capacity to delay gratification as a single skill—is twice as powerful a predictor of latter success in life, as compared to the person’s IQ. The ability to wait (e.g., finish your homework before playing the video game, choosing to get to work on time rather than surfing the internet awhile longer, saving money for that new fun item rather than purchasing it on credit) is a key component of high levels of EQ.
My brain’s opinion is that the employees who are making unkind remarks need to “tend to their own rat-killing,” as my little French grandmother would have put it, or in other words, “shut up.” Differences are what make the world interesting, especially since no one brain has it all or can do it all.
Are the differences pathological? If so, you might want to discuss that with your manager. If they aren’t, look for the positives in the differences. Every brain on the planet is different, you know. We only know our own brains—and often not that well, at that. Comparing our own brains to those of others is a dead-end street. You cannot reliably compare apples, oranges, and bananas. Each is valuable in the right context, although all are very different. Perhaps you could become a committee of one to be pleasant to the new employee. Affirm whatever you can. If you are unable to find anything to affirm, at the very least you could choose to avoid being part of the non-affirming coterie.
You might want to study up on Emotional Intelligence and find a way to encourage the office to raise its collective level of EQ. I started raising mine by catching myself whenever I exhibited a JOT behavior and replacing it with a behavior that was higher up on the EQ continuum. If you are serious about this, it can go quite quickly, and it’s amazing how exhibiting higher levels of EQ behaviors prevents a lot of “messes” that would otherwise need to be cleaned up.
Dump all JOT behaviors:
J – Jumping to conclusions
O – Overreacting
T – Taking things personally
You ask a great question! In thinking about a response, words attributed to one of my favorite “ancient philosophers,” Epictetus, come to mind: “The thing that upsets people is not what happens but what they think it means… It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” Therefore, if I am asked a question outside my area of study, all that means is that I do not know. It in no way demeans me as a person—because I am so clear that no one brain on this planet can or does know everything, so it would be foolish and a lie to pretend I do. My brain’s opinion is that it is important to role-model authenticity. If I think the questions involve brain function and that I may be able to discover information that could address it, I am willing to do the research and get back to the questioner. Otherwise, I have no problem saying that I do not know.
And what is embarrassment anyway? Shame is one synonym for embarrassment. Shame (along with guilt) are emotional interrupters—likely learned reactions that may or may not be valid and healthy. Growing up, human beings “learn” about shame and embarrassment. My definition of embarrassment or shame is that it alerts your brain to the fact that you breached a social or moral guideline or someone else thinks you did. It gives you the opportunity to evaluate the situation and your behavior, knowing that you can learn to exhibit a different behavior if necessary or apologize for a mistake or accident that was unintentional and do what you can to remedy the situation or….
I genuinely appreciate and feel humbled that people give me their time by attending my presentations and I never want to waste their time. My goal is to share information that has certainly changed my life and that can do that for others as they turn the information into knowledge and practically apply it in their own life. It would be disrespectful to the audience to pretend I know something if I don’t. My goal is to share what I have studied and never try to “fake it” because that will always show up in some way or another.
Honing one’s Emotional Intelligence skills can help a person identify whether shame or embarrassment is valid or invalid and choose appropriate behaviors. My brain’s opinion is that hanging onto embarrassment is a choice and—bottom line—I choose to avoid doing that.
Based on studies and observations, some researchers have defined eight behaviors that are consistently exhibited by individuals judged to possess high levels of EQ. Do the individuals exhibit these 100% of the time? Probably not, if they are human! Nevertheless, they tend to exhibit these behaviors on a consistent basis.
Descriptions of these high-EQ behaviors are included in Taylor’s DVD, The Power of Emotional Intelligence.
Good question, and you are correct that there are “multiple” forms of intelligence. Howard Gardner in his book Frames of Mind: the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, lists nine (9) ways in which to be “smart.” Those are in alphabetical order:
It would be quite an undertaking to attempt to devise accurate and consistently verifiable assessments for these types of intelligences. It would likely be unhelpful if there were measures for everything because every brain is different. Certainly the Johnson-O’Connor Research Foundation has attempted to devise ways to assess aptitudes since 1922.
And you are correct that many think the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests have been touted as assessing perhaps more than it is possible to assess, especially since one must have quite a good grasp of written language to answer the questions. My favorite IQ test is the one given by MENSA International because rather than assigning a number—which can be problematic when trying to do comparisons—they groups scores in a percentile rating.
More recently researchers such as Dalip Singh, PhD, D. Litt., of India are endeavoring to create a measuring system for one’s level of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn something from almost any assessment as long as you understand what it is designed to measure. In the end, however, getting to know yourself—including what tasks your brain does most energy-efficiently and how to use emotions and feelings to guide intelligent and appropriate behaviors—can be critical and life-changing.
There’s a great quote by Dr. Wayne Dyer that speaks to change in oneself and in one’s friends. I used it in this issue [Brain Bulletin, Spring 2017] for the Point to Ponder.
Bottom line: you can change your own behaviors and consistently role-model that change. The brain is very “plastic.” In a sense, the sky’s the limit—if you believe you can and are committed to altering your behaviors. You can set your boundaries to outline the behaviors you will tolerate in your friends and those you will not.
Altering behaviors in your close friends is a horse of a different color, as the old saying goes. Trying to get others to change often results in their digging in their heels and exhibiting the behavior you’d prefer them to change even more frequently.
For every action, there is always a reaction. As you become healthier and more actualized, differentiated, and functional, those around you will eventually figure it out at some level. If they don’t like the person you are becoming they may initially put pressure on you to go back to the old behaviors that they perceived were beneficial to them. If you remain consistent, they may disconnect from you or they just may look at their own behaviors. If the relationship with you is important enough to them, they may begin their own process of evaluation, learning, and personal growth because they value the connection they have with you and want to maintain it. If they do not, be open to creating new relationships with those who do.
Here are several reasons, gleaned from studies on the topic. I’ll divide them into personal-life and professional-life categories, although it can be difficult to separate them.
Personal life—Possessing high levels of EQ can:
Professional life—Possessing high levels of EQ can:
Note: Studies have shown that successful managers typically have high EQ, while less successful managers typically have low EQ (but often have a high IQ).
Individuals who lack hope can become desperate for answers. Since finding hope is a personal journey and you cannot do it for them, their desperation can be irritating at best and at worst lead you to either try to avoid them or just shut down emotionally.
People who are hopeless often gravitate toward those who have a sense of hope—for a while. Then they get tired of seeing someone else experience hope and either try to sabotage that sense of hope or eventually distance themselves from that hopefulness, much as water seeks its own level. Perhaps the trick, if you will, is to develop skills to recognize when someone genuinely wants some help versus those who want to bathe in the positive atmosphere of encouragement but who either are unwilling to bite the bullet and do the work or who wittingly or unwittingly sabotage the help offered.
My strategy is to write notes to people who ask for help and sometimes talk with them briefly on the telephone. However, it is also my responsibility to protect my brain and body that have been leased to me for use on this planet from over-exposure to negativity and hopelessness.
Good question. I am aware of a couple of studies. A study published in the Journal of Research in Personality revealed some interesting information. It concluded that intelligent people are more likely to be generous and altruistic. While generosity is not something people usually associate with intelligence, this research clearly shows a link. In the study abstract, the researchers referred to “unconditional altruism” as an enduring puzzle and posited that the “costly signaling theory,” a well-established framework in biology and economics, may be useful to shed light on the individual differences in human unconditional altruism. Based on this theory, their research showed that unconditional altruistic behavior is related to general intelligence; that unconditional altruism can serve as an honest signal of intelligence. They believe that their findings imply that altruistic behavior can be distinguished from cooperative behavior.
The second study reported in the Journal of Research in Personality concluded that those who possess a dispositional tendency to value joint benefits more than their own, scored higher on an intelligence test. Researchers studied 301 people who played games that involved either donating to others or keeping things for themselves. They found that those who were more egotistical and who kept more for themselves tended to be less intelligent. While those who were more generous to others tended to be more intelligent (e.g., individuals with higher IQs were more concerned with the public good.) Comments by the authors concluded that the evidence presented supports the possibility that unconditional altruism may serve as a costly signal of general intelligence because altruism is costly and is reliably linked to the quality “general intelligence.” They also found that children’s intelligence predicts later socio-economic success better than attributes of their parents’ attributes, concluding that intelligence is an indicator of future resources. A person with high cognitive skills may be able to donate more in advance than someone with lower skills and perhaps can afford to be more generous because they have more to give.
Christian Smith at the University of Notre Dame and colleagues are studying the science of generosity, as they put it. They defined generosity as the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly. They also pointed out that generosity also involves giving to others not simply anything in abundance but rather giving those things that are good for others. The goal of true generosity is to enhance the true wellbeing of those to whom it gives. Generosity can involve tangible and intangible gifts. Many automatically think of money and possessions. Some of the intangibles may even be more important in the long term, including personal time, attention, aid, encouragement, emotional availability, empathy, the sharing of information to help promote personal growth and high level of Emotional Intelligence, and so on. The researchers were also clear that generosity is not identical with pure altruism, since people can be authentically generous in part for reasons that serve their own interests as well as those of others. If indeed, generosity is a virtue, to practice it for the good of others also necessarily means that doing so achieves one’s own true, long-term good as well. Perhaps like all the “virtues,” true generosity is in people’s best enlightened self-interest to learn and to put into practice.
I find it helpful to view EQ as a concept. From that perspective, the work that has been done over the past 15 years or so (since Daniel Goleman first published his book on the topic in the mid-’90s) is accumulating nicely. Dr. Singh of India is working on an EQ assessment that organizations can use during their hiring process. If current estimates hold up (e.g., a person can raise their EQ level by choice; EQ may be responsible for at least 80% of a person’s overall success in life; unsuccessful managers often have high IQs but low EQs; EQ skills can help a person achieve positive outcomes on a more consistent basis; and so on) the concept of EQ will likely find its way in curricula all over the world. At the very least, evaluating your own behaviors against characteristics and behaviors touted to fall at the higher end of a metaphorical EQ Continuum, may be a fast and practical way to get a handle on what to work on; where to put your time, money, and energy.
This field is still emerging. There are several models out. The model touted in “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” identifies and discussed four EQ skills. When I lecture on the topic, I present eight EQ skills, believing that breaking descriptions into smaller bites can makes it easier for a listener to evaluate his/her own behaviors. Whether or not EQ is in and of itself a discrete intelligence, is relatively immaterial in comparison to what a person can gain from the concept if he/she wants to put in the evaluation time and build requisite skills.
I agree that until recently there hasn’t been an EQ test that purports to be the equivalent of an IQ test. If you are trying to find an EQ test, the authors of the book “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” offer an Emotional Intelligence Appraisal on line for a fee (reportedly half-a million individuals have taken this appraisal).
Genuine personal growth is like slowly removing blinders. You gradually tend to seemore, not less. You begin to catch yourself more quickly when you exhibit less-than-effective behaviors (e.g., taking things personally, jumping to conclusions, overreacting). Eventually you become your own therapist, in a sense, and move beyond simply recognizing these less-than-desirable behaviors; you avoid them. But when you cannot ignore them, you simply implement the 20:80 Rule to minimize the negative effect on you.
Some people even say, “It was easier when I was in denial.” Yes, you do see more. However, because you see more, you can always choose to see less, in some situations. That is, just because you are more alert to low-EQ behaviors in yourself and others, you do not need to address them in anyone but yourself. Recognizing low-EQ behaviors in others provides you with information that can be immensely helpful in setting and implementing your own personal boundaries, and in role-modeling higher-EQ behaviors.
As for becoming irritated: in my experience it’s a choice whether or not to become irritated by recognizing low-EQ behaviors in others. Irritation is often the outcome of unrealistic expectations—expectations that others are on a similar path to raise their EQ. Many are not, and that’s just the way it is. A realistic expectation for you is to exhibit high-EQ behaviors on a consistent basis rather than expecting that anyone else will. Sometimes when you give up unrealistic expectations, role-model high-EQ behaviors, and live the 20:80 Rule you can be a catalyst for positive change.
Yes, there is some relatively new jargon, as you call it. No doubt you are familiar with IQ, short for Intelligence Quotient. EQ on the other hand is short for Emotional Intelligence Quotient, sometimes also seen written as EI. When Goleman’s book on this topic was released in the mid ’90s, many people had never even heard of the term Emotional Intelligence, much less had any idea of what it really meant. Most would never have heard of a metaphorical EQ Continuum, either, on individuals could be plotted in terms of their level of EQ and the behaviors they consistently exhibited—aligned with high, moderate, or low levels of EQ.
Having said that, the behaviors related to EQ undoubtedly have been exhibited since human beings showed up on this planet. Even when you read accounts of historical figures, it is possible to get some sense of where on the metaphorical EQ Continuum they might fall based on their reported choices and behaviors. In this 21st Century, EQ terminology, characteristics, studies related to its importance, and assessments to assist individuals in evaluating their own level of EQ are coming into their own. A person’s level of EQ reportedly accounts for at least 80% of his/her overall success in life (compared to the 20% contribution of the person’s IQ).
Are you able to identify the situation or describe the behaviors you exhibited that triggered the “you need to raise your level of EQ” comment? There are resources available if you are interested in learning more about EQ in general and yours in particular. For example, there is Daniel Goleman’s book on EQ, and another one by Dr. Singh of India, and Taylor has a DVD entitled The Power of Emotional Intelligence.
Since studies related to Emotional Intelligence have found that it is worth 80% of your success in life—and since it is so often misunderstood—“Social Insurance” may be another practical way to understand this. Research by John Gottman and colleagues at the University of Washington (in an attempt to gain more understanding about relationships and how they function) found that brains apparently keep an informal count of behaviors and categorize them as positive or negative. Think of this as a positive-negative emotional bank account that resides in each brain. And it isn’t just tit-for-tat, either. It’s more than keeping an equal score of positive versus negative behaviors. Social insurance indicates that you need to keep a balance of at least four or five positive behaviors to every negative behavior in order to maintain good relationships.
Building social insurance in like making small deposits in a bank account that gradually accumulate and build trust between individuals. If you focus on trying to avoid making mistakes in social interactions, this can actually create a sense of anxiety, which can backfire as you attempt to provide four or five positives for each negative impact. In addition, small and even subtle positives appear to have the same effect as big positives. Therefore, finding ways to make many small positive impacts is likely to be the best way to approach social insurance. These could include smiling, using genuine mirthful laughter together, letting someone go first in line, sending a kind message encouraging someone who is going for an interview or facing a tough challenge at work, or sending a short text saying, “Thanks for inviting me to lunch. It was fun and I had a good time.”
Using the bank account metaphor for social insurance, the bad news is that apparently the brain does not wipe out negative balances at the end of the day, but instead carries them over to your next interaction with a given individual. This means that you can end the day not just being at zero but actually “in the red” with someone, which can add interest, if you will, to your emotional debt in their minds. Conversely, you can end the day with money in their bank. Leaving social interactions with positive outcomes is like adding money to their bank account, which tends to build trust, and may even resemble gaining interest in the deposit you made to your bank account with them.
Naturally, I do not know what individuals were thinking. Somehow I doubt they were worried about diarrhea. The term “stockpiling” itself is subjective. What is “enough”? Six months? Nine or twelve months?
Some researchers have wondered about the stockpiling, as well. A recent study looked at the type of people who tended to stockpile and identified personality traits that they believe trigger stockpiling. I found the conclusions interesting.
The three main findings are:
In my case, I have been through several pandemics as a nurse epidemiologist and typically take steps toward prudence (although without much fear). Epidemics and pandemics have taught me to think ahead. At the end of February, when it appeared COVID-19 was not a proverbial flash in a pan, I purchased paper supplies and grocery staples enough to last me four months. By the end of June those were pretty much used up and I shall restock. Probably not for four months, as things are slowly beginning to open up. I do like to have about 2-3 months of staples on hand, however.
So, it is different strokes for different folks. I did find it interesting to hear that some households had only two or three extra rolls of toilet paper on hand and one box of tissue. My guess would be they were very small households, or they shopped quite frequently, or they didn’t have a mindset of thinking ahead.
It would be wonderful (my brain’s opinion) if individuals began identifying who they are innately earlier in life rather than later, obtaining vital information from family members and friends before those individuals are gone, deleting, adding, and rewriting parts of the script that was handed to them at birth. Few do, because when you’re young is seems as if there is a very long space of time between birth and death. In reality, it goes by quickly.
You can role-model and encourage them with your story. Realize that it is never too late to do something and that “youth,” as General Douglas MacArthur put it, “is not a time of life but a state of mind…that you are as old as your fear and as young as your hope.”
You can help them realize that hopelessness drains one’s energy and can lead to depression, which is a stressor for the brain. It can even suppress immune system function and increase one’s risk for illness and disease.
Some individuals do seem to have difficulty wrapping around the concept of EQ. It utilizes your emotions but involves skills, not just emotions themselves. Here is how I describe emotions, feelings, and EQ.
Emotions: molecules (neuropeptides) that arise in response to an internal or external trigger and connect your subconscious with your conscious. The changes that result from an emotion arising in your brain and body come with specific neuropeptides (according to Candace Pert PhD), physiological markers, facial expressions, and typical behaviors. Think of them as cellular signals to give you information; to make you aware of what just happened, what is happening, or what is about to happen.
Feelings: interpretations of what the emotions are trying to tell you, created by your cerebrum as it struggles to make sense of and find reasons for the neurological changes in your brain and body. Think of them as short-hand labels for your brain’s perceptions of what the emotions mean to you, their relative importance, and how much weight you are giving them. Since your brain created them, you decide how long to hang onto them and when/if you’ll take action or think differently and alter your feelings.
Emotional Intelligence: a set of skills that assists you in quickly identifying, accurately labeling, and expressing emotions appropriately, as well as managing your feelings and choosing carefully the actions you will take and the behaviors you will exhibit. The goal is to exhibit behaviors (using information your emotions provide) that will result in positive outcomes on a consistent basis.
Based on my working definition, EQ involves the ability to know what feels good, what feels bad, and how to get from bad to good in a way that results in positive outcomes. Many people try to get from bad to good by becoming involved with addictive behaviors that typically result in negative outcomes over time.
When I present the topic of EQ I often do so in two parts. The first section covers emotions and feelings and the second section presents the set of skills and how honing those can raise your level of EQ and improve your relationships and behavioral choices.
Every pathology an ecology, meaning that dysfunctional behaviors do not come out of a vacuum. Here is one metaphor that might help describe this phenomenon. Imagine that you are holding a glass of lemonade and someone bumps into you. You exclaim: “Hey, you made me spill my lemonade.” Is that really true? Probably not. The person who bumped into you triggered a movement that resulted in you spilling something. You only spilled lemonade because that was what was inside your glass. If water had been in your glass, you would have spilled water. If chocolate milk, you would have spilled that. You would have spilled whatever was inside your glass.
Think of yourself as a “glass.” When you experience trauma or an event that could be disruptive or have a communication misunderstanding, or something triggers unhappy memories from childhood, think of yourself as having just been bumped into. What spills out is whatever is in your “glass.” If the contents of your glass involves “low levels of EQ,” your glass will spill out JOT behaviors such as jumping to conclusions, overreacting, and taking things personally—behaviors that will likely give you negative outcomes that may involve some “messes” that will take some doing to clean up (if they even can be cleaned up).
If the contents of your glass involve “high levels of EQ,” your glass will spill out behaviors that will likely avoid or minimize conflict, be reasonable, and that will result in positive outcomes. Your choice. So, no person makes you exhibit dysfunctional behaviors. The behaviors that you exhibit—that come out of your glass—are ones that were already in there.
