In 2005 I was Chairman of the first Emotional and Spiritual Intelligence Conference in the Middle East, a three-day program in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I wrote this article on the last day of the conference, May 30, 2005.

We live in a time of turmoil and uncertainty and, if we accept the world that we see in newspaper headlines, it is all too easy to forget that the vast majority of people in the world are good, caring human beings just like us.  When we meet as human beings — not as representatives of some clan or creed — there is vast common ground.

Behind the Veil

Preparing to go to the conference center, I am full of unease. I walk through the lobby strewn with rose petals, and feel surrounded by men in white dishtash and women in black abaya. I’ve worked with many Arabs and Muslims, but this is my first time in the Gulf, and I find myself curious at the sight of all this traditional garb — and worried.

I move quickly through the hall and go back stage. At a conscious level, I am telling myself that I am worried about the conference logistics, that I am concerned the audience might not understand our work, that technical glitches might interfere with learning. But none of the technology is my responsibility, and I realize that I’m bothering the technicians as a way of hiding from all these strangers.

I realized I am afraid. Afraid of the unknown. Afraid that I will not be accepted, that I will be judged, that people will not listen – I often have fears like this at the beginning of a program. Here, it is stronger because, underneath, I am also afraid I will be hated or held in contempt as a Jew and an American.

Unexamined, unrecognized, the fear is influencing me on an unconscious level - influencing  me to hide away and to rationalize my behavior. Once I recognize that I am afraid, however, I can see what I am really doing and can make a choice. Especially in face of fear, it is difficult to make proactive choices.

Fortunately, in this work I have learned about a lever I can use to move myself past the fear: my sense of purpose.

I am deeply committed to co-creating an emotionally intelligent world, and I can’t do that hiding in the corner. Remembering my Noble Goal (“To inspire compassionate wisdom”) gives me the courage to act. I begin walking around the lobby speaking with some of these strangers.

They do not turn away.

I say ‘hello’ to three men wearing traditional Arab clothes. They are from Saudi Arabia. One must have noticed my effort to reach out past the fear, because he says, “Thank you for coming up to us, I guess this is part of emotional intelligence”. I hear his warmth and appreciation – he recognizes the effort, the risk, and there is something sparked between us. Maybe they too are a little afraid.

These fears are reinforced at many levels. For example, I happened to read an email from my grandmother today saying, “I wish you could stay home from all those dangerous places”. On a factual basis, the United Arab Emirates is one of the safest countries in the world. Diverse, cosmopolitan, accepting, and with hardly any crime (and, in case you’re wondering, they don’t have extreme or violent penalties for crimes). Yet, on an emotional level, many of us have such uncertainty, such fear of the unknown, about a place so different from home.

The conference kick-off is smooth. Daniel Goleman is live via satellite - and I find myself wishing he could see this room full of white-robed and black-robed delegates. He speaks about how we can influence one another on an emotional level as leaders and humans, and it seems so apropos to my experience today.

On the second day of the conference, the sense of connection gets even stronger. In my workshop on Leading with EQ, I share how we apply our Six Seconds model to business, and also to our personal and family lives. The group clearly sees the value of these tools in leadership and life, and something happens beyond the content. We all interact with each other as people and talk; we share perspectives and feelings. From dialogue comes respect and tolerance, appreciation and acceptance.

On the final day in the closing session, the discussion turns to how emotional intelligence can help bridge the gaps between people – in organizations, relationships, communities, and nations. Many of the speakers and audience members have noticed, have felt, how we are no longer a group of unknown strangers.

Danah Zohar suggests that we commit to test the power of this kind of dialogue by developing an EQ/SQ conference with Palestinians and Israelis attending together.

Following her theme, I challenge the audience and myself to consider the action we can each take to move past our fears. We can only truly access the power of our emotional and spiritual selves if we each begin with ourselves. I offer, “I would like to bring my children here”. I plan to say more, but I feel myself on the verge of tears, so I begin to call on someone else.

There is a table at the front reserved for women, all in traditional abaya and sheila (black gowns and veils). They’ve been nearly silent these three days, but now one calls out, “Why?” “Why?” she repeats assertively, “Why do you want to bring your children here?”
“Because I want them to grow up knowing Arabs as good, caring people,” I say, “People with the same hopes and dreams we all hold. Because I do not want my two Jewish and American children to grow afraid just because they do not know.”

Later I think to myself, “and because I want them to be friends with your children”.

The power of facing and voicing feelings, especially fears, is profound. Just expressing this fear I can feel the connection forming between us. At the next break, three different men come speak to me: “When you come back to the Emirates,” each says, “I want you to come to my house so your children can play with my children”.

Over and over in my travels, I’ve found that, beneath the infinite variety of human complexity, beneath the cultures and nations, beneath the religions and rivalries, beneath the differences, we are profoundly alike. I keep forgetting, and then I have these experiences to remind me. And, more and more, I am seeing that emotions are at the heart of this similarity. A universal language that both bonds us and liberates us - if we will only find the courage to learn it more deeply, and use it more carefully.

One of the fundamental choices we each make in each moment is to live in that state of fight or in the state of flow.  As I’ve written before (in this article and in At the Heart of Leadership):

• FIGHT is characterized by power where the goal is the be right OVER another; emotions such as anger are signals of power and sorrow are signals of weakness.
• In FLOW being right or wrong are less important; the goal is to connect in a purposeful, significant way.

The film Avatar illustrates this choice on several levels.  Perhaps the most vivid moment is when protagonists Jake Sully and Neytiri meet.   Sully is in danger on an alien world and, as night falls, he makes a torch/spear and attacks the threatening wildlife.  Forest savant Neytiri saves him and throws his torch into a puddle, plunging them into darkness.  At first Sully is… not thrilled… by this “help.”  But eventually he sees differently.

In the darkness, Sully finds something else — the luminescent beauty of the world is revealed.  While he’s in the FIGHT mode he’s cut off from the world around him, literally blinded by his own weaponry. Forced to give that up, he begins a journey to encounter the world a different way.

We all do this — when we’re in FIGHT we tell ourselves that’s the only way, and we’re fighting for our survival.  Often actually creating more peril, but it’s all we can see.  It takes a leap of faith (or a push from someone else) to drop into FLOW.  There’s a huge AHA! as we see that where there used to be one option, now there’s the liberty of choice.

[First published Nov 11, 2003]

Lately life has been somewhat tempestuous at home.  Emma’s 4-1/2-year-old priorities conflict with Max’s 2-1/2-year-old priorities — add two work-a-holic parents and their own stresses, and voila, you have a powder keg. Recently it got to the point I was looking forward to travelling so I could have a few days of peace.  I take that as a bad sign.

The last few days gave me new insight into my job as a parent — and equally essential lessons as a consultant and manager.  Most managers tell me their biggest struggles are managing conflicts and relationships — so perhaps this story about managing the conflicts at home will provide ideas even to those without kids.

Last week I had time with Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Chairman and Founder.  We talk frequently about my little family and about her grandchildren.  As many EQ Reflections readers have told me, grandparent-hood sounds like the best of parenting: all the love, none of the “hot buttons.”

The next day I happened to talk to a colleague and the psychotherapist sitting next to her.  I talked a bit about my struggles at home, and I was struck by the dramatic difference between the therapist’s approach and Karen’s.

The therapist said, “It sounds like you are letting you kids run things in your house, and you can’t do that.”

Somewhat testy, I said, “Actually, I can do it — but I agree it might not be a good idea.”

“You need to be clear about who’s in charge,” she went on, ignoring my frail jibe, “and consistently reward the appropriate behavior and have consequences for the inappropriate behavior.  You have to be more consistent.”

Not bad advice for a cocktail party.  Then I considered Karen’s advice from the evening before and how different it was.

First Karen asked me what is happening — what’s the pattern.  I explained that a conflict escalated, Emma’s behavior got explosive, and I sent her to time out or her room.

“Is that working?” asked Karen.

“Not really.”

“So you probably don’t want to keep doing it, do you?”  Under Karen’s clear gaze, there was only one available answer.  I shook my head.  “Do you and Emma talk about what happened?”

“Emma would rather not,” I say starting to feel a bit pathetic — how did I give a four-year-old so much power?

After a few more minutes, Karen summarized our discussion into this experiment:  “Why don’t you try this:  Next time you send Emma to her room, say, ‘When you are ready to talk about what happened, come get me.’  Then, discuss what happened and make an agreement about what Emma and you will do differently next time.  Write it down where Emma can see it.”

Before I tell you what happened, what’s the difference between Karen’s advice and the unknown therapist’s?  Notice who had the power or “right” in the adult-to-adult conversations.  Notice how each approach changes the power dynamic between Emma and me — one actually escalates the power struggle, the other side-steps it.

My sense is that Karen’s advice also focuses on the long term vs. short term — Emma needs to make decisions for herself, and eventually these will be fairly serious decisions.  What am I doing now to equip her for that challenge?

This weekend when one of the “inevitable” conflicts occurred, I had a surprising experience.  While I was caught up in the conflict, I did not feel the need to explode — I didn’t feel hopeless.  This is the power of having a new strategy.

I asked Emma if she wanted to talk about what happened, when she grouched, “NO,” I followed Karen’s advice.  A few minutes later, Emma was ready to talk.  I began my Self-Science process and asked, “What happened?”

I discovered that looking at the whole event was too complex, that Emma really had trouble telling the story.  So I began telling what I thought happened, and after each little piece, I asked if she agreed — really asked, not to get agreement but to get her view.  We agreed on some parts, not others, and didn’t debate it — we both identified the story from our sides.

Then I identified the part that was upsetting for me:  “I felt ignored when I told you to stop grabbing your brother for the second time and it did not seem like you listened.  Were you listening?”

“No,” said Emma, and I could see the realization sink in.

We put up a chart paper in her room and I asked what I should write.  Emma said, “No Ignoring.”

I was surprised again when the next day there was a minor tussle between Emma and Max.  When I asked what happened, Emma told me, and said we need to go write on the list.

I suspect that a large part of my own reactivity with the kids comes from feeling so powerless — from feeling like this won’t end, and I can’t stop it.  So the lesson for me as a parent:

• keep practicing optimism (it WON’T last forever and I CAN make a difference if I try).
• keep experimenting with new ways of communicating.
• to stay out of the power struggle — make my job be “help them learn” rather than “enforce.”

Reflecting on the two different styles of giving me advice, I see three key points to remember an “expert,” consultant, and manager supporting others.

Ask, help them see the story, the pattern.

Challenge the “insane” (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results)

Offer questions, alternatives, and experiments rather than answers.

I need to remember I don’t have the answers to my own challenges, let alone yours!  Perhaps the best we can offer one another is a compassionate ear and the encouragement to keep learning.  It’s probably harder to sell than “the answer,” but I suspect there’s a lot more value in it.

Warmly yours,

- Josh

This second half of “Fight or Flow” explores the alternative to the kinds of “hitting back first” reactions discussed in part one. To constructively engage with emotions requires reframing the way we think — and feel — about feelings.

It’s always amazed me that these heavy stones can move — float — on a cushion of water. The water is so calm, yet so powerful. It’s not powerful because it’s loud, fast, or fierce — the effectiveness comes from the consistency and the balance.

I’d heard these “floating ball fountains” are used in feng-shui; I know next to nothing about that philosophy, so I emailed “Feng Shui by Design” to find out — and by the way, I didn’t mention that I was interested in emotional intelligence. A consultant named SuZen wrote that water symbolized “movement, money, and/or emotion.” The ball, she said, “represents the self — so we can choose to sink in the emotions or float with the emotions.”

Wow! That’s just what we say about emotional intelligence — emotion is powerful, and we can choose to use that power or to conflict with it.

The challenge, for me, is to discover the effortlessness — the opposite of “Hitting Back First.” Some people call it surrender, some call is peace, some call it “the zone.” How, in the midst of the stress of daily life, do I use my emotion as a source of power and effortlessly float like the stone?

First, let’s revisit the strife. I’ll use myself as an example, but you might be very different; what’s challenging for me might be easy for you — so think about what’s challenging for you. When it’s easy, it’s easy! It’s the challenges that require a stretch.

In Part One, I suggested you invest time becoming more aware of your own Danger Radar. My Danger Radar, and perhaps many people’s, is particularly sensitive to my fear of losing power. If I feel a sense of helplessness, of fear, or loss of control, I am very uncomfortable, and my inclination is to grab for some power.

In those moments of disequilibrium, I feel compelled to show (myself, mostly) that I am not helpless. I try to expert power over another by being right, or by showing I have the answer, or by dismissing others’ point of view. It could be being “more right than” colleagues, contractors, my boss, my children, my spouse, my mother, etc.

Notice that I try to exert power OVER them, which means that in addition to being right and smart, I have to be more right, smarter, better — and that means they have to be less. We’re back to a battle between limbic systems.

According to Dr. Albert Ellis’ work on Rational Emotive Therapy (around 1955), I have formed some beliefs about power, my right to it, and what happens if I lose it. I can ask myself questions to illuminate those beliefs — what happens if I don’t have power? What happens if I lose control?

It boils down to some fears and some ideas of what I am “supposed” to do. These beliefs are a filter through which I see those experiences, and that filter says, “No matter what, don’t lose power!” When I look at these reactions in the calm summer moonlight, I can just laugh and see how preposterous I am. Yet in the heat of the day, over and over, I replay the same pattern.

What I need, Ellis said, is an alternate belief (or set of beliefs) that replace my irrational beliefs that lead me to trouble. I see a lot of value in this approach, especially for short-term counseling. At the same time, I suspect there is more going on than the primacy of thought.

From an EQ perspective, there is an interaction between my thoughts and feelings, and I am choosing both. This awareness of the play between emotion and thought is the key to practicing emotional intelligence. My interaction in those moments of frustration is not a single transaction calculated by one belief, but a system, a flow, of thoughts, feelings, and actions influencing one another.

And, because the limbic system actively looks for input from other people, I am also strongly influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of people around me. That doesn’t mean I am a victim of another person’s whim, it does mean we are interconnected and we influence one another.

Our society has minimized, trivialized, and even vilified emotions to the point where many people won’t even admit to having them. We even call cognitive thought “high order thinking” because scientists once “knew” that rational processes were more “advanced” than confusing emotions. Thankfully, the last decade has seen a sea-change, and more and more people are reassessing their feelings about feelings to see them as a potential source of value.

The first step seems to be recognizing, “If I don’t deal with feelings, they will cause me problems.” The second may be, “Feelings are valuable in an of themselves.” Dr. Antonio Damasio’s latest work (The Feeling of What Happens) goes a step further to say that our very consciousness — our awareness of our own thoughts, is created by emotion. Damasio told me, “your life is like a movie, and your consciousness is how you know you’re watching the movie. It’s your feelings that create the awareness of your life.” He says without emotion, we’d actually lose all perspective of what’s important and our role in the continuity of our lives.

In any case, most of us grew up “knowing” that feelings were in the way of clear thinking, and we learned to put them aside. It makes the work of listening to them somewhat more challenging.

So I need to understand the driving beliefs and I need to understand the flow of feeling and thought. Like the water and the stone in the fountain. Without the water, the stone is stuck; without the stone, the water is just a pool.

The stone-ball fountain metaphor is useful to me for two reasons:

1. The water is powerful, and the power comes from gentle persistence.
2. Sometimes the system gets stuck and can get unstuck.

The Powerful Water

It’s important to understand what makes the water powerful. When the fountain is in balance, the water is persistent, constantly flowing… it is smooth, putting pressure evenly on the stone… it is moving and changing… it is gentle, not spraying all over.

If I have choice about my feelings, then I can choose to experience my emotion in those balanced ways. For myself, simply accepting that I can experience emotion that way is a big step to actually having it happen. It helps me to see the polarities of my choice so that while I am in the moment, I can know what I’m choosing:

• I can let emotion flow and change, or I can be stuck in one emotion, constantly re-creating the same feelings.
• I can experience emotion in a smooth constancy, or I can put it aside until it pops out.
• I can let emotion flow gently, or I can use it like a cudgel to beat on other people.

You don’t have to wait for some “big moment” to look at the way your experiencing emotions. You can take the opportunity right now — look at the three dimensions above — where are you on each area right now?

• Fluid vs Stuck
• Feel vs Suppress
• Gentle vs Forceful

Tuning into the way you experience and use emotion is a next step. Just as you learned about your “Danger Radar,” give yourself time to focus in and observe how other emotions function in your life.

Caution: Resistance Ahead

As you explore the ways you’re experiencing and using emotion, you may find you resist approaching or actually feeling some feelings. You may have learned that they are wrong or bad or dangerous — I’m not saying they really are wrong, bad, or dangerous, but we’ve all had experiences that may have pushed us to believe that. For example, when my daughter is disappointed, she acts that out in a negative way sometimes, and I get frustrated with her. I can see that she may be learning, “I’m not supposed to feel disappointed — it’s a bad feeling because Daddy gets mad when I feel that.” While I attempt to focus her attention on the behavior I don’t like and say it’s ok to feel disappointed, it’s easy to see how someone could reach a different conclusion.

The point is, it’s very hard to experience feelings that we suspect to be unsafe. Your emotional brain is all about safety, so it will resist when you engage in “unsafe feeling.” If you’ve decided sorrow is dangerous, when you try to feel sad you may find yourself doing almost anything but! People are incredibly good at resisting — we undermine, side track, attack, retreat… it’s like pushing your finger down firmly on a greased board — you keep slipping around the point you were trying to touch. A likely was of resisting is beginning to question the validity of this whole exercise. So you won’t get past this point if you don’t notice your own resistance, recommit to your goal, and persevere.

Tuning the Intelligence

Recently someone told me, “Everyone knows that feelings are irrational and confusing, so this whole idea of ‘emotional intelligence’ is an oxymoron.” Upon reflection, here’s my answer: Have you ever had a really dumb idea or been confused about a logic problem? Does that mean cognitive intelligence is an oxymoron?

We all have emotional intelligence, but that doesn’t mean all our emotions are intelligent! Not all our feelings add to our wisdom, and not all people are adept at knowing the difference. Our job is to refine this intelligence. Most of us spent an hour a day for 15 years learning to successfully solve mathematical equations while keeping the decimal in the right place. For a long time, we got ridiculous answers to simple math problems, but over time we learned to check our assumptions, follow a process, and discover a sensible answer. Likewise, we can choose to learn to successfully solve the emotional equations in our lives.

The intelligence of emotions comes because these feelings provide information and “weight” to influence decision-making. You can block that information by resisting the feelings — by suppressing them. You can also lose the information by going to the opposite extreme and using feeling as a cudgel. In either case, you’re trying to manipulate the feelings rather than listening to yourself. By practicing letting your emotions flow gently, you will begin to gain insight from that non-cognitive awareness.

When I get stuck and sucked into the patterns of strife, the situation always seems deadly serious — like some core belief or need is being threatened. I think of those fountains and remember that I have a simple choice: fight or flow. Both have costs and benefits, both have challenges and opportunities. If I choose flow, though, suddenly the strife seems a bit silly — perhaps important, but certainly not deadly serious.

Practicing living like the fountain is a lifelong process of letting go of primal fears. You’ve had a lifetime to learn to protect yourself by using emotions a certain way. Changing the way you relate to your emotions may take another lifetime.

• Let go the belief that flowing is weak — look at mighty mountains carved by streams.
• Let go the fear that emotions will overwhelm you if you actually feel them — look at the stone floating smoothly.
• Let go the terror of being different — look at the glorious rainbow of an ocean reef.
• Let go your hurry to know it now — look how long it’s taking to find a cure for the common cold.
• Let go the embarrassment of being wrong — look at the stunning risks that have advanced human kind.

At the core, remember your emotions are seeking your safety. When you have a strong reaction, know that it’s a message that some part of you feels unsafe. When someone else has a strong reaction, know that she or he feels unsafe. Don’t trivialize that reaction, recognize it as valid and valuable. Then help both of you find the courage to persevere past the fear — to gracefully flow into the risk of learning and growing.

♥

At the core of emotional intelligence is a choice between consciousness and reactivity. “Fight or Flow” explores that choice and provides practical strategies for practicing emotional intelligence.

Have you ever seen one of those fountains where a large stone sphere seems to float on a cushion of water? Hundreds of pounds of rock glide in swirling circles — apparently effortless.

What if we could interact with other people with that same calm, powerful, effortless ease? One major reason we don’t is that we get caught up in small tensions and conflicts. These “bumps” usually escalate into two sides both needing to be right because we’re so good at sensing danger.

At the very core of our being is a set of reactions that help us survive. Thousands of years of practice have refined our ability to protect ourselves from threat and danger. We don’t have turtle-like shells or tiger-like fangs — we have super-sensitive brains.

When our brains perceive a threat, they react to protect us; it’s a survival response built into the limbic brain (or “emotional brain”). Depending on biology and experience, that protection comes from fighting, fleeing, or freezing. Some people also add another “f” — “flocking” or herding together. It is almost impossible to avoid that impulse, we are literally hard-wired to react that way to defend against threat.

So, if I threaten you, I can almost guarantee that you will react by fighting, fleeing, or freezing. You will “be defensive” by attacking back, retreating, evading, or ganging up with others. Of course, depending on your reaction, you can almost guarantee that I will respond with one of those as well.

The “threat response” is part of what Dr. Daniel Goleman called “hijacking the amygdala” and is well defined in Dr. Joseph LeDoux’s research. The amgydala is one of the primary emotional centers in the brain; one core function is reacting to perceived danger. As Dr. Peter Salovey says, this reaction is actually an example of the intelligence of our emotions — a kind of “emotional logic” is followed and decisions are made with little or no cognitive thought; the problem is that few of us have developed this aspect of our intelligence.

So what constitutes “threat” from the amygdala’s point of view? Almost any interaction where someone is trying to take power over someone else will trigger the “survival response.” People try to take power by putting others down, shaming, blaming, embarrassing, judging, discrediting, and dividing.

You can see this dynamic at play on a daily basis in most businesses, schools, and families. I want to be right so I walk in blaming and judging, putting down other people; if I “make them less” it seems to strengthen my position. The other person reacts in survival mode, and the situation escalates. It happens almost every time. Yet, time after time, I see myself and others surprised and disappointed when people are defensive!

Perhaps the surprise comes because most of us believe we are masters of deception. “I can be hurt, frustrated, and impatient,” I think to myself, “but I’ll ‘put that aside’ and ask you calmly what happened.” Guess what? I “calmly” ask you what happened, and you react like I’ve said, “You screwed up and I’m hurt, frustrated, and impatient!”

Think how often something like this happens to you: You try and “put aside your feelings” and act calmly, but people respond as if you’ve attacked them.

One reason for the (mis)understanding comes from another survival mechanism in our limbic brains. Not only do we act to protect when attacked, we are keenly sensitive to potential threats. The limbic brain actually seeks out feelings in others that indicate danger — it’s like a “Danger Radar.” A danger radar looking for potentially hostile emotions, such as anger, frustration, fear, anxiety. Anxiety is a major issue in today’s stressful environment – our brains are constantly alerting us to be prepared for battle.

When you and I are talking, your limbic brain is a danger radar checking me out. Let’s say I am trying to appear calm, but underneath I’m really frustrated. Not with you, I’m just frustrated about something I heard on the phone. So I talk to you, and ask you to work on a project. My words are not unreasonable, but underneath your radar is picking something up. You’re sensing that my words and my feelings don’t match. You might not know exactly what I’m feeling, you simply sense there’s an issue. Just the mismatch itself is enough to create fear in you — after all, I’m hiding something from you, and you’re limbic brain knows that when people are deceiving you, it might be because they want to hurt you.

One way our “Danger Radar” works is by reading facial expressions and tone of voice. In Dr. Albert Mehrabian’s research at UCLA, the team found that only 7% of communication comes in words — the rest is tone, body language, and expression. Dr. Paul Ekman’s work on facial expression reinforces this conclusion; Ekman has found people display a massive amount of emotional information through “micro expression” that flit across all our faces. While most people notice general patterns of these expression, Ekman says, very few can accurately “read” a stream of micro expressions. So, while we can tell in general that someone is vexed and trying to hide it, we probably can’t tell if their displeasure is directed at us!

In any case, in the midst of our interaction, there is a lot of room for the underlying emotions and intentions to influence thinking. You might not know exactly what’s going on with me, but you sense a lack of congruence or authenticity. Depending on your feelings and experience, and our relationship, you’re limbic brain sends you to battle stations, and we can become reactive to one another very quickly.

Given this dynamic, it’s no wonder people spend so much time and energy attacking and defending, being right, making others wrong. “Flowing” like the stone ball fountain is tremendously challenging amidst all this hostility.

To recap, there are several reasons why we tend to “Hit Back First”:

1. People defend themselves (with an F) when they perceive danger.
2. Our amygdala are on the lookout for emotions that could be dangerous, such as anger or fear; a mismatch between words, expression, and feelings is dangerous.
3. Anxiety or stress increases the “danger alert level” so we’re even more sensitive.
4. If there is any “attack” in our approach, we invite — almost guarantee — a defense. Even if we try to hide our frustration and anger.

What can you do about it? In Part Two will explore the metaphor of the fountain and the opportunities we have to flow instead of fight. In the mean time, try these exercises to increase your awareness of Hitting Back First and the Danger Radar.

• Tune into your own “Danger Radar” feelings to learn what triggers your Flight, Fight, or Freeze response. For the next day or two, notice yourself as you either get angry, frustrated, afraid, or defensive. What other feelings do you have at the same time? When do you find yourself wanting to fight? To flee? To freeze (or shut down)? What physical sensations do you have — in your palms, your gut, your neck/back/shoulders?
• Play the “silent movie game” at lunch, on the bus, or in an airport: Watch people and see if you can guess what’s going on inside. The game is more fun when you have someone playing along — each of you observe the same scene, then compare notes on what you think each person was feeling.
• Look at your own micro expressions. Get someone to videotape you doing an activity that causes a variety of feelings (such as talking to your mother-in-law). Then watch the tape pausing every few seconds. If you’re feeling bold, invite your “silent movie game” partner to watch with you; you are likely to be amazed at how much s/he is able to see.
• Create a “stress-o-meter” – it can be as simple as an index card with a scale from 1-10, and a paperclip you slide up and down. When you’re really fatigued, stretched, at the end of your rope, or anxious, put the clip near 10. When you’re cool and collected, put it near 1. A few times each day, check in with yourself, notice your stress level, and mark it on the stress-o-meter. Don’t do anything to “manage” the stress right now — just notice.
• At the same time, just notice how your own level of reactivity changes along with the stress-o-meter. Again, don’t judge it or change it, just notice how your stress-o-meter level affects your Danger Radar. You can make this more fun by putting a bunch of pennies in one pocket or on the corner of your desk. Every time you feel reactive, put one penny in a jar.
• Check your own congruence or authenticity. When you are saying something you don’t truly mean, what are you feeling emotionally and physically? When you are not completely congruent, how does that affect your voice, your posture, your energy level, your neck pain, your ability to sit still, your clenching of muscles (such as your toes)? Once again, the exercise is not about being more congruent — it’s just noticing the subtle signals that go along with hiding (or trying to hide) some parts of your feelings.

I have found that many people — myself included — don’t particularly like to look at the “Hit Back First” parts of ourselves without a great deal of safety. By definition you don’t feel safe when you’re Danger Radar is buzzing, so it’s quite a challenge. You may find yourself avoiding this investigation by being defensive, trivializing, or even hitting yourself back!

If you find yourself avoiding looking at your patterns around reactivity, it may be because you’re also making judgments about what you observe (ie., telling yourself that something is wrong or right, that it should be one way not another, or even that this is an exception not the rule). Notice the judgments (don’t judge yourself for having them), and tell yourself, “Yes, that’s one possible judgement (and there are other reasonable conclusions too).”

While you wait for part two, keep this in mind: While you’re striving for primacy in the fight, you will always have to strive. When you choose to practice your emotional wisdom, to practice living in flow, you will discover a true strength that liberates you from the need show how strong you are.

Continued in Part Two: The Water is Stronger →

EQ Reflection:  London, Feb 22, 1999

First of all, THANK YOU to all of you who wrote in response to the last newsletter. Many of you said the news from the SWF was inspiring — and the dozens (hundreds?) of responses to that message clarified two lessons: that I have a tremendous privilege to “act as a conduit” to share this kind of hope (and hereby promise to do so), and that feelings speak louder than ideas.

We just returned from London, we were there facilitating another international EQ seminar — this one for 5 days with about 20 people from six countries. I was struggling with an old issue.

When I was a classroom teacher, I used to get so upset when my students and I were in conflict. I got upset when there was palpable tension, when people where sad, angry, frustrated, when there were strong emotions… and I am glad that I was emotionally present for my students, but I am sorry that I “rode the rollercoaster of adolescence” with them. What I learned was that there is a certain level of emotionallity and even conflict that is essential to learning. I never was comfortable with a room full of students frustrated with me, but it became less catastrophic.

And, every year around this time, my students were at a particular stage of group development where they were resistant to taking individual responsibility for themselves as group members, and I always felt that somehow I had failed.

Last week in the seminar, I found myself in the same situation, knowing that the rising sense of frustration is an inherent and important part of a group’s development, (the “storming” that leads to “norming”), yet saddened and frustrated myself. Why do people have to snap at _me_?

And I realized that it is not _me_ that is the target of frustration. It is the old learning that must be unlearned. The preconceptions, the expectations that gradually are replaced by real communication and understanding. Not only is the “storming” an important part of the process, it is evidence of a high level of commitment. It is a demonstration that we, as a group, are willing to learn. As is the laughter, the tears, the openness, the contemplative listening, or the excitement.

Likewise, today you will walk into the world and you will choose to “go with the flow” or to “be a rock in the river” — and if you choose to stand for change, there will be resistance. And while I do not suggest you step out an incite conflict, I do suggest that you look it lovingly in the eyes.

For those of you left wondering about London last week, at a break I took a short walk and remembered the reasons I do this work. I came back, and afterwards my own “negative” feelings evaporated — I was excited to be in a room full of learners. Pretty soon group members from across the world were taking the risk to speak from their hearts. I know that we 20 will support one another in this work. I also know that facing my own fears may help, in some small way, children in those six countries learn that their emotions are an essential part of learning.

- Josh