Emotions, Moods and Reactions

Today I want to talk about the positive state that we want to aim for most of the time – which will connect us with the emotional resources and clear thinking we need to make our best decisions.

Researchers like Steven Porges call it our social engagement system.

When we feel safe, and trusting, and relaxed, our heart rate and blood pressure lowers, and our heart rate variability increases – our heart rate rises a little on the inhale, and lowers on the exhale, and the difference between these is our heart rate variability. Higher heart rate variability is a good thing. This is all very beneficial for our immune system, our cardio-vascular system, our organs, and our overall health.

We’re also more connected with our higher brain functions, and the part of our vagus nerve that connects the organs of our body with our brain. This is counter to being in the protect mode of fight or flight, so it lowers our stress levels, and makes it easier to think and create with complexity.

When we’re in fight or flight – or the freezing that can happen when we’re in the throes of trauma – we’re not able to distinguish changes in facial expression or vocal tones in others. Which means that it’s nearly impossible to feel connected and attuned to another person.

It’s best if we can stay out of our fight or flight system most of the time, but there are exceptions of course. Athletes tap into the energy of the fight system without getting lost in rage (most of the time – but when athletes “lose it,” they also lose the capacity to think clearly and connect with teammates and opponents, so they also usually lose the competition).

As with athletes, those of us who work in dangerous professions, or who live in threatening environments, may learn to tap into this protective system just enough to keep us appropriately vigilant, but not so much that we’re lost in it completely. Learning to ride this edge is part of the training and skill needed to master such circumstances.

When we’re in an emergency situation, we pop into the fight/flight part of our nervous system automatically in as little as one tenth of a second, and it’s a good thing we do – when there’s an actual emergency.

But with our complex brains and complex histories, many of us can pop into that system – just as automatically and quickly – when there is no actual emergency. This is the cause of much anxiety as well as other psychological symptoms. When that’s the case, it’s even more important to learn how to deliberately move into our social engagement system.

So how do we do that?

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(This is from the introduction to my book, Mastering Emotions, Moods, and Reactions)

Mastering our emotions, moods and reactions begins with understanding our fundamental nature as living, growing organisms. Our biological processes are full of rhythms, pulsations, flowing liquid and moving breath. Nature’s forces are powerful and enduring. If we try to fight against a powerful wind, we can be quickly overcome by it. But if we can accept, study, and harness those same forces, we can power a sailboat or a windmill. By stepping back and looking at the bigger picture of our own internal nature, we can more easily understand our own patterns and rhythms; and if we begin by accepting these as they are, we can use their power and direct them in ways that work better for us, rather than fighting against ourselves; against our own nature.

We begin our exploration with orienting to our biological nature.

From this perspective we can begin to make sense of our flowing emotions, our changing moods, and our sudden and intense reactions.

Distinguishing these three qualities from one another can help us learn what to do with each, with much more clarity than when they’re all thrown together as one experience.

Our emotions are more recent, connected with language, and useful primarily for self-reflection and growth. We’ll explore how to use our emotions in ways that allow us to learn from experiences that anger, hurt, frighten, or delight us so that we can function better in the future.

Our moods are more primitive and move more slowly. They have more to do with energy – raising our mood to meet a challenge or seize an opportunity, or lowering our mood when we suffer a loss, feel stuck, or take on goals that are impossible to achieve. We’ll learn to pay attention to the things that raise and lower our moods, and how to manage the natural ebbs and flows so we can stay connected and engaged through life’s ups and downs.

Our reaction of flight is at the heart of anxiety and panic, and is essentially designed to get us away from serious physical danger quickly. We’ll learn ways of calming and managing anxiety, and finding the actions we can take to strengthen and empower ourselves.

Our reaction of fight is the source of our explosive anger or rage, and is designed to provide us with an extreme intensity of energy and power, to fight against a physical threat from which we cannot escape. We’ll look at how to manage the often destructive reaction of rage, and how to distinguish it from the more useful emotion of anger.

Our reaction of freezing is our most primitive reaction, and is a last ditch effort to save our lives – by immobilizing us and anaesthetizing us when we’re trapped and terrified in the face of mortal danger. We’ll learn ways to come back into our body, and expand our sense of safety and well being.

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You’re out for a very nice dinner with your spouse, and you decide to share a bottle of wine. You look at the wine list, and you see several bottles listed in the $170 range, a few that are in the $50 range, and quite a number of them around $80-$90. $80 is more than you would’ve thought to spend when you left the house, but somehow you’re drawn to the $87 bottle of Cabernet.

$50 being the lowest price seems miserly for a special evening out, and with $170 as an example of a “very nice bottle of wine,” $87 now seems very easy to accept.

This is an example of anchoring. The $170 figure drew your expectations in the direction of that figure, higher than you would’ve chosen otherwise.

If the highest price bottles were all in the $80-$90 range, you probably would’ve chosen a less expensive bottle.

Another example of anchoring is called “rationing,” where you’re told that there’s a limited supply of something.

In one experiment at a supermarket, Campbell’s soup was on sale at 10% off. When there was a sign that also said, “Limit of 12 cans per person,” people bought an average of 7 cans per person – twice as many as when there was no limit. The “anchor” of 12 cans drew people away from the 3-4 cans they would otherwise have bought, and toward the number 12.

If you look for it, you’ll see this technique everywhere in marketing. In most cases it’s relatively harmless, drawing you to buy something that’s a few dollars more than some other product, or to buy a higher quantity of something you would probably use anyway. But as we’ll see, awareness of this technique when you’re facing higher cost items like a car or a home can save you a lot of money.

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