Com101 – Emotions Are Real

I want to start this article on emotions with one of the most powerful realizations I’ve ever heard about humans.

“Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.”  My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.

Have you ever noticed that as other people’s emotions become elevated, they seems to hear our words less and less?  People will say and do things they wouldn’t normally do.  This is because they are not physically capable of thinking clearly.  Biologically, our emotions come first, and our logical thinking comes second.  When we are safe and calm, the thinking side of our brain is allowed to happen, but when we are emotional, our lizard brain starts to take over and the blood flow to the thinking side of our brain begins to get cut off.  It’s like the early stages of fight-or-flight are starting to kick in.

I once had a relationship counsellor show me this in real time.  She saw that I was getting emotional and not responding logically.  I wasn’t thinking straight; I was confused.  She asked me to take my own pulse.  It was fast.  She told me we would take a small break from the talking and asked me to take five slow deep breaths.  I did.  When I was finished with the breathing, my pulse was slow again and I could think clearly once more.  Honestly, it was amazing how obvious it was.  I went from struggling to clear my foggy thoughts to calm clear; simply by breathing.

The lessons there was, when I’m emotional, my pulse is racing and I’m not thinking clearly.  When I lower my pulse, my thinking comes back online.  A great way to control my pulse is to breathe deeply.  Taking deep breaths just might be a human’s secret weapon when it comes to emotional regulation.

Over the years, I’ve created a lot of written notes, plans, and even agreements with the person I was dating to help us when we get flustered.  We carefully described how we would improve our behavior when we were in the middle of a disagreement or misunderstanding.  Pages titled “Fair Fighting Agreements” or “Timeout Cheat Sheet”, captured many great intentions.  These ideas were then placed in handy locations like purses, wallets, or on the fridge.  However, time and time again, these plans and reminders were useless.  It was like they vanished once our emotions started to elevate.  We wouldn’t even remember they existed until long after the disagreement was over.

One time, in the middle of a very emotional misunderstanding, I managed to remember the paper with the agreements was in the next room.  I knew we had just updated these agreements a few hours earlier, but I couldn’t remember a single word on the actual page.  All I could remember was that this paper had all the magical answers that would save us.  I said, “wait.  I need the thing.”  That’s not a joke.  I was so emotionally overwhelmed that my brain barely produced useful words.

I couldn’t think clearly.  I couldn’t speak clearly.  When I dropped the page down between us, we could barely read it.  We could barely understand it.  We eventual recognized the words, “overwhelmed,” and “timeout.  I love you,” on the page.  We realized we should stop and take a timeout.  We did.

When we calmed down, we reread the paper, the words all made perfect sense again.  That was the day we finally realized we had been repeatedly setting ourselves up to fail.  We left ourselves this elaborate tool that was always going to fail us.  Any and every conflict communication plan was always going be completely useless the moment we needed it because we wouldn’t be thinking clearly once we were upset.  When we needed the tool the most it was guaranteed to be forgotten and useless.

What a revelation that was.  We had repeatedly been so hard on ourselves up until that point.  Previously, we stressed over how bad we were at communicating.  We’d ask ourselves, “what’s wrong with us?  Why can’t we do the things we said we would do?”  It turned out, nothing was wrong with us.  We had tasked ourselves with something that was near impossible for humans to do and we were, in fact, human.

What if, as a human’s emotions rise, that human’s thinking falls away to almost nothing.  What if it is not fair to expect anyone to think clearly when they are emotional.  What if we really are “feeling creatures” who feel first and thinking last.  What if the more we are feeling, the less we are thinking.  How might your life change if you treated all humans, including yourself, as if this idea was a fact?

My partner and I also realized, if one of us was already triggered by emotions, talking to them is probably only going to make matters worse.  They are already overloaded; their brain is not working right.  They are in the middle of shutting down or freaking out, depending on their flight-or-flight response.  They need less input from the outside world, not more.  They need the opposite of someone dumping a pile of words on them.

I don’t want you to believe me, I want you to try it.  I challenge you to try this experiment: the next time you are in a disagreement where your own emotions are high, try opening your web browser and finding this page.  You will be very surprised at how hard it will be to even remember this challenge.  Odds are, you will completely forget the challenge in an emotional moment.  Later, after you have been calm for a while, it will hit you; “why didn’t I go for that ‘timeout’ article?”

The day you manage to remember this challenge in the middle of an emotional misunderstanding, you will see firsthand how hard it was to simply open your web browser.  If you make it to this page, and you can manage to make out the words, here’s what I want you to see:

Timeout.  Deep Breaths.

The only way to get our brain back online is to calm down.  Saying “hey, calm down,” is the worst way to attempt to do that.  You will probably get the opposite reaction if you try that.  I don’t recommend ever telling someone to “calm down.”

To calm ourselves, we need to slow our pulse down.  A great way to do that is to take slow deep breaths.  We also want to quiet the emotional narrative that’s probably spiraling inside our head.  A great way to do that is to force it to say what we want it to say by counting the seconds while we breathe.

Breathe in and count four seconds aloud or in your head as you inhale.  “1, 2, 3, 4.”  Hold it for one second.  When I hold, think the word, “and.”  Then breath out and count six seconds in your head as you do.  “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.”  Hold it for one second again with an “and.”

Don’t think about the emotional moment.  Don’t think about the person or the  misunderstanding.  Don’t think about what you’re going to say next in the argument.  Focus only on your breath and the counting.  When we’re counting, the narrator in our head has a harder time chattering away about whatever is making us upset because we are forcing it to do something else.  Metaphorically, the narrator’s mouth is already full because we are stuffing words in its mouth.  We force it to say, “1, 2, 3, 4, and, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and, in, 2, 3, 4, and, out, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and, in, …”

Keep focusing on the breathing and the counting until your pulse is back to normal and you are calm and clear.

Again, “we are feeling creatures that think.”

Timeout.
Deep Breaths.
4 in, hold 1,
6 out, hold 1.

Maybe now is a good time to click the  bookmark button on this page for later; or maybe text a link to yourself and you partner.  Maybe now is a good time to put a note on the fridge that says, “Timeout.  Deep Breaths.”

I’d also like to confess that the word, “timeout,” is vastly more powerful that I originally thought it was.  For years, I had heard of the idea of saying “timeout” in a heated moment.  I received this advice from many sources.  For some reason, I thought it was silly and I didn’t do it.  It seemed ridiculous that two adults would ever need to use a safeword in the middle of an argument.  Therefore, I barely used it.  Now I use it all the time.  After the event where we couldn’t read the paper, I started calling timeout a lot more often and a lot sooner in the emotional escalation.

Eventually my partner and I modified it to be, “Timeout.  I love you.”  We realized we really needed that, “I love you,” because we were in the middle of emotions.  These emotions were basically lying to us and making it seem like the other person was against us and didn’t love us.  Of course, that was ridiculous and  false.  We loved each other very much!  We had assured each other many times over that, “even when we were at odds, I still loved you.”  Yet, in the heat of the moment, that fact seemed to evaporate.  So, when “timeout” was called, we really needed that “I love you,” to wake us up to how we were viewing and treating the person we loved who also loved us back.

Tool: Check-in & Timeout

This technique is the first step in turning conflicts into conversations.  This tool always comes first when compared to all the other tools I’ll share in this series.

“Check-in & Timeout” Steps:

1. Rate the intensity of your emotions on a scale from 1 to 10 using the prompt, “emotional, where am I at?”
2. “Timeout” with a “T”. If the rating is more than 2, place your hands together to form a “T,” which is the signal to call a “timeout” in most sporting activities.  Call a “timeout” even if you’re by yourself.  If you’re with someone else, say what’s happening.  Maybe say, “timeout.  I love you.” or “timeout.  I appreciate you,” and then inform them that you need 15 to 20 minutes of space.
3. Breathe.  After finding a quiet place, take at least as many deep breaths as your highest rated number.  The breathing technique is 4 in, hold 1, 6 out, hold 1 or “in, 2, 3, 4, and, out, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and…”  Count full cycles on your hands, using your fingers, so your already overwhelmed brain doesn’t have to struggle with that.
4. Sit with it? If you called a timeout, use the “Sit with it” tools.  (Details in future articles and in the tools index.  “Coming Soon.”)

Physically making the “T” with your hands is the most important part of this tool.  It’s a physical and visual aid when we are too emotional to understand what is being said.  It’s a signal to ourselves and to the other person.  It works even when other people are talking or yelling.  It works even when we can’t seem to think clearly and form words of our own.  Make the “T”; don’t skip it.

The “check-in and timeout” tool is a major part of how we will achieve the intentions set forth by this series.  Recall from the first article, our first two intentions were to:  (1) get clear with yourself, and (2) create a safe container to have a conversation in.  With this tool, we are focusing on keeping ourselves and the other person safe.  If we are too emotional, we are not thinking clearly, and we cannot have an actual conversation.  So, we call a timeout immediately.

In my opinion, this is the first and most important communication tool in this series.  All the other tools are easier to implement and are more effective when the “check-in & timeout” tool comes first.  In the heat of the moment, if you don’t do this first, you may never be able to even attempt any of the other tools.

If you only try one technique in this whole series, I highly recommend practicing this one.  I believe you would be wasting your time or even sabotaging your changes if you practice any other tool before this one.

Suggestions for how to actively practice this tool will be found under the heading “Exercise: Practicing a Self Check-in” at the end of the next article (coming soon).