Emotional Wisdom
Written by Shaun Killian http://leadershipskills.org.au
Emotions are deeply entrenched responses to our environment that have been embedded
into our evolutionary psyche for a reason: to help us
thrive
and survive
.
Imagine for a moment the disgust you would feel upon seeing rotting meat, teeming
with maggots. Our instinctive reaction of disgust primes a natural response in us—do
not eat the meat. Think about other things that disgust you. The evolutionary reason
that you feel disgust is to compel you to avoid digesting or coming into contact with the
object of that disgust.
It is important to note that emotional reactions occur in a different part of the brain than
rational thought. Our ability to think, which is largely governed by the cerebral cortex, is
only one of the many functions of our brain. Emotional reactions, which are largely
governed by the amygdala, are far quicker than rational thought. That is to say, we feel
disgust, and the associated desire not to eat rotting meat, long before our rational mind
tells us that eating it would not be a good idea.
Disgust is not the only emotional reaction to have evolutionary value. Other emotions
prime us to act in different ways. The sadness that comes with losing a loved one often
teaches us what we really should care about in life. This is because sadness primes us to
be open to learning. The idea of learning from our mistakes is hard-wired in our mental
faculties. Fear also has its place. It prompts us to act now in order to prevent something
bad from happening in the future. Anger is an emotion that gets a lot of bad press but
also has evolutionary value. It drives us to rise up against perceived injustices.
Prospective coaching clients often ask us to help them learn to be more assertive. In
reality, it is frequently not assertiveness skills they lack, but rather an unwillingness to
listen to and act on the anger they feel inside.
So should you always act in the way that your emotions induce you to act? The ans