CHAPTER 5

REWIRING FOR GREATER PERFORMANCE AND TO LIVE OUR INTENTIONS

To do good things in the world, first you must know who you are and what gives meaning in your life.
—Paula P. Brownlee

Given our brain structure and the eons of evolution that have created our current human condition, is it possible to improve our level of emotional intelligence? If we look at that question in light of our working definition of emotional intelligence, the answer is yes. By thoughtfully applying what we know about the origins of behavior and the impact of emotions, each person can deliberately determine a path for greater emotional intelligence. For years, psychotherapy reconstructed our emotional pathways so that the results of traumatic events are lessened. Therefore, if people are able to learn ways to minimize trauma, people are certainly able to learn ways of addressing less severe emotional reactions that could be robbing or hijacking them of their intentions. In another context, some patients with disorders other than dealing with trauma are able to change destructive patterns of reaction through behavior therapy. New emotional learning can take place. This emotional learning, however, does not happen without intention and without method. In therapy, people are directed to reorder their emotional reactions to recover from trauma or other events with the help of a therapist. For those people motivated to improve their lives, not for therapeutic reasons, but for reasons of self-actualization, the news is good. By self-actualization, I mean the human desire for fulfillment, namely for a person to become everything he or she is capable of becoming, in essence our ideal selves. Emotional intelligence is an essential piece of this struggle. Those who have the desire and who work at it can definitely increase their emotional intelligence. In fact, for most people this is the ongoing process of emotional maturity. With thoughtful method, emotional maturity can be escalated to even greater emotional wisdom.

Also, unlike IQ, emotional intelligence is not a fixed capacity. The limits of IQ are quite well known. People either have the capacity to learn quadratic equations or not. Sure, there is some variance, but the variance is within a limited range. Even if someone has never been taught how to do the math that will solve the equations, it's certain that with the right teacher one either will be able to or not, depending on his or her mental capabilities. Emotional intelligence, however, is different; the limits are broader. The emotional capacity of an individual can increase with age and life experiences. This capacity certainly includes the ability to manage oneself and one's relationships.¹ For example, life experiences change not only the knowledge level but also the emotional wiring that contributes to people's maturity. Given the normal path of development, a toddler and a teenager learn how to control impulses. As a result, emotional outbursts lessen as they mature. That same toddler and teenager are also accumulating life experiences in the hippocampus and the amygdala that contribute to their development. So their capacity for emotional intelligence is actually increasing. Take another example. Many children have not experienced loss and its accompanying grief, so they may not fully understand these concepts. However, as we age and experience loss in our lives, we develop a greater capacity to understand our own experiences and to empathize with others who may be experiencing loss. In this way, our capacity increases and adds to our emotional intelligence. However, without reflection and purposeful direction, some of that capacity will surely be lost.

Emotional intelligence harnesses and takes advantage of life experiences to add to our storehouse of emotional wisdom. At the same time, however, reflection and purposeful direction can also weed out of our limbic system reactions to life experiences that are detrimental to our evolving emotional intelligence. Behaviors resulting from fear, anger, and other negative responses to some life events may simply not be healthy or serve a purpose in our lives. Reflection on which behaviors are causing harm and inhibiting us from becoming who we intend to be serves an important purpose. None of this, however, can occur without thoughtful direction. Glimpses of insight must be cultivated so that these moments will result in lessons truly learned. If not, these moments will fade quickly, and we will repeat our errors in the next encounter.

Thoughtful and purposeful reflection can produce new learning. This new learning will eventually rewire our limbic system so that our emotional reactions are more in line with our intentions. That's not to say that we will never experience emotional hijacking, but rather that we will often be able to redirect a hijacking before it takes over en route to a land we don't care to visit. Most of us have experienced a time when we were proud that we avoided losing our temper or overcame some fear that interfered with our intentions. Capitalizing on that experience opens the path to greater emotional intelligence. Accumulating these experiences creates new pathways for our limbic system and reinforces behaviors that are more in line with our intentions.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IS A PARTNERSHIP

Emotional intelligence can best be viewed as a partnership between our rational brain and limbic brain. By blending the thoughts offered by our rational brain with the rich information from our limbic brain, we can direct our own actions and behaviors. Otherwise, we will end up in an emotional alley that does not serve us well. Our rational brain can be an important partner that will help us make sense of the emotional memory and storehouse of data collected by our limbic brain. In addition, our rational brain can help our limbic system differentiate the real emergencies that threaten life and limb from those false alarms that our limbic system may be programmed to sound. Partnership, however, implies exchange. Indeed, our limbic brains have a wealth of information to share as well. Emotional intelligence isn't about extinguishing our emotions as may be implied if the rational brain rules; instead it's about understanding when our emotions can help us live our intentions and when our emotions may be getting in the way. It's about channeling our emotions in a fashion that works to our advantage. All emotion is useful. It's how we experience and behave as a result of our emotions that can cause peace or distress in our lives. I like to think of emotional intelligence as a radio to which we can tune in and then turn the volume on our emotions up or turn down to enjoy the desired music in our lives.

The music I'm referring to is living our intentions. What do we intend to do? What is our purpose? Emotional intelligence allows us to harness our emotions so that we can honor our intentions. It isn't that emotions are positive or negative. They just exist. Their existence lends information and energy to our lives. And because they exist, it's essential to understand how they influence behavior and how to interpret and master them so that our intentions are honored rather than corrupted. As in the earlier example of my grandchild running into the street, living my intention means finding a way to deal with the emotions that prevail, while still honoring my values. In that example, terror overrode my intentions. Imagining my grandchild in harm's way hijacked me from my intentions, which were not to beat or belittle the child. My actions violated my intentions. In this scenario, would it be possible to save the child from danger, while maintaining the integrity of my values? Most people can easily recognize that, in fact, both could have been accomplished. Instantly grabbing the child and hugging him while expressing my obvious fear and strongly stating my objection to his behavior would have accomplished both objectives. Emotional intelligence allows for that kind of mastery.

INTRODUCING YOUR SELF-COACH

It would be great if we all had someone who could follow us around during the day and help us know exactly what, when, and how to interact with others, but in reality, we're generally left to our own devices. Surely many methods exist to achieve mastery in the area of emotional intelligence. In this book, I am proposing the notion of a self-coach to help improve our emotional intelligence. By creating a self-coach, we would have someone to consult, someone to whisper in our ear, and someone to advise us about the sometimes treacherous path of human interaction. The self-coach I'm proposing lives within each of us, because I believe that we each have a higher capacity that we could tap into examine our behaviors and determine if we are acting in line with our intentions.

¹Goleman, Daniel. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books, 1995.