Who is Emotionally Smarter Sex, Men or Women?
February 10, 2008
Are Women Emotionally Smarter Than Men?
Men are reasonable! Women are emotional! In the intellectual arena, men and women have gained equality, but in the field of emotional intelligence, there still seems to be a conflict. The question is: Who is the emotionally smarter sex, men or women?
Often, women are accused of being too emotional and men of not being emotional enough. Yet, at times, the opposite is true: women can be insensitive and men can be hypersensitive. In the day-to-day reality of our lives, what we have all experienced is that both genders struggle with emotional matters. Although we are a highly evolved society that excels in technology and the sciences, in the domain of emotions, we are painfully under-educated.
Women may be more vocal and expressive about their feelings, but that doesn’t mean that they understand and manage their feelings more skillfully than men do. Men may be more selective in their attentiveness to or expression of their feelings, but that doesn’t mean they are deprived of having emotional experiences. Men and women have an equal capacity to feel; they are just using this function differently. With the help of societal conditioning, men may feel more freedom to express emotions that relate to their favorite sports teams and the ups and downs of their stock investments, while women feel greater permission to express emotions that relate to their children, lovers and friends. Yet - beyond all psychological conditioning and gender reinforcements - the emotional reality is the both sexes possess feelings about the full range of life’s experiences.
The problem we experience with understanding and managing emotions is not in our capacity to feel - whether we feel “too much” or “too little” - but rather how we relate to our feelings. Many of us are confused about our emotions. Society teaches us to value our intellect and ignore our feelings, yet everything we do in life is measured on a “feeling” scale; we organize our lives, educate our minds, and train our bodies so that we can feel a certain way. In order to become emotionally smarter, we need to change the way we view our emotions.
Emotions are messengers that continuously provide us with information about how we’re involved in specific situations, especially situations that matter to us. If we were indifferent, we would have no emotional reaction at all. So, emotions give us the information, and then WE decide what to do with that information. Regardless of our gender, we choose our attitude or behavior according to our preferences, the same way we choose what type of food to eat or music to listen to. For the most part, we make our choices based upon our own uniqueness and not according to our gender.
Therefore, the important question is not “Who is smarter?” but rather, how can we – both men and women - become more emotionally integrated and mature? How can we cultivate the emotional wisdom that will allow us to live more enjoyable, fulfilling, and rewarding lives?Emotional intelligence, like cognitive intelligence, helps us understand who we are and how we relate to our environment. Thoughts help us understand what we’re dealing with; emotions help us understand how. We need thinking AND feeling to fully understand and express our humanness. So instead of intensifying our differences, let’s can embrace them. Instead of competing with each other, let’s learn how to understand each other better.And let’s take the first step by coming to understand ourselves and our own emotions more fully than ever before. To learn more about how to be the master of your emotions, I invite you to read my book Emotions Simplified or attend one of my life-changing workshops.
What’s Wrong With Being Angry?
February 10, 2008
What’s Wrong With Being Angry?
Anger is a powerful emotion, we would probably all agree. When all hell breaks loose and you feel really angry, does that mean that you are doing something wrong? Is a frustrating or difficult situation made even worse by deciding that your angry reaction to it is terribly wrong? And can you feel angry without making yourself wrong?
Then there are feelings we are allowed, and even supposed to feel, such as happiness. In the pursuit of happiness, we buy or do things striving to be in this blissful state all the time…and sometimes reach an obsession with it, thinking that if we don’t feel happy, something must be terribly wrong with us. Whether from our parents or society, we receive messages that anger is bad, happiness is good, and that we should feel some emotions and not others. Have you noticed how quick we are to put a label on our emotions and consequently judge ourselves as being or doing something wrong either because we have or don’t have certain feelings? Every day we are told what we should and shouldn’t feel – as if we were machines and could dictate our feelings! Imagine if we imposed the same rules on our skin and said that the skin should only feel touch but not pain. Would that make any sense? A kind of tactile selectiveness that wouldn’t allow us to register our physical pain would actually impair our ability to survive and evolve! So what makes us believe that we should classify our feelings?
The purpose of emotions is to get our attention so that we can mindfully engage in life.
Classifying emotions and feelings as good or bad does not describe their real purpose or meaning but only gives us an easy way to label them. Emotions are neither good nor bad, just messengers. There is no “good” messenger or “bad” messenger. The messages of our emotions can be favorable and unfavorable, as the actions provoked by our feelings can have favorable or unfavorable consequences, but the messengers themselves are neutral. They are like a yellow traffic light – they ask you to slow down and pay attention to something. However, you are still in the driver’s seat of your life.
Anger often delivers a specific message informing you that someone’s attitude or behavior has violated one of your important values. If you unconsciously react, your anger can transform into outward intimidation or hostility, and unfavorable consequences can quickly ensue. If your response is mindful, you can transform anger into determination or assertiveness, creating favorable results. Therefore, anger itself is just a messenger; the way we interpret and react or respond to its message can be categorized as favorable (good) or unfavorable (bad).
Whenever your emotions get your attention, welcome them. Emotions are faithful (and sometimes relentless) messengers. Like a mailman arriving at your door, if anger shows up, open the door and acknowledge it; be aware that there is an important message for you. Though you may decide to deal with it later, make a mental note that anger showed up to inform you about something that is important to you. Ignoring your messengers does not make them disappear. When you ignore your emotions, they will show up again, and again. Every time you feel angry, it seems that regardless of the reasons, the intensity of anger keeps accumulating (which explains what makes us sometime explode, seemingly “out of the blue”). Ignoring your emotional messengers is like receiving a bill in the mail but ignoring it – the bill will not go away, but it will accumulate penalties and interest.
Emotions are messengers. As discussed above, the message that anger brings is often about our values and standards. When you feel angry, you’re informed that someone has violated one of your important values. Ironically, we are told that anger is undesirable: girls are taught to deny anger; boys are taught to suppress anger, and in relationships we are encouraged to avoid it as often as possible. Yet, here is the real truth: There is nothing wrong with feeling angry. There is nothing wrong with feeling angry because there is everything right about knowing who we are and what we stand for. Next time you’re angry, use the opportunity to its fullest - use it to:
- Learn about your uniqueness
- Demonstrate your values and standards
The more you pay attention to anger’s messages, the easier it will be to identify and respect your boundaries. And what could possibly be wrong with that? For example, if someone yells at you, at first you feel angry so that you’re able to recognize that yelling is not your preferred way of communication. Then you have the opportunity to honestly express what is important to you (your values and standards) in communicating with another. If you yell back while stating that yelling is not acceptable, you just demonstrated incongruence and the same standards as the “offender.” However, if you calmly and assertively communicate that you do not enjoy yelling and that you will respond only to a tone of voice that is moderate (yet still expressive), then you have set a healthy boundary, demonstrated your values and standards (such as respect and integrity), and can proceed in your communications from a place of empowerment. This can be the favorable turning point in any moment of conflict - where respecting ourselves and others in heated moments can ultimately result in inspiring communication breakthroughs.
To learn more about how to be the master of your emotions, I invite you to read my book Emotions Simplified or attend one of my life-changing workshops.
The Four Emotional Mistakes People Make
February 6, 2008
The Four Emotional Mistakes People Make
You know the unspoken rule: Don’t talk about politics at parties or family gatherings. Although you may abide by this social custom, have you ever wondered why this particular topic is so taboo? Why are we able to discuss our careers, our favorite sports teams, and the latest films, but not a subject of such universal importance?
The reason is that political talk easily becomes heated, leaving everyone but the individuals engaged in the conversation feeling uncomfortable and looking for the nearest exit. The interesting phenomenon about political conversation is that the conversational outsider (i.e., the observer) and the insider (i.e., the contender) have very different emotional experiences. Usually, the observer senses discomfort and tension, while contenders feel engaged and energized. The observer feels hostility brewing among the conversationalists, while the contenders themselves feel enjoyment. If asked to stop the conversation because it is causing discomfort to others, the contenders would look surprised, deny any hostility, and wonder what is wrong with expressing their passion. Does this sound familiar?
Emotional Mistake #1
The scenario above illustrates one of the most common mistakes we make in interpreting our feelings: we focus on the intensity and not the quality of a feeling. This can easily result in mistakenly naming one feeling when we actually mean another, such as confusing hostility and opposition with genuine passion.
Emotions are messengers that inform us about the way we are engaged in a given situation. Passion tells us that we’re strongly pulled toward something, approving of it. For example, when two people are discussing a sports team that both loyally follow, they tend to feel drawn closer by their shared enthusiasm. While in a heated political conversation – expressing opposing views – the individuals involved can end up feeling antagonistic and strongly disapproving of each other.
Again, focused on the intensity of our feelings and missing their meaning leads us to miss-label our feelings and sometimes misinterpret them in the extreme: boredom is mistaken for depression, restlessness for anxiety, and disagreement for rejection.
Emotional Mistake #2
The second mistake is that we are not aware of our feelings. Because we are not taught to pay attention to our feelings – and are even encouraged to ignore them - we often lack awareness of what is emotionally happening within ourselves. This explains how someone engaged in a political conversation can start with passion and end up with anger and hostility, unaware of the emotional shift that has taken place. Passionate about a specific issue, an individual starts by sharing his point of view. When met with resistance, he starts feeling frustrated. And since the issue in question is important to him, prolonged resistance and disagreement further transforms frustration into anger and hostility. Ironically, the initial intention for sharing passion about a specific subject was to find common ground and get closer to others. Unfortunately, as the conversation progresses and hostilities rise, instead of being drawn together, people are torn apart – often not understanding why. Unaware of our feelings, we miss-communicate our message or misinterpret the messages of others, thus missing the golden opportunity to adjust our behavior or attitude and make the connection we truly desire.
Emotional Mistake #3
The third emotional mistake is the way we manage our feelings. To manage something means to control in action or use, such as navigating a boat in a storm. To manage emotions means to understand their purpose and intent and use them to better our lives. When our emotions are clear and unruffled, we are managing them well. But when emotional storms brew, we can get tossed around and temporarily lost in the turmoil. Since we aren’t taught the true purpose and power of our emotions, the mistakes we make in managing them are usually out of ignorance and not malice. Not fully understanding our emotional messengers, we manage them haphazardly, categorize them as negative or useless, dismiss their messages, and – much to our detriment - end up ignoring, suppressing, or numbing our feelings.
The mistakes we make are costly because we deprive our selves of valuable information. Imagine that you receive a bill in the mail that is confusing, containing charges that you do not understand. Would you ignore the bill just because you don’t understand it? Probably not. That would be ludicrous! Most likely, you would examine the bill carefully so that you ultimately understand the mystery charges and can decide how to best deal with them. In emotional matters, we should do the same – understand rather than ignore our feelings so that we can manage them effectively.
Emotional Mistake #4
The fourth emotional mistake relates to expression. To express means to manifest or communicate. Our emotional brain develops before our cognitive brain, therefore we store emotional experiences long before we learn the words that allow us to explain or understand the feelings associated with them. As we develop and grow, there is little educational emphasis placed on how to identify and articulate our feelings – impacting not only the individual but the collective, as we attempt to relate to one another in good times and in bad.
Often, when we feel internally conflicted and confused, we either express our feelings unskillfully or don’t express them at all. Sometimes we express them half way and when unable to articulate the rest, we say, “ - you know what I mean” to fill in the gap. Think about ordering food in a restaurant. What meal would you receive if you are not clear in communicating your order? Would you give a partial order and leave the rest to the waiter to guess? Most likely, you would not take a chance and put yourself at the mercy of someone’s guessing. Then why do we make such a mistake with our emotions?
Considering that we receive little to no education on understanding and managing our emotions, it is no a surprise that most of us struggle with emotional matters. In almost every other aspect of our lives we are provided with guidance, but for our tough emotional trials we are left to struggle on our own. With no instructions on how to deal with our feelings, we are doomed to missteps, often making all four of the mistakes described above at once.
My friend Joel and I were recently at a conference, having dinner and networking with an interesting group of people, when someone brought up a subject close to Joel’s heart. The conversation was lively and fun until someone shared a story about helping children gain independence and Joel was inspired to interject. He explained that he has a mentally handicapped daughter who is sixteen years old and partially independent. Being committed to helping his daughter live her best life, Joel further explained that he is on the board of an organization that assists handicapped children. What began as a sincere desire to share his passion for helping children who are similar to his daughter quickly turned into a monologue where Joel found himself preaching about the government’s shortcomings. As he continued to talk about the many things the government does not do for the underprivileged, he noticed the mood change in his audience and decided to swiftly move on to another subject, allowing the lighter conversation at the table to resume.
Later, as Joel reflected upon the event (still stinging from the experience), he told me that he learned to never again express his passion. Entirely misinterpreting the experience, Joel made the four emotional mistakes: firstly, not distinguishing between his passion and his anger; secondly, not noticing when his passion was replaced with hostility toward the government’s failings; thirdly, choosing to numb his feelings as a way to manage them; and fourthly, not seizing the opportunity to articulate what he genuinely wanted to communicate. Although his initial intention was to enlighten others about the subject, he ended up overwhelming them with his disapproval and upset.
As mentioned above, our feelings precede our thoughts. Yet, paradoxically, we learn to pay attention to our thinking while our feelings simply “happen” in the background. Through conventional education and social conditioning, we focus strongly on developing our capacity to think, while neglecting our feeling capacity – which leaves us imbalanced and unskillful in our efforts to relate to others and even ourselves. Like trying to move through life with one lame leg, relying strongly on our thinking, we emotionally hobble along – too often feeling the pain of how we stumble, trip, and sometimes fall when it comes to our feelings and emotions.
Since it’s important to bring some levity and light-heartedness into the experience of re-learning how to manage and express our feelings, I offer you an acronym, L.A.M.E. (like a lame leg), to help you remember and recognize the four emotional mistakes (which are about Labeling, Awareness, Management, Expression) and how to positively transform them in any situation:
- When you notice that you’re flustered or uncertain about your feelings, be mindful that this is when you may be quick to label your feelings and make emotional mistake #1. Take a few minutes and write down 5 different feelings that can describe your current emotional state. Don’t go with the first feeling that comes to your mind or the word that you hear or use most often. Look beyond the surface. Be creative.
- When you notice some type of miscommunication (for example, you feel either not heard or misunderstood), turn your attention inward and reevaluate your emotional state. You may have committed emotional mistake #2. If lacking awareness of your true feelings, you may be the source of the miscommunication. If your feelings are cluttered or conflicting, you may be sending out mixed messages. Make a list of 5 feelings as suggested above, then, sense every feeling until you identify which one resonates the strongest. Be honest with your self.
- The most common way of committing emotional mistake #3 is by unconsciously reacting instead deliberately responding to a situation. The most common techniques we employ to mismanage our emotions are: the knee-jerk reaction, numbing, and/or ignoring our feelings. When in the midst of an emotional storm, imagine having a remote control and then press the “pause” button. Ask yourself the following question: If you were watching your best friend or your child in your current situation, what attitude or behavior would you suggest as the most beneficial way of handling it? Remember, emotions are messenger giving you the opportunity to learn more about who you are or to express your uniqueness. Decide what this specific message is about; then press your imaginary “pause” button again and respond. The energy of emotion is like the wind - it can blow you away or take you places you want to go. You can harness the wind. Be proud that you took charge.
- Many times we give up on our ability to express our sentiment too quickly, and thus make emotional mistake #4. In our “lame” expression, we oftentimes communicate things we don’t really intend. When you find yourself struggling to articulate your feelings, think about what you most want to accomplish. For now, focus on the “receiver” (skip thinking about what you want to say or how you may sound), and think about what you want the other person to hear or get by the end of your conversation. Avoid rehashing the details of the situation, and focus instead on the emotions you would like to bring forth. Name one feeling you have or want to have, and one that you wish for the other person to experience by the end of your communication. For example, you can say: “I feel misunderstood and alienated, and I would like us to feel close again.” As you speak your truth, allow yourself to be empowered by the courage you’re demonstrating.
Understanding and managing emotions does not happen spontaneously. You did not learn to walk or speak overnight, so it will take a little time and practice – but as you will discover, it is well worth the effort. As someone once said, to recognize the problem is half the solution; so, you’re already well on your way to reaching emotional mastery.
To learn more about how to be the master of your emotions, I invite you to read my book Emotions Simplified or attend one of my life-changing workshops.