Reverse Thinking

Emotional Intelligence classes for our children, please

Last week, my article arguing that schools ought to provide lessons in emotional intelligence was published in a new book: Shaping a New Educational Landscape, now available from Amazon.

The book has stimulating articles by well-known educationalists, teachers, consultants and government advisors - and me. I urge those of you who can afford it to buy it anyway as it is all in a good cause. We writers are donating all our royalties to the building of a new school in Juba in the Sudan.

The point of my article is that children who aren't taught emotional intelligence aren't likely to make good students. Instead they may be handicapped by low-self-esteem, difficulty in getting along with others, stress, problems in handling setbacks (i.e. giving up too easily), and communicational problems. They will also be battling with rage, and unresolved emotions such as anger, frustration and fear. Which, in turn, leads to disruptive behavior, defiance, exclusion, expulsion and academic failure. Even if the child is an academic success, failures in emotional intelligence can lead later on to a deadening Headmind approach to life. People who score high on IQ (meaning they know how to do quizzes) but low on emotional intelligence may lack warmth, common-sense, empathy, and the ability to relate to ordinary people (a problem I notice, that is widespread amongst medical doctors, academics and lawyers).

I am passionate about this issue because every week, in Reverse Therapy, I work with children and adolescents who are suffering from Chronic Fatigue syndrome, ME, and anxiety problems simply because they have never been taught how to work with their emotions.

Do you agree with me that teaching emotional intelligence to choldren in schools ought to be a priority?

Below are the opening few paragraphs in my article, as published in the book, so that you can get the flavour. Please contribute.

Rousseau revisited: formal and personal learning

‘It takes a village to raise a child.’

African Proverb

 

Introduction 

In this article I want to argue that if formal education is not complemented by methods that elicit social and emotional intelligence from the child then a variety of problems will result that may mean that formal education never gets started. And should it get started it may never be completed if the child does not know how to make use of the ‘learning’ she has been offered. And that even if it is ‘finished’ it may make little difference to her quality of life.

To take my own case: I possess a PhD in Psychology, a Masters in Psychotherapy and a BA in Philosophy. I have lectured in these matters at every grade from A level, through to professional seminars and up to University Undergraduate level. An educational success? Perhaps so. And yet I left school at 15.

After a long period of poor behaviour, indiscipline and dire exam grades at the Grammar school I attended in the UK during the 1970s, my teachers made it clear to me that there was little point in my continuing. That if I did I would very soon be expelled. My working class father was delighted. He saw formal education as a pointless diversion from the real business of learning a trade and making money. So he found me an apprenticeship and it was another 4 (wasted) years before I found the courage to go back into education on another footing.

Although the potential for academic achievement at the Grammar school was present, in my case it was vitiated by immaturity in social relations and self-management; a defect that may have been remediable.

My key difficulty was that I was often overcome by inchoate states of frustration, despondency and rage. These states were hard for me to name, let alone identify. They typically came up after I had been bullied, or punished for what I saw as minor offences, or ridiculed by a teacher, or sitting through lessons in subjects for which I had little interest.

Looking back, I can see clearly that my bad behaviour was promoted by rebelliousness, attention-seeking and revenge. Naturally these responses merely compounded the problem and set the scene for more interactional problems. Another key problem was that the school: its rules, its ethos, and its teaching style seemed both alien and nonsensical to me. Partly this was due to my being one of the very few working-class children at the school. But, more profoundly, I lacked an enlightened tutor – or mentor – who could ‘interpret’ for me. I really needed to be taught how to work the system, as well as recognize both the sources for, and the solution to, my own despair......

The secret to making powerful decisions

I have been writing, on and off, about emotional intelligence for 15 years - here's one of my books here: Communicate with Emotional Intelligence - and it never ceases to intrigue me just how sophisticated Bodymind actually is. 

Let me remind my  readers that emotional intelligence relates to the ability to recognise, and act upon, Bodymind communication to you, and the twin ability to intuit what other peoples' Bodyminds are communicating to them, as you engage.

What is fascinating is that Bodymind uses  a wide variety of means to guide you towards making the decisions that are right for you, and for those you lead. You may be a leader at work, or you may be a leader in your family, in your circle of friends, or for those you teach. Your Bodymind is continually cueing you to exercise your Personal Genius, using emotions, intuitions, gut-feels and sudden inspirations, while you make decisions.

Brain research shows that individuals who have incurred brain injuries which disconnect the frontal lobes (Headmind) from the limbic system (Bodymind) tend to be poor at decision-making. For the simple reason that their thoughts have no emotional back-up and it is difficult for these people to tell the difference between daft ideas and wise ones. 

There is a really good interview on emotionally-biased decision-making with Jonah Lehrer (author of "How We Decide') on this link here: Passions of the Brain.

The secret to making powerful decisions is to be able to recognise, and work with, the emotional cues your body creates in order to guide you towards the best decision available (although, sometimes, Bodymind will tell you to wait, or do nothing).

Crudely speaking, your Body will use an emotional reaction to tell you to take one of the following options in relation to your decisions:

1. Go for it now! This is too good to resist.

2. Go for it, but be careful and take your time.

3. Go for it - but get some more information, or get some help, before you take the first step.

4. Do nothing - for now. Wait for a better opportunity.

5. Do nothing. The idea needs substantial revision.

6. Do nothing - ever. This option is not good for you, or for the other people in your charge.

Generally speaking, good decisions will  be backed up by strong, enthusiastic feeliings, while dubious ones will be accompanied by weak, lacklustre, uneasy, uncomfortable reactions.

In my own, personal, experience my emotional reactions, for each grade of Bodymind decision, are as follows"

1. Excited, joyful, feeling. My heart races and my head 'swims' a little. I am impatient and want to get started right away. I am full or energy. (Example: developing Reverse Therapy).

2. Less excited state, tempered with nervousness.  My upper body fills with desire but I remain clear-headed. I focus on dealing with the problems and pitfalls in the hope that I can eventually get what I want. (Example: Negotiating to buy the house I live in now, five years ago).

3. More scared than excited (I notice fear particularly in my stomach area). I really feel like I want to take things slowly and keep looking around, as if I were in a dark lane that I don't know very well. (Example: dealing with the aftermath of my wife's redundancy last year).

4. A sad, slightly heavy, feeling I notice mostly in my chest. Feels like I have lost an opportunity, as I really want to do something about this, but circumstances are preventing me. (Example: having to give up a planned holiday to the Maldives last year, when my wife lost her job).

5. A tense, slightly angry feeling in my upper chest, throat and jaw that seems to shout 'No!'. (Example: receiving a letter notifying me of a rent increase on my London office premises a few months ago).
 
6. Same as No. 5 but even stronger, and my anger seems more intense. This reaction usually comes when someone tries to take advantage of me, or those close to me. (Example: I find out that my son is in danger of being ripped off by an second-hand car salesman). 

What are your emotional experiences around making decisions? Please email me with those and I will feature them in a future article on practical decision-making.

Writer's unblock

Wow! I have been overwhelmed by your responses to my last post, in which I confessed to writer's block, and subsequent Headmind worries about not being able to write again.

My honesty on the matter prompted many of you to send me messages of appreciation and support, as well as helpful advice on staying out of Headmind and 'going with the flow'.

As the Haiti earthquake disaster indicates, whenever human beings are in trouble, there are many more there to help out. I have written about this before in my article: Kindness is stronger than love. Your own kindness to me is warmly appreciated.

You also sent me some interesting ideas for future articles. I notice that many of those have to do with overcoming Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Stress, Depression, Self-Doubt, and Fear/Worry. Since this Blog actually started out as a channel for helping people address clinical problems, then maybe it is time to return to my root intentions.

Please keep your emails coming - I really find them helpful.

John x

Image by Beverly & Pack

Why guilt is useless

Guilt is a delusionary state. It doesn't serve you at all and is a creation of the imagination; of Headmind's drive towards conformity.

Here's how Headmind creates Guilt:

1. Headmind is stuffed full of judgments about the person you could be, should be, should not be, etc. Those judgments were not originally your own but inherited from other people. But gradually you internalised them and they became self-judgments.

2. These judgments are re-activated by parents, teachers, priests, employers, children and partners who may be exploiting you.

3. Your Headmind buys into those judgments because it seeks acceptance, conformity, and admiration (even from people who don't deserve your respect).

4. Dwelling on occasions in which guilt comes up - and Headmind judges you - creates uncomfortable Bodymind reactions: cringing, agitation, distress. Although Bodymind creates that discomfort in order to warn you not to indulge in guilt, Headmind interprets this as a signal that you are, indeed, a 'bad' person, worthy of punishment.

Here's another way to understand 'Guilt':

1. Earlier societies did not recognise a psychological state known as 'guilt'. For them 'guilt' was simply another word for 'debt' (as in the German/Saxon word: 'gultig'). It simply meant that one person had harmed another and was unable to put things right. For example, one person stole another person's property but was too poor to pay it back - therefore he was 'guilty' and subject to the penalties of the community.

2. Religious influences gradually changed this original meaning of guilt into 'personal sin'.

3.  When Psychology started up in Germany and America in the 19th century it took over religious ideas about 'sin' and reinterpreted them in terms of 'good' and 'evil' actions. So doing one 'bad' thing made you an 'evil' or 'guilty' person - instead of someone who simply made a mistake.  

4. Mistakes and 'bad' actions you committed in the past were based on the knowledge you possessed at the moment you committed them, no matter how daft. For example: you shop-lifted, knowing you couldn't afford something but that you 'had' to have the item anyway. You let the Headmind state of greed get the better of you.

5. Therefore your past mistakes were based on inadequate knowledge (you thought it was ok to steal, or that you wouldn't get caught, or that it wouldn't matter if you did get caught). Your predictions turned out to be wrong, although you didn't  realise that at the time.

6. Your present self-judgments are based on a false premise: your present self blames your past self even though your past self did not possess the experience of knowledge your present self now has.

Here is the truth:

1. You did not actually have free will back then when you committed your error of judgment. You did what you had to do at the time because you lacked Awareness.

2. Indulging in Headmind worry (i.e. analyzing over and over again about what an 'evil' person you were/are) may actually get in the way of your attempts to put things right.

3. If you have really done somebody wrong you could connect to the emotion of remorse and get on with making amends, rather than wasting time on guilt.


Image by Jsome1

Can feeling grumpy be good for you?

I receive a mischievous communication from my very good friend Mark McGuinness who wants me to comment on a research article he has looked into, written by some 'Australian psychologists', which claims that being in a 'bad mood' can be 'good' for you.

Now, some of my best experiences in life have been prompted by my 'bad' moods. With the aid of those I have got rid of countless annoying relationships, irritating jobs and pointless activities. So my first thought was that - yet again - a bunch of overpaid academics were being subsidised to announce discoveries most of us learned in primary school. And that Mark had forgotten our many rambling midnight conversations about emotions and the meaning of life.

Yet I realised immediately that these gorgeous, Bondi-beach seeking academics have made yet another category mistake: While bad moods can, indeed, be 'good', those are not the same as 'bad emotions'.

To remind you: there is no such thing as a bad emotion. Emotions are an expression of Bodymind
intelligence. A mood is different. It is a  Headmind attitude. It expresses a relationship between our attitudes and the world as we find it. You can read more about moods here.

A grumpy mood, for me, is a relationship based on suspicion. It means that I no longer trust that experiences, situations, people, or the Lord God himself are doing me any favours. And that, in turn, is a cue that I need to revise my trusting attitude towards these entities. I need to retreat, stand-off, complain, and have a moan. I may even need to disengage - permanently.

So yes - a grumpy mood can be good for you if it helps you get rid of your intellectual garbage.

The funny thing is that I actually find grumpy moods enjoyable. Entraining my suspicion and pessimism on the planet gives me a god-like sense of detachment and playfulness. It also gives me a playground for wit.

Rather like one of my favourite philosophers - Arthur Schopenhauer - who once wrote:

"If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it."

Come to think of it, Schopenhauer deserves an article all to himself, so I will write that next.

The secret of making great movies II

I received a great response to my last article - The secret of making great movies - with many of you recommending movies and sharing experiences. Thanks to all of you who wrote in.

This response is from my friend Stephan Langguth who is also a German film director, as well as a practitioner of Reverse Therapy. If offers a professional viewpoint as well as making some great observations about emotions and film-making.

Film making can appeal to Headmind as it imagines that there is a place it can control others. "I project my ideas onto the big screen and everyone in the audience will cry. And I sit in the little projection booth laughing." That's the Ego fantasy.

Then one begins to realize that nothing involves viewers unless there is some truly alive thing in everything that happens on set while the camera is recording.

Although the storyboard needs to make some sort of sense in order to maintain the viewer's interest, Headmind does not really enjoy powerful, gripping, intense experiences because then its own importance gets diminished. People forget who they are if they are engrossed in a movie and that means they forget their own cherished obsessions and bananas. So Headmind really wants to put an end to cinematic experiences as soon as possible.

Headmind will often try to reassert its dominance after the movie is over. It does this with unfair comparisons ("not as good as this or that"), nit-picking details ("the director could have done that better") or dismissing emotion ("that 'sentimental' scene spoilt it for me").

So what makes a movie move us?

All the aspects you mention in your first article move the audience only if they are felt in Bodymind by the film-makers while they are making the film. That includes writers, directors and actors as well as the camera operators, film editors and sound producers.

For example, a red interior sometimes feels right yet at other times feels wrong. A close-up sometimes works and sometimes does not work. Gifted film-makers use Bodymind to lead them through the very subtle decisions necessary. These decisions are far too complex for Headmind to make.

One of the most important factors in a great movie is to have actors who stop 'acting' and instead express the character from within. That is because one major part of the cinematic experience is the empathy the audience feels as the mirror neurons in the brain pick up the emotional state of the character.

If the actor is in a false state, just acting out what they assume the character should look like, then the movie will become lifeless, cliched, 'hammy'.

Headmind focused directors like to think they can control the audience with false performances. They end up doing daytime TV ads! I've been on such shoots. If the director talks to the actors at all it mostly consists of a repetitive command like "Look happy, happy happy..." or "act confused now...".

In contrast if the actor forgets herself in favor of being (the character), a great and deeply involving performance becomes possible. This "being" is nothing else than fully connecting to Bodymind. And once the actor is in Bodymind viewers connect to their own Bodymind (an additional benefit for this is that they can spend the next couple of hours without being pestered by their internal control freak).

Makes me feel like getting my camera out again...

Stephan Langguth

The secret of making great movies

My good friend James Carter (who is himself an up-and-coming feature film editor), has been studying Reverse Therapy and tells me that he has identified an important fact about classic movies. And that is that they work on two different levels - the intellectual (or Headmind) level and the emotional/ sensory (Bodymind) level.

He cites Blade Runner as a great movie that many viewers did not understand when it first came out (it bombed at the box office), partly because the plot is complex but, more importantly because each shot seeks to evoke an emotion in us. For that reason the narrative can be hard to follow. Yet it is a film of great, strange, tragic, power. Who can forget the scene in which the android, Rachel, bursts into tears when she discovers that she is in fact a robot and that her memories of a happy childhood are implants. Or the near final scene (above) in which the android played by Rutger Hauer says goodbye to life:

"I've...seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain...Time to die."

James tells me that talented film-makers use a variety of means to convey emotion:

• Close-up shots of the Actors
• The intonation of words
• Landscape and scenery
• Music
• Lighting, shade, color

Looking through lists of 100 best movies it is hard to disagree with James' conclusions. To take some random examples:

• Casablanca. Bogart sitting alone after midnight in his night club mourning over what might have been with Ingrid Bergman and telling Sam to play 'As Time Goes By' again.
• Godfather II. The close up of Michael Corleone's face when he realises that his own brother tried to have him killed. In the background are the still waters of Lake Tahoe.
• On the Waterfront. Marlon Brando's battered face as they ride through a bleak Brooklyn landscape and he tells his corrupt brother that he too 'could have been a contender'. The film is shot in a grainy black-white-and grey.

Interestingly, it seems that a movie can be great even if it only seems to works on the emotional level. Quite a few Spielberg movies fall into this category (example: E.T. The Extra Terrestrial), as does Blade Runner itself. But its hard to think of a great movie that only works on an intellectual level (ultra-boring art-house movies fit here).

What do you think?

Do you have a favorite movie that works on both levels?

Can you name a scene from that movie that does just that?

Why releasing anger is better than controlling it

The myth about anger

A while ago the BBC carried an item about the effects of anger on health.

The argument runs that people who control their anger rather than expressing it are healthier.

This is a common myth and I want to explain why it is wrong. And why expressing your anger is actually better for you in the long run, provided you do it in the right way.

Bodymind creates anger for a purpose

The human body is designed to produce anger and it uses a very sophisticated circuitry to do that - running from the thalamus, through the amygdala and then on through the adrenal glands and the sympathetic nervous system. So we know anger must have an important purpose. Dismissing an emotion like that as harmful or 'bad for your health' is just disrespectful.

The purpose of anger is to ensure that you are treated with respect, protected against exploitation, have your wishes taken seriously, or to cue you towards self-defence.

Your righteous anger

Without anger we would be defenceless against attacks on ourselves or the people we love, against exploitation, cruelty and injustice. What keeps Aung San Suu Kyi fighting against the military in Burma? Her desire to keep her father's dreams for Burma alive are important, to be sure. But I suspect that her passion is what keeps her going when others would just give up.

Even Christ was furious when he noticed the wide boys outside the Temple degrading the holy places. All prophets, all heroes, all crusaders against injustice (think Martin Luther King) have possessed that righteous anger. But they also knew how to channel it in the right direction.

Misusing anger

In Reverse Therapy I notice that people who don't do anger well make three common mistakes:

1. They bottle up anger and later on, once the pot is filled to boiling point, they explode in uncontrollable rage (which creates stress and damages your health)
2. They express anger but don't follow up and ensure that they get what they need (for example, you yell at your daughter for not keeping her room tidy but you don't enforce the rule - so it happens all over again).
3. When they express anger they shout, swear, call names, blame, scream and try to make the other person feel as bad as possible.

The reason for these mistakes is simply lack of education in emotional intelligence. We are told as children that anger is 'bad', 'destructive', 'self-indulgent', etc. So we aren't given permission to explore the emotion in more depth. At the same time we watch the adults around us having tantrums and so we conclude that anger must, indeed, be an evil thing.

Anger is a hot emotion

Anger is a 'hot' emotion. Meaning that most people feel it very powerfully in Bodymind, rising up and demanding fast expression. But that doesn't mean your body wants you to go into a rage. What it means instead is that your body is warning you that something deeply important to you or the people you love is at stake and you need to speak up quickly.

Releasing anger

You can use the Reverse Assertiveness process to channel your anger into words that get people listening to you and ensure that you actually get what you want. Instead of just blowing off.

Just as important as using a formula like this is to practice expressing your disatisfaction every day. No matter how trivial your complaint is, make your likes and dislikes known. If you get them out at an early stage then they you can stay calm and you won't get angry. Nor will you explode in rage. Or get stressed. Or unwell.

One more point. Anger can be divine. Especially when you speak up for the defenceless, the innocent, for those who live in hunger, terror, torture and exile.

If you agree with me that Aung San Suu Kyi's cause is just then please sign the petition calling for her release here.

        "It is wise to direct your anger towards problems - not people. To focus your energies on answers - not excuses."

        W. A. Ward.

The Emotoscope

The Emotoscope is a really neat test on your moods that you can take right now.

It was developed by Josh, who also runs a stimulating blog on emotional intelligence - 6seconds. Full credit to him.

It works by matching your choices from different types of facial expression, to your likely emotional state in the present moment.

The Emotoscope tells me that Bodymind must be creating cellular memories in the Limbic system in order to 'scan' human facial expressions and match them to your own emotions.

Readers may recall that emotions are guides to action that tell you what to do next when you notice a change in the behavior of people around you (e.g., love them a little more, fight them, or walk away).

That mechanism could also work in reverse by tracking back your current emotional state to the faces linked with it.

The more we understand about the relationship between facial recognition, the brain and the emotions, then the more Emotionally Intelligent we are going to become.

Image by MegElizabeth_

12 steps to emotional depth

This says it all really....and it's a neat adaptation of the 12 Steps of Alcoholic's Anonymous to the development of Emotional Health.

Just click on the image to make the text larger.

Image by pshutterbug