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Emotional Hijackings: Who’s really in control - you or your emotions?
Ashley Burgess-Payne • June 17, 2020
Emotions have the capability of dictating your life and turning you from the master to the puppet dangling helplessly at the wrong end of the string, and it can happen without you even realising it.
The battle is a common one and one as old as time. It’s the battle of reason and emotion (the rational and irrational), and if you’re anything like the majority of humans, it’s one that you are all too familiar with.
Humans are emotional beings (some more so than others) and unfortunately, we often let our emotions get the better of us leading to detrimental consequences, both personally and professionally.
Therefore, to make sure that we are in control of life we need to learn to control our emotions, and in order to do that we must first understand them. Something that is easier said than done, or is it?
What are emotions?
We may describe them as the ebbs and flows of life, the emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs ranging from exceptionally happy highs to devastatingly sad lows and everything else in between. There is a wide range of emotions. But science would explain them as complex electrical signals that travel through our body as a result of either an external or internal stimulus, picked up by our bodily senses (this is known as a trigger event). These signals travel from cell to cell until they reach the brain via the spinal cord, where they cause a reaction to occur e.g. a thought, feeling/emotion which then ignites the body into action. Of course, this is a drastically condensed and simplified version but the principle apples – (trigger event, chemical reaction in the brain, reaction).
Now before we go any further, in order to understand things better it is important to realise one thing. Life is energy.
The world is made up of energy (from the very first atom that started everything) to you and I and where we find ourselves today. It’s all energy. Despite what we may think, life isn’t actually about the tangibles. It’s the intangibles that make the difference.
What do we mean by this?
The majority of your interaction with this world and how you view it and thus manoeuvre through life is determined by your inner self. The internal thoughts and dialogues you have with yourself are supported by your beliefs stemming from your environment and other external factors such as culture, family and general past experiences. But what you perceive to be the ‘truth’ isn’t necessarily so. Yes, it is your truth, but this is only your perception and opinion of the world and much of this truth is constructed in your mind through inner dialogues, assumptions and the creation of stories that only play out in your mind and not reality. These dialogues with self, create your life from within and impact the life your experience externally. Whilst what you think may appear very real, it does not mean it is the objective truth/reality. How you view and experience the world will be drastically different to how someone else does. It is unique to us and as such is only our take on the world. It is not the world itself. Rarely do we question where these beliefs and assumptions come from.
Life begins from the inside – we are a projector not a camera. Whilst many of us view the world as something ‘out there’ external to us, it is in fact ‘internal’ and how we perceive the world is impacted by how we feel about it e.g. projector projecting out, not a camera taking snap shots.
Once we realise this and understand that our existence and what we are looking for from life comes from within and not without, we are able to start working on the things that matter e.g. the ’controllable’ rather than wasting precious time and energy focusing on the ‘uncontrollable’. Ironically, it is these controllable elements which are in fact the intangible e.g. our mind. Unfortunately, too many people spend their lives trying to control and manipulate things they have no control over and relinquish control over the one thing they can manipulate in the process – themselves (their mind). We need to stop focusing on the wrong things and start looking in the places that will make the difference to our lives. That is us.
If you are still weary and unsure of the fact that life is energy then think about the following - Have you ever walked into a room and thought to yourself, ‘this doesn’t feel right’ or had an experience whereby you’ve thought to yourself, ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this.’ You can’t put your finger on it, and it isn’t anything tangible that you can point to, but it’s just a ‘hunch’. This is energy, and energy is another way of describing emotion (energy in motion). The particles of energy vibrate at various frequencies and this is where the term ‘vibe’ comes from, the vibration of energy particles.
We all function to varying degrees and level on this frequency of energy. When we are happy, we are vibrating at a higher frequency (more energy/faster/happy) and when we are not feeling so great, we are operating at a lower frequency with less energy (a slower vibration). The energy and vibrations given off by this intangible form permeates from our existence (our body) into the atmosphere and attracts like energy. This is why our emotions impact how we manoeuvre through the world and how we experience life on a day to day basis. We often attract more of what we are currently experiencing because we are sending out levels of energy at that particular frequency. Ever wondered why someone who is looking for a fight finds it? This is a Natural Law of the world, nothing is at rest, it is always in a constant state of movement, even us. And it is your thoughts that impact your level of vibration and the frequency you are operating on. Thoughts really are things and have a massive impact on your life. Be careful with them.
Where Does it Go Wrong?
Unfortunately, the electrical energies’ first port of call in the brain is the emotional part known as the Limbic System. This results in us experiencing an initial emotional reaction to the stimulus before a rational one. It is only when these electrical charges of energy reach the reasoning part of the brain known as the Frontal Lobe that we are able to form a rational and logical thought to the emotional trigger.
This is why we initially ‘fly off the handle’ or act out of character to an event, particularly an unexpected, highly emotionally charged one. Our brain hasn’t had the time to process the trigger event in order to make a rational proposal on how to respond - the emotion gets a head start on reason. These are known as ‘emotional hijackings’.
Reaction or Response?
The initial thought or action caused by the Limbic System is instinctive and as such it is a ‘reaction’.
There is a difference between a reaction and a response. A re-act-ion is an act that occurs in response to an event that happens without any prior thought as to whether it is best course of response. In other words, they are unconscious behaviours. On the other hand, a response is a conscious act. It is given prior thought and made based on an informed decision e.g. this is the best course of action for this circumstance and taking past experience into account etc.
When we lose our composure and experience bouts of anger this is often an involuntary action caused by a moment of unconscious thinking/lapse in reason e.g. emotional hijackings. Therefore, if we can buy ourselves the time to process the emotional trigger it will give the electrical charges flowing through our brain time to reach the Frontal Lobe where a rational response can be formed (respond rather than react e.g. a conscious decision). Once the Frontal Lobe gets a hold of the electrical charge, we can form a cohesive and rational thought about what has just happened e.g. the trigger event and respond appropriately. It would appear there really is some merit in that old saying of ‘count to 10’ before acting. There is a gap between the stimulus/trigger event and how we react or respond. It is during this time period where we have a choice to control how we proceed, and it is this choice that can determine whether things turn out good or bad for us. How much stress and regret could you remove instantly from your life if you simply made the choice to respond rather than re-act to a trigger event?
Simple example of this in action: You are home alone late at night when you hear a noise outside your back door (the stimulus/trigger event). Your first reaction is jump up as your body springs into alert mode (Limbic System). Thoughts of an intruder coming to harm you flood your mind and you begin to break out in a sweat as nerves paralyse your body and ability to think anything other than worst case scenario. Your heart races and you’re on edge. However, this is quickly followed by the rational thought that it could be the trees, the bins blowing over in the wind or simply the dog who you let our several minutes ago pawing at the back door to be let back into the warm (the Frontal Lobe).
• Your first thought was ‘emotional/irrational’ (the charges flowing through the Limbic System).
• Your second thought was ‘rational’ (the charges reaching the Frontal Lobe of the brain).
As emotional beings our first reaction will always be an emotional one, and at times this can be a good thing as our nervous system is designed to protect us and prepare us/make us alert in certain situations. It is also particularly powerful when a vision/desire is mixed with emotion as this is a key component in driving us towards success. However, when the emotions are negative or irrational it can lead to actions that can have a detrimental impact on our lives and ones, we later regret.
Remember that the emotional response will always be followed shortly after by a more rational thought. Whether we choose to let the emotional or rational response be the dominant one is up to you.
It is only by controlling our emotions that we can begin to make them work for us.
Control your emotions and you really can control your life. As the old saying goes, life is 10% what happens and 90% how we respond to it, not the other way around.
Do you choose to react or respond? The choice is yours.
Written by Ashley Burgess-Payne
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