It’s the camel’s fault that the straw breaks its back because the camel agreed to carry so much weight that the sleight additional weight of a feather is enough to bring it down to its knees. Sound familiar?
That’s what it’s like for those who need to make an emergency visit to the dentist to treat painful cavities or gum disease caused from not brushing or flossing their teeth. It is their pain that drives them to seek out dental care to fix their problem and learn to avoid creating problems in the future. It is their pain that brings them to realize they can learn to take better care of themselves.
Similarly, many people avoid “going on a diet” until they feel they are too fat or they are told to do so by their medical doctor while others choose to maintain a healthy diet to avoid getting fat or to avoid creating serious medical conditions in the first place.
When it comes to dealing with psychological and emotional issues, regretfully, most of us act like that proverbial camel. We continue to carry the same old emotional baggage until it feels like its breaking our emotional backs.
We humans do our best to tolerate uncomfortable behavior psychological and emotional patterns in ourselves and within our relationships until we can’t stand it anymore, until we feel suffocated, “at the end of our rope”, or “at our wits end”. For the most part people who seek out either individual, couples or addiction counseling do so only because they have reached the point that they are no longer willing to tolerate things as they are.
Only then do we feel ready to do what it takes to change these psychological/emotional patterns by attempting to educate ourselves and/or by seeking guidance from a professional.
Part of the reason for this is attributable to the fact that most of us learned what we know about psychology and about relationships from what we experienced in our family of origin, what we observed in other families and what we were exposed to in the popular media. Very few of us were ever taught about emotions or psychology in high school or in college and even fewer of us were taught about what to expect in relationships.
Several years ago I taught a class in Emotional Intelligence at USC dental school to a dozen students in their dental program, one of the finest in the country where only the brightest and most qualified are admitted. Only four of them had ever taken a psychology class in college and only two of them and taken more than one.
This was startling information for me although maybe it should not have been. The only students who take anything beyond introductory psychology are those who are “planning to go into the field”, even among this elite group of students.
Yet most, if not all, of our major life decisions are based on our emotions while most folks don’t even have a clear definition of what an emotion is or how it is similar to or different from a feeling.
So. I’m going to give you a two question pop quiz. Answer these questions out loud: What is an Emotion? What is a Feeling?
Many people define “Emotion” as a feeling and then they define “Feeling” as an emotion. In other words, they don’t really define either one, but seem to recognize that they are similar to each other.
I define “Emotion” as an impulse produced by the emotional brain (the limbic system) as heartbeats are impulses produced by our more primitive reptilian brain. “Feelings” describe emotions as adjectives describe nouns.
I have found that the understanding of this distinction between emotion and feeling provides a building block for the development of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Unlike IQ which is said to remain constant throughout our life, we can develop our EQ. We can become emotionally smarter.
Absorbing these definitions of “emotions” and “feelings” can support people to become emotionally smarter. The good news is, developing EQ is like learning the benefits of brushing and flossing our teeth. It can help us to avoid creating greater pain in the future.
Are you satisfied with your level of Emotional Intelligence?
For further information, go to WWW.tamingyouranger.com
Please send your questions and comments to me, steve@Tamingyouranger.com and check out my Weekly podcast at Shrinkdifferentradio.com.