Emotion Quotient

Emotion Quotient (EQ) is the measurement for identifying EC. In the previous two articles we examined how emotional capacity (EC) is directly linked to perceived worth and value as a human being. We discussed how shame destroys emotional health and how vulnerability is necessary to chase away the shame.  

Two core elements of vulnerability are discussed next;  honesty and humility.  

I researched  the topic of forgiveness for three years as part of a seminary doctorate degree I completed in 2010.  I learned many amazing things about forgiveness that changed my life forever.  I authored a book Escaping the Pain of Offense: Empowered to Forgive from the Heart to help people find the freedom that true forgiveness provides.  The book is written from a Christian perspective, but principles apply  universally.  I continue to learn more, but the ironic thing about learning to forgive is that, at any given moment,  I am only one offense away from my next lesson in forgiveness.   The necessity to forgive is always preceded by an offense.  Forgiving an offense is not merely a mental decision.  Forgiving involves the emotional capacity (vulnerability) to recognize offense and take the necessary action to surrender ultimate judgment to a higher power.  I discovered that most people do not truly understand and practice forgiveness because they do not understand the nature of offense and its negative impact on their emotional and mental health.  Everyone needs to grow in forgiveness because everyone both offends and gets offended.  Offense is the core issue.

A person’s reaction to offense is a primary indicator of EQ.  Recognizing an offense, wrestling with the reality of loss, and facing the painful emotions takes hard work, but there are no short cuts to building EC.   When our heart is offended, our mind will usually try to cover it up as a self-protection mechanism. The first step to uncovering our mind’s scheme is to be willing to admit our heart’s offense.  When negative thoughts and feelings produce anger and undue fear towards someone who has done us wrong, we must be willing to drill down inside our heart and discover roots of offense. It’s not about the other person’s actions, it’s about your response to them.   Some people believe a myth that they are harder to offend than others.  The truth is, we all offend easily and that’s where honesty comes in.  

Self-honesty begins with awareness.  Am I acting on truth or falsehood?  Am I deceiving myself about the real, for real, motive behind my reactions?  Am I merely numbing pain with some of the actions discussed in the previous article (over eating, over medicating, using pornography, over stimulating with technology etc.)?  These questions should be asked of self when you feel disappointed, discomforted, displeased, frustrated, etc to uncover the stronger feelings of rejection, shame, unworthiness, and the like.  

I think failure to handle offense adequately is the greatest block to building emotional capacity.  It estounds me how frequently people declare, “I’m not really angry,” but then constantly blame and condemn other people, justify their own bad behavior, and show obvious gestures of frustration and discontent about the situation for which they deny the anger.  People claim not to be offended, but show obvious emotions of pain and discomfort and even lash out in slander and gossip of the person they feel wounded by.  The anger usually points to a deeper root of bitter judgment linked to offense.  These judgments are often so common they are difficult to recognize as offense.

The world operates under natural laws that shape reality.  Breaking these laws (realities) produce consequences.  For example, the law of gravity demonstrates disastrous results for jumping out a building on the 10^th floor without a landing device. I believe God created these laws for mankind’s benefit.  Truth can be defined as God’s view of reality.  Each person has their own perspective of reality. When the perspective lines up with truth (God’s reality), things go well.  When things are not going well, it usually means that our perception(s) of realtiy are out of whack somewhere.  Being honest with ourselves about our true condition, makes all the difference.  For example, the law of sowing and reeping says that when a person does good deeds, good results will follow.  When a person does bad deeds, bad will follow.  When a person drinks too much alcohol and drives a car, they endanger themselves and others around them.  If a person is charged with DUI, they are failing to be honest about the effects of alcohol and their ability to drive.  When we are unable or unwilling to be honest about our true condition, this is an indicator of low self-worth and low EQ.  When we have a poor image of self as evidenced by feelings of rejection, shame, and unworthiness, our perceptions of reality will cause self-defeat and self-destruction.   

Accepting this truth also takes humility.  Just behind honesty, humility becomes the second major demonstration of healthy vulnerability.  Being humble is not a show of weakness, but it is strength.  Being humble knows the difference between self-confidence and pride. Being humble puts other people’s interests ahead of self.  Life’s true meaning and purpose is found in adding value to other people’s  lives.   Maybe the most telling aspect of humility (and the most crucial to EQ), is the degree to which a person is teachable.  Teachableness is not merely measured by receiving raw knowledge, but also the willingness to apply that knowledge appropriately.  The writer of the ancient Proverbs called this wisdom.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).  The “fear” of the Lord is speaking of respect and honor of God as the source of truth and natural laws (realities of the way the world operates).  A person shows humility when they receive and practice input from other people.  Seeking and relying on truth from God’s higher authority is the most solid foundation for building EQ.  

Most people follow one of two remedies to deal with hurt from life circumstances or relationships. People try their best to pretend things are better than they really are  (denial), or they live to relieve it at all cost (addictive behaviors).  Whether people deny or over-gratify, at some point, they become more painfully aware of their desperate state of human weakness and inability to effect lasting change without higher power resources.  For people to let go of denial or false refuge to face the truth about themselves is sometimes a fearful step. The tension in the inner person between God pushing truth up and a fearful mind pushing the truth down is a form of anxiety.   Part of a person is wise and wants to know the truth. Part of the person is foolish and fears the truth.  For the God-follower, as I write in my book mentioned above, God’s Spirit “reveals the difference, and will bring healing to those who humble themselves and are willing to be cooperative. As people give up their fear of the truth and trust God to forgive them just as they are, then they can begin to surrender themselves and learn to rest in the salvation of God’s grace.”

Truth (God’s view of reality) is the best “measuring stick” for emotional capacity.  Only God knows the degree to which a person makes their heart vulnerable to truth.  A truly honest and humble heart receives truth even when it hurts.  The Psalmist says, “Behold, You desire truth in the innost be ing“ (Psalm 51:6; NASB). Receiving (believing) the truth always involves giving up falsehood.  For example, for a long time I’ve believed that God loves me.  However, my thoughts about God’s love towards me are much different now than five, ten, even one year ago.  Why?  Because intentional vulnerability has allowed me to root out a huge amount of falsehood from my heart.  “God loves me,”My life has meaning,“ “I know who I am” have deeper meaning because there is less falsehood. The following falsehoods have less grip on my thinking: “I’m not good enough for God to love me,”  “I’m nobody,” “I’m not worthy,” “I’ll never be good enough,” and the like.

  Sometimes pondering the answers to questions can help reveal our true beliefs.  Some of the questions below may be tougher for you than others.  

What do I think about vulnerability?  

Do I allow myself to feel?  

Am I afraid to be honest with myself?  What do I fear?

Am I honest with myself about my mental and  emotional condition?  

What positive expressions would I like to see more of in my life (eg. Love, joy, peace …)?

How could being more honest with myself about my emotional condition produce better results?

Are any of my activities/ behaviors numbing pain?  

If so, what kind of help do I need to address the problem?

Am I truly willing to make the adjustments necessary for lasting transformation?  

What is the next step for improvement?   

Can I do it now?  What is the date/ time the step will be taken by?

My hope is that self-honesty and humility will guide you to some answers so you can find vulnerability for growth. Take action, and come back to questions like these in a week or month and repeat for building emotional quotient. Growing as a person, parent, or leader requires more than intelligence, skill, and experience.  Emotion cannot be measured in quantity, but in quality of expression.  True meaning and purpose await a response.

 by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry

Emotional Capacity - Part 2

The previous article contrasted EI with EC.  It takes much more than intelligence to deal with the realities of life.  We defined Emotional Capacity (EC) as follows, “the ability to interpret and express inner emotional messages with unshaken assurance of personal worth and identity.”  Challenging circumstances create  inner emotional messages perceived as threats (real or imagined) to a safe and secure image of self.   The capacity to regulate whether the emotions help or hurt (make things better or worse) is EC.  A person’s quality of life is determined by EC.  

When facing a challenge, EC is not dependent on whether or not the circumstances improve, but whether the reservoir of positive self-worth is improved.  A person is not always in control of external events in life, but our EC can control our response to those events.  You may ask, “I know increasing EC dramatically improves my health and relationships, but how is it possible to cleanse (or maintain a clean) emotional reservoir?  I’m glad you asked! <smile>   Hopefully something that follows is helpful.  

First, and most important in emotional health, is knowing the God who designed and authored the human being (including the emotions). If you are not a God-follower, bear with me for a moment.  I believe the basis for understanding identity and worthfulness for each person, is understanding the divinity and worthiness of the One who knows us better than we will ever know ourselves.  The attributes of God, his relatability as a personal God, and how much He loves each person, sets Him apart as supreme authority.  All humans are created in His image with a unique stamp of his likeness.  Also understanding some things about his emotional qualities can help give us a glimpse of ours.  Knowing God as Father (similar to how a child depends on an earthly father) provides identity and security (including assurance of value and worth) like nothing else can.  This inexhaustible topic is obviously too much to give adequate attention to here.  The point here is that God is the source for living from the heart and emotional capacity of the human being.  

Ironically, esteeming self above God and other people, ruins our sense of worth and value.   Removing self-focus from our identity is essential for emotional health.  Ego-centric living destroys our true  identity. For some modern day examples of how this works I recommend Ryan Holiday’s book called, Ego Is the Enemy.  We must give up our “me centered” world-view, and take on a view of the world that puts God at the center of our universe and our soul.  God is not only a great God in charge, but also a grand God in love with all he created.  As the ancient Psalmist says, “Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise ….. the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him” (Psalm 48:1; 32:10).  

Knowing God frees a person to focus on others and not self.  Connection with others is what gives purpose and meaning to life.  A great example of this is Viktor Frankl’s life.  In his book,  Man’s Search for Meaning, he shows how he survived four concentration camps in the 1940’s at the hands of Nazi Germany horrors.  

A second way to increase our emotional capacity is to allow our hurts and wounds to heal properly.  A broken arm needs to be set in correct position,  placed in a cast, and perhaps a sling for recovery.  Similar to our bodies’ vulnerability to physical injuries, our hearts are subject to brokenness and disrepair.  From the beginning of life, we pre-judge, mis-judge, and critically judge as a default tendency.  Although our self-worth is secure in who God created us to be, our “sinful nature” severely handicaps our ability to accept this without  self-imposed conditions.  Unmet expectations create disappointments and all sorts of negative reaction (see list at end of previous article).  Hurts and wounds fester and pollute our core beliefs (even without our awareness).  Although our minds try to settle into adulthood, our hearts remain in the limited capacity of broken conditions of childhood.  Some people turn to God and receive spiritual healing. Even as a God-follower, the process of healing the soul must continue throughout our remaining days on earth.  

The greatest loss in human history was Adam and Eve’s decision to reject God’s supreme authority.  This error introduced shame into the world.  Shame is the root of all roots of brokenness and emotional pain.  Shame and vulnerability researcher Brene Brown defines shame as the fear of disconnection.  As mentioned before, self-worth is rooted in a sense of connection.  Shame (based in our hurts and wounds) keeps us from the truth and whole-hearted (capacity-filled) living.  Dr. Brene Brown has authored a number of books including one that helped me greatly called The Gifts of Imperfection.  She has found vulnerability as the only way to attempt to resolve shame.  

Shame keeps a person from believing they are worthy of love and belonging. As a God-follower, I believe I am worthy, not because of anything I have done (or not done), but because of what God has said and done for me.  As a Christian I believe Jesus is the complete connection to resolve our fears of disconnection.  You may not believe in God the same way I do, but reading on will help you grow in emotional capacity.  Or, you may already believe in Jesus,  but to grow in your relationship with God, you must embrace vulnerability and the reality of a shame-infected soul.  

  To be vulnerable is to be authentic, transparent, and completely honest with oneself.  Vulnerability is not  weakness, but builds strength and capacity.  Here are some qualities  Brene Brown  mentions. Vulnerability means you must allow yourself to be real and seen; deeply seen.  It means you must love with your whole heart, even when there is no guarantee.  It means you must practice gratitude and joy, even in the face of fear.  It means you must believe you are enough, even when you feel “not enough,” not good enough, not smart enough, not beautiful enough, not capable enough, and not so on.  And vulnerability “walks into” awkwardness, uncertainty, and imperfection.  

But under the cloud of shame we resist vulnerability.  What does that look like?  We try to be perfect (perfectionism.  We expect “perfect” from others.  We try to “make certain” (control).  We blame (as a way to discharge our pain and discomfort).  We justify ourselves (and pretend that what we do does not have an impact on other people).   These are all signs of trying to numb vulnerability.  

Numbing feelings may filter the bad, but it also prevents the good feelings.  As Brene Brown says, “You can’t selectively numb emotion.”   If you try to numb disappointment, failure, and sadness you will also be numbing happiness, gratitude, and joy.  Americans are the most “numbed” society on earth as evidenced by over indulgence and addiction;   food (obesity) , alcohol, (alcoholism), drugs (medications & illegal use),  work (work-a-holism),  shopping (“retail therapy”), busyness (filling schedule with things to do), technology, and all sorts of distractions.   So we set ourselves up for dissatisfaction and emptiness (lack of emotional capacity).  

Things that may trigger numbing vulnerability look like these;  asking someone for help when you’re sick or injured, initiating sex with your spouse, being “turned down” (for promotion, election, team participant),  waiting for the doctor to call back, getting laid off a job or having to lay off people, and practicing servant leadership.   Common. ordinary experiences reveal our capacity to meet the challenges of  shame and vulnerability.    Other indicators may include things like whether or not we can easily admit offense when offended, accept differences (cultural, ethnic, or gender), own bad habits or addictions, take responsibility for actions that put others in peril, listen to others giving criticism, receive advice, and stop making excuses for too much eating, drinking, working, spending, sensualizing, sexualizing, hoarding, or technolizing (too much time on electronic devices).  

We discussed the God factor and the shame factor.  Now let’s consider a third factor for building emotional capacity.  We must take clear and consistent action in the direction of  building good patterns and habits.  It’s not enough to clean up a polluted water source and then leave it to the elements to become dirty again. It must be maintained and treated for sustainability.  Removing destructive patterns that have depleted our emotional capacity is a good start.  But, we must build constructive patterns for productivity and resilience.  This involves changing the things on which we focus our attention.  Improving proficiency in any sport involves practice and focus on the fundamentals.  Similarly, learning to play an instrument requires pattern forming drills and exercises to create habitual motion.   Great effort goes into skillful playing.  

You may have heard it said, “love is an action.”  This certainly is true.  We may think we value something, but if our actions do not move us to stronger devotion we are not demonstrating love for it. For example, you may read about shame and vulnerability and think it worthy of your consideration, but if you make no commitment to practice vulnerability, your skill of using it to increase your emotional capacity will not be developed.  A great book was authored this year by  James K.A. Smith to help establish spiritual life.  It is called, You Are What You Love: the Spiritual Power of Habit.  We live in a time when information is over-abundant, but truth is hard to find.  We do well to treasure truth, and practice it over and over again to develop skill for quality emotional response.

Great commitment is required to build and maintain emotional capacity.  It is tough work, but it is worth it.  It is worth it because each person’s worth is “built in.”  Assurance of built in worth gives a person “well power.”  Well power is better than will power.  Will power eventually runs out because of human frailty.  For the God-follower, this is where God comes in.  I believe God is willing and able to meet us in our toughest spots of vulnerability.  We are wired for struggle, and our Creator wired in each of us our personal spirit as an access point to his divine power.  Surrendering our power to his power is the deepest place of vulnerability, and provides for us the deepest, bottomless  well (capacity) as a life-giving fountain. In fact, Jesus himself said, “… whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst ...” (John 4:14).  

I believe Jesus is the ultimate solution to shame. His whole purpose for being is to restore connection to Father God.  Vulnerability is the path to finding Jesus.  I’m not talking about religion.  Religion tries to work its way out of shame.  But, a true Christ-follower yields to Jesus Christ’s identity and worthfulness as the Solution for the shame we are each born into.  Our faith is related to the capacity we have to receive the love, peace, and joy he supplies.  

If you want help sorting out things you are feeling or thinking about this, seek out a competent counselor or trusted friend.  Have a comment?  I would  love to hear from you.  I have one more article in this series of three. The next talks about EQ, emotional quotient and emotional quality.  

by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry

Emotional Capacity

The term emotional intelligence (EI)  has become a buzz word to address the role of emotion in relationships, work, organization, and family environments.  But most of what we hear on this topic has very little to do with emotions.  EI seems to have more to do with cognitive awareness and attempts to avoid or subdue emotions.    

I think Emotional Capacity (EC) is a better way to consider the emotional aspects of the human creature.  Intellect draws on the memory bank of the mind, but the capacity of emotional experience goes deeper to the heart of a person.  Unwanted feelings may produce unpleasant emotions, but the capacity to change these to pleasant emotions requires more than a mere decision to change.  Deeper qualities of love, joy, peace,  temperance, gratitude, contentment, kindness, and faithfulness must go beyond the imagination to provide meaning for ourselves and others around us.  

EI focuses on controlling behaviors. EC focuses on positively influencing behaviors by expanding core belief systems to engage and enrich a person . Mere cognitive awareness of emotion does not produce transformation.   Inside out change is much more rewarding, productive, and longer lasting.  

Emotions carry messages.  The messages they report are gathered from thoughts and feelings about the environment.  Who we are as a person is based on our constant evaluation of our value and worth in our environment.  Therefore, our identity directly relates to our EC.  

EC can be defined as the ability to interpret and express inner emotional messages with unshaken assurance of personal worth and identity.  

I discovered valuable insights on EC by reading things by Dr. Richard Ecker.  We learn how to navigate our environment by developing coping skills.  Ecker points to Webster’s definition of coping as “successful striving.”  In the Emotional Survival Training Manual, he writes that coping, “is the ability to stand and endure in the face of difficult circumstances— or maneuver to avoid them. But we do not cope when we merely stand and endure or run and hide. We cope when we strive actively against the realities we face— and succeed.”  

  Ecker also says, “Typically, coping success is believed to be tied to the ultimate outcome of the situation that has made the coping necessary. If the outcome is good from the standpoint of the individual who is trying to cope, then that person is generally considered to have coped successfully. If the outcome is undesirable, then most people tend to feel that they coped badly. The fact is, outcomes have nothing at all to do with whether or not an individual coped successfully with the situation. The only real measure of coping success is whether or not that person emerged from the encounter with a positive feeling of personal value— that is, has successfully striven.”  

Cope-ability is based on increasing a sense of God-given personal value and worthfulness.  Let me distinguish between self-worth and self-esteem. Value and worth is an attribute given by God inherent in the existence of every human life.  Nothing a person does (or doesn’t do) can add or detract from the image of God in personhood.  Esteeming self by ex halting one’s human ability to create or maintain superior value, is not the kind of striving discussed here.  Selfish satisfaction of personal desire works against the created order of God.  Self-worth is selflessly accepting and  loving the person who God made you to be.  

Ecker says,  “if you learn how to confront the realities of life in such a way that you can emerge from each experience with a positive sense of personal worth, then you can gain from each experience valuable equipment that will make you even more successful in succeeding confrontations.”   Increasing emotional capacity is the goal.  Accepting your unconditional personal worth is the means to that goal.  

In order to obtain the full message from emotion, one must be able to identify specific thoughts and feelings and determine the reality of their impact.  EC allows a person to feel.  Fear of feeling, shuts a person down so that the true messages being sent by emotions are not received.  If a person denies or minimizes the feeling of sad, they will also not be able to feel glad.  Pushing away the feeling of alone, will also prohibit a feeling of belonging.  Refusing to feel wherein one’s discontent lies, will also limit the capacity to feel true contentment.  Whatever negative feeling is avoided will inevitably cut off the ability to feel the positive counterpart.   

Anger management, for example, without anger engagement, may actually diminish one’s EC.  (see article http://authoredhersh.blogspot.com/2015/09/anger-management-or-anger-engagement.html)  Anger is a surface emotion in that a deeper message is always behind the anger.  If feelings like rejection, guilt, or shame are the source of the anger, a cause nor solution have no chance of being discovered if the anger is merely “controlled” and not also engaged at a deeper level. EI may offer a solution to anger that would include withdrawing from situations that make you angry.  EC would build the ability to cope with the inner source of anger so that tougher and tougher situations can be endured without triggering the anger.   

At one time or another, we all face overwhelming emotional circumstances in life.  Our coping skills have limitations based on our perceptions of our personal worth.  Our capacity to overcome (or lack thereof), is most significantly influenced by our parents and the people in our background who shaped core beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.  

Another thing to realize is that negative feelings are the default mode of our human condition. From birth we feel things like the following without having to take lessons: rejected, deserted, left out, ashamed, trashy, unfit, unworthy, anxious, desperate, fearful, powerless, helpless, oppressed, weak, damaged, flawed, inferior, insignificant, unappreciated, unloved, defeated, hopeless, disoriented, and depressed.  From a very young age we assimilate these into our concept of self-worth and unconsciously create conditions for accepting love and affirmation from other people.  We form habits of interpreting and expressing inner emotional messages that condemn rather than build up.  When this negativity is reinforced or aggravated by those around us, developing a positive sense of self-worth is all the more difficult.  

It takes some effort to increase the capacity of the emotional part of our being, but it is worth every bit of effort.  Building resilience  is like filling a reservoir with clean water in preparation for an unknown drought season.  We may not know when the next crisis or conflict tests our stamina or stability, but we know our personal worth is not based on how the situation turns out.  We fill our soul with “clean water” by uncovering and healing the source of damaged self-concept, learning and developing new coping skills, and replacing bad habits with good habits.   

In the next article I will address more of the how to’s for increasing emotional capacity.  

by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry