Every action has two sides … one side faces the sun and the other faces darkness.

If you are facing the darkness, you remain in the past.  Being chained to the past keeps negative feelings churning ….. remorse, jealousy, revenge, guilt …. variations of three of your core emotions: sadness, fear, anger.  Keeping these emotions alive and gnawing at you sustains the cortisol running through your brain … this is the hormone that is released when your brain senses a “fight or flight”situation.  Cortisol was meant to be a short-term solution — kick the adrenaline in for about 30 minutes.  Unfortunately we tend to keep ourselves in these stress situations for longer than 30 minutes, and serious damage can occur.

When your actions face the sun … variations of happy emotions … you are better equipped to see all sides of situations and think creatively for solutions.  You can sense the mood of the other players, along with ‘the elephant in the room..’.  You are seen as a negotiator, a fair player, a leader.

Next time you think you see the darkness of your actions rushing towards you, turn 180 degrees, take a deep breath, count to ten and smile.

It’s not what you said, it’s what they think they heard.

Tags: amygdala, amygdala hijack, cortisol, emotional intelligence skills, emotional intelligence techniques, emotions, fight or flight

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 10:17 am and is filed under communication, emotional intelligence techniques, human factors, interpretation, listening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.