Emotional Intelligence
Anne Bercht,director of Beyond Affairs Network,co-founder,with her husband Brian, of www.passionatelife.ca, a website dedicated to creating a healthy, passionate marriage.Authors of “My Husband’s Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.
"Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way - this is not easy."
ARISTOTLE, The Necomachean Ethics
The above statement is the heart of emotional intelligence. Researchers have found that emotional intelligence accounts for 80% of a persons potential for success in their relationships and their vocation, and ultimately affects their physical and emotional health as well. The exciting thing is that emotional intelligence can be learned!
Emotional intelligence is about how well we read, understand and communicate with other people, as well as control our emotions, learning to use them in positive and productive ways, rather than allowing them to destroy our lives. It includes the ability to practice self-control and delayed gratification. This is going to be the first in a series of articles on emotional intelligence, where we will examine how understanding these concepts can help us with recovering from infidelity, building positive relationships, reaching our career potential and improving our health.
Each emotion, such as anger, fear, happiness, love, surprise, disgust and sadness trigger certain appropriate physical responses in the body which are actually essential for survival, such as fear which causes the blood to flow to the outer extremities making it easier to run.
Sadness
Sadness (something those of us recovering from infidelity experience in large proportions), is designed to help us adjust to a significant loss in our lives. It causes an appropriate drop in energy and enthusiasm for life's activities, and as it deepens it actually slows the body's metabolism. This introspective withdrawal creates the opportunity to mourn a loss or frustrated hope, grasp it's consequences for one's life, and, as energy returns, plan new beginnings.
How the brain works… (I'll try to make this as simple as possible!)
Our five senses take in information where it first reaches a part of the brain called the thalamus, and from there to the sensory processing areas of the neocortex.
The neocortex is the seat of thought; it contains the centers that put together and comprehend what the senses perceive. It is the thinking part of the brain. Normally, the neocortex processes information perceived, and from there sends out the appropriate response. However, scientists have discovered a bundle of neurons leading directly from the thalamus to the amygdala, something like a neural short cut or back alley.
The amygdala is the brain's specialist for emotional matters. Interestingly enough the amygdala is like our brains security alarm monitoring system. Through the emotions before we even have a chance to 'think' about things, it detects potential danger and can trigger a physical response in us. When it sounds an alarm of, say, fear, it sends urgent messages to every other major part of the brain: it triggers the secretion of the body's flight of fight response hormones, mobilizes the center for movement and activates the cardiovascular system, the muscles and the gut.
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