Emotional Response
What's Your Emotional Response?

Could it be that how we respond to life is based on how our emotions work? If so, it could be that the power of emotion is the greatest force on earth! It may be even more potent than, gasp, Love?

We’ve allowed our emotions to push us into corners we would never have dreamed of on a good day. But let something negative happen, and our emotional response mops the floor with our good intentions.

I’ve been a personal witness to a negative response that becomes emotional because someone has already made up their mind that XYZ or ABC is undoable. Untenable. Unworthy. Impossible. Not gonna happen! No way is it worth the time or effort.

Before we tag emotions as the enemy, we must realize our responses to the moment are unique to our identity. Perhaps our past dictates our present response. There’s nothing wrong with this, but there must be some balance between reality and response.

Just as your car runs more smoothly
and requires less energy to go faster and farther
when the wheels are in perfect alignment,
you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions,
goals, and values are in balance.
~Brian Tracy

One writer tells me that ‘feelings’ are the input to the brain and ’emotions’ are the output. You cannot stop the brain from producing a response because emotions come from a chemical release: “These can be dopamine, oxytocin or serotonin, for positive emotions (e.g., love, pleasure), and adrenaline and cortisol for negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear).” [Source]

The balance of response and reaction defines our Emotional Intelligence. There are many works dealing with learning how to allow our emotional response release stress and then respond better to the moment. It’s also called EQ: Emotional Quotient.

Oh… there’s power in our emotions. Perhaps the best way to deal with them is to allow them to show up and channel them into a better response!

The Power of Emotion: We've allowed our emotions to push us into corners we would never have dreamed of on a good day. But let something negative happen, and our emotional response mops the floor with our good intentions. Share on X

More on this later!

By Michael Gurley

Making Sense of Life, One Thought at a Time!