Leading Libraries Series: Leading for Resilience
Emotional resilience
Dealing with stress emotions: reflecting on your own tendencies
Just to remind you of what we learned in the last segment, there are three main emotional states that are associated with the high arousal levels of a stress response– they are part of our evolutionary heritage and are common to all higher
mammals :
- Anger – the ‘fight emotion’ which helps us defend ourselves and protect our territory or our loved ones or ‘pack’
- Fear – the ‘flight emotion’ which helps us freeze or run away to protect our bodies and ensure our survival
- Panic or Grief – the ‘connecting’ emotion, which helps us seek out others to cling to and support us so that we can cope with losses or difficulties.
As humans, we also experience significant interpersonal arousal states which make the picture more complex – surprise, shame, embarrassment, disgust/outrage, disappointment etc. Any of these emotions can trigger a hormonal cascade which will
put our body into a state of readiness for action – and, of course, that action may or may not take place.
The word ‘emotion’ actually comes from the same root as the word ‘motion’ – at the physical level, an emotion 'state' puts us into motion towards a specific set of behaviours:
Anger
Anger gets us ready to defend ourselves – to punch or kick the opponent and to shout at them to scare them away
Fear
Fear gets us ready to run or freeze – so that we can get away or try to avoid being seen
Grief
Grief propels us towards our loved ones – so we can hold on to them and seek physical reassurance
Shame or humiliation
Shame or humiliation causes us to hide – so we can take ourselves away from the group and recover from the social stress
Disgust
Disgust causes us to back away and express our discomfort loudly – so we can avoid the toxic stimulus and warn others about it
Surprise
Our brains are organised to 'expect what we expect'! When something unexpected happens, the resulting emotion is the arousal state we call 'surprise' which is designed to make us stop and pay attention to the new stimulus. Of course, surprises
can feel positive or negative - it is the negative surprises which create stress in us.
Embarrassment
We feel embarrassed when we have made a social move that seems 'out of place' - to ourselves or to others. Like shame, embarrassment causes us to pull back and reassess the situation so we can make a better move next time.
Disappointment
We experience disappointment when we are hoping to receive something from another person - or our environment - and that expectation is not met. Like grief, disappointment can cause us to withdraw or, alternatively, to express our upset
so that we can get social support for our perceived loss.
Emotional preferences
Each of us has our own personal way of responding to shocking or upsetting events, our own 'emotional preferences' if you like. And we all have our own ways of managing our emotions too – it's helpful to remember the emotions we are 'good'
at as well as the ones we'd like to develop more skills around.
The reflective exercise below is designed to encourage you to bring more awareness to your emotional responses in difficult circumstances and to identify your own 'recovery' practices.
Pause for reflection
Think back over the last few months and make a list of any situations or experiences which you feel have given you a ‘life shock’, whether large or small. For each experience, consider:
- Which high arousal emotion kicked in at that moment?
- What was your immediate reaction? What did you think and do?
- What did you do to recover from the emotional bump? How effective were your tactics?
- Now notice – are there any patterns in your emotional reactions or your recovery tactics? Which emotions are you most prone to in response to a shock? What are your own favourite habits for recovery?
Continue to: The recovery cycle
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