Management of emotion is accomplished in different ways for different people.  Each temperament becomes emotionally intelligent by different methods and applications.  This should be obvious by now.  However, there are for all of us two mental paths available to emotionally intelligent behavior.

Two Mental Paths to Emotionally Intelligent Behavior

‘Our Civilization is still in a middle stage — scarcely beast, in that it is no longer guided by instinct; scarcely human in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.”

Theodore Dreiser, (Sister Carrie)

The above quotation introduces us to the first path for emotional intelligence and, also, to the fallacy that reason is all there is when humans are at their best.  

Reason Is Path Number One  

The mental model of how the brain develops and processes an incoming message (namely, the speed at which we react emotionally and then the final arrival of the message in the cortex where we understand it and think about it for the first time) outlines reason’s path to emotional intelligence.  

• Reason can, and often does, effectively choose the course of subsequent actions.  
• It is the path most written about and advocated.  

The following points for the superiority of reason in managing emotions are often cited:

• Reason calms our emotions.
• Reason is cool; emotion is hot.  Cool heads are better than hot heads.  
• Reason is slow, uncovering more relevant data.
• Reason slows us down.
• Reason, not emotion, can be trusted.  
• Taking time out to reason is like taking time out in sports to arrive at the best next move.  
• Reason is the more advanced function of the brain.
• Great minds are great thinkers.

But is the case for reason’s superiority in controlling emotion all there is to say?  No.  Are these reasons true to the evidence?  Not all of them.  Another path exists.

Replacing One Emotion with Another Is Path Number Two

This second path to emotional control has been known for millenniums and advocated by various sages — especially by Jesus, who placed such a huge emphasis on love.  To quote him: “Love your enemies, do good to those who despise (hate) you…”  

At first glance, this may seem to have little to do with emotional intelligence. But consider these facts:

• Our enemies inspire the emotions of hatred and dislike in us (the opposite of intelligence).
• Those negative emotions can be potential dominators of all we do and think, thereby controlling us and damaging us in the process (the result of unintelligent behavior).
• The instruction to love our enemies asks us to make a choice between hate and love and to replace hate with love.
• Choosing an opposite emotion to lessen and diminish the first is the second path to intelligent behavior and a very effective one.  

Replacement (exchanging one emotion for another — hate for love, for instance) is emotionally intelligent because both hate and love can’t exist happily together.  One must oust the other from our minds.  

Replacement Not Only Calms But Cleanses the Spirit

It is hard to control your emotions by reason alone and equally hard to replace one emotion with another.  However, both are paths to successful self-management.  But it is the experience of many that the change in emotions is not only effective in calming our hate or anger, but it most efficiently cleanses the mind of negative passions.  

• For the Fs, this is a welcome discovery.  Since emotions must be consulted in any decision, redirecting the emotional forces from hate to love, or fear to trust, is more achievable and more refreshing.  
• A positive emotion, like love, leaves no residual feelings of guilt to deal with.  It lifts the feelings of self-worth and brightens the future with fresh hope in any relationship.  
• It also makes sense to the emotions of the F to choose a cleansing and positive emotion like love, which can also open up new possibilities for the relationship, preserve it, and restore harmony.  
• There is logic in emotions — a logic that is, at times, more effective than the logic of reason.  

For the Ts, they may well choose the power of reason to quell the surges of emotion since when they make decisions, they favor reason and seldom seriously consult their feelings.  However, if the change from hate to love or fear to trust makes sense to them, they may well choose both pathways.  

One or Both Choices Are Available to Achieve Emotionally Intelligent Behavior

Emotional intelligence is the choice of one or both pathways in the mind.  Jesus resorted to both while championing replacement.  

Comparison of the two paths — reason and replacement:

• Both change the focus of the mind.  
• Both calm the mind.  
• Replacement changes the state of the limbic system and, therefore, has a direct effect.
• Reason has an indirect effect on the limbic system.  
• Emotions carry within them their own reasons.  Love and hate have their reasons.  One drains the power from the other and changes the nature of the game.   
• Sometimes there is no clear reason to empower the mind.  There is always an opposite powerful and motivating emotion.  
• Reason sees only half of the world’s realities, meaning it sees more dominantly what logic sees and not as strongly what love feels, for example. 
• Reason is slow; emotion is lightning fast.  
• Neither is to be always trusted.  
• The superior power of the positive makes both positive reasons and positive emotions able to effect a beneficial change.  
• We really do not know what is the most advanced function of the brain.  It all depends on what factors we use to measure what we call “advanced.”  
• Great minds are great thinkers. But they are also great feelers.  Imagination is enriched by emotion, not depleted by it.  
• Emotions have the greater power over us and, therefore, can effect the most challenging changes in mental set.  

Emotions Are Changed Most Easily When We Change Our Actions

• Acting according to our chosen emotion makes the emotion happen more efficiently.  Our emotions are expressed by our actions.  
• The action can be a simple change in facial expression or an act of kindness.  
• Both have a direct effect on how we feel.  
• An emotion hasn’t lived until it is expressed. Therefore, we can change it at any point in its lifeline.  

The relationship between emotions and actions is that of cause and effect.  

Actions Strengthen Our Choice to Change Our Emotions

Whether we choose to quieten and control our emotions by reason or another opposing emotion (replacement), acting according to our choice is more than helpful.  

Actions breed their own emotional responses.  

• If we act lovingly, we feel the refreshing power of love.  
• If we act hatefully, we feel the negative forces such actions produce.    

The ethical writers of all the ages place great faith in simply calling people to change their actions.  They seem to believe or take it as axiomatic that a rational being, endowed with free will, can make a change in their actions.  Once the action is changed, a breakthrough in the calming of the emotions is believed to have begun.  

Emotional Intelligence Can Be Effected by Changing Our Actions to Emotionally Intelligent Behavior

• Replacing one emotion with another is best achieved by acting out another emotion.
• Whenever we “do to others what [we] would have them do to [us],” we gain control over our emotions.  

 

Resources to Help You:

THE WONDERFUL TRUTH ABOUT EMOTION

Are there such things as intelligent emotions? Intelligently Emotional will argue that there are. And they are the ones we must focus on if we want to know success.

Ray W. Lincoln will show us how understanding the patterns of emotion in our temperament will enable us to manage our emotions effectively. If you long to know how to understand your emotions and the immense power of your feelings, Intelligently Emotional  will show you the way.  The path to real emotional intelligence requires learning to partner with intelligent emotions.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!

Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence will guide you in that

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

 

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln