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There are only two emotional styles … Which one are you?

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) said…

“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival”.

Mike said… “I learned at great cost to manage my reactive emotional style.”	Karen said… “I was astonished to discover my avoidant emotional style.“

There are two emotional styles – avoidant and reactive. Regardless of your gender, you are more likely to display more of one style than the other.

Mike and Karen Gosling are married. They are both highly educated and intelligent. Mike has a Masters in Business Administration and a PhD in emotional intelligence. Karen holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work and a Masters in Public Health.

Both Mike and Karen have been successful in their careers, raised two wonderful sons, traveled the world, and have offered advice and support to many people from all walks of life to improve human wellness.

They are stable and influential, in a relationship lasting more than 32 years. They have collaborated to provide clients the benefit of their combined knowledge and experience in life.

But Mike and Karen each have a different emotional style. They respond differently to the same event and experience emotion in totally different ways. And because they are both fully aware of their emotional style and the impact it has physiologically on their bodies, they experience and manage their worlds very differently.

Awareness of your emotional style offers you the opportunity to change your mind and change your life, elevating emotional well-being.

Read on >> Avoidant Emotional Style

My wife, Karen, said, “Once I learned how my adrenalin floods affected everything I did life became much more enjoyable and easier”.

She has always gone along with what other people wanted, deferred to their wishes and opinions, in order to manage her adrenalin levels. Her happiness came from harmony in her environment, as conflict or even potential conflict, resulted in adrenalin floods. If she perceived that a person may judge her, disapprove of her, be disappointed or feel let down by her, she would feel so dreadful that she would go out of her way to ensure that this did not happen. Once she’s had an adrenalin flood she needs to process it out of her body and “return to normal”. After conflict it takes her a long while to “warm up” again – hence my suggestion of the egg-timer!

Karen experiences her negative emotion intensely (the burden of the highly sensitive person) and avoids any situation that may potentially cause an escalation of that feeling – the avoidant emotional style. She was an obedient teenager (lest her parents be cross with her), a diligent student (lest her teacher think badly of her), helpful to all (lest people dislike her because she was selfish) and a wife that withdrew and internalized in order to avoid conflict. She is learning that her avoidant behavior – the flight response – impacts on me who feels punished and excluded.

I said to Karen, “Because you have an avoidant emotional style doesn’t mean that you have a monopoly on negative emotion”. This is something she needs to be constantly aware of and recognize when considering the impact of her behavior on others. Her appreciation of how she deals with her emotion has improved immeasurably her over all well-being. She feels energized to share with others how managing her avoidant emotional style releases adrenalin from her body making her emotionally well.

Read on >> Reactive Emotional Style

I learned at great personal cost, with the loss of my former wife and twin daughters over 30 years ago, that loud tones, aggression, irritation, and anger had to go.

I have always been a leader, full of ideas and the energy, persistence, and dedication to carry them out. I used to not take fools lightly and felt quickly frustrated, irritated, and angry when things did not go my way. I could explode like a bomb! As a man, I was used to summing up a situation, weighing alternatives, implementing them, and looking for results, often all done in my head and without too much discussion, not realizing fully that my behaviors, including loud tones and quick words, impacted on Karen so adversely.

My wife, Karen, says, “Mike, it doesn’t matter what you say to me, just say it in a normal voice. When someone speaks to me in an irritable tone my perception is that you are cross at me for what I just said and that leaves me feeling unfairly judged”.

This is what I need to constantly be aware of, as a person who has a reactive emotional style, when considering the impact of my behavior on others.

I deal with events as they happen – the reactive emotional style. I still react to things quite quickly – the fight response – but I am learning to put a gap between my thoughts and emotions to allow me time to manage better negative emotion generated by my reactive emotional style.

Now I recognize negative emotion in my body on a scale from one to ten, one being low intensity and ten being rage. By the time I feel my negativity rising to level five or six I can usually put a gap in my response and deal with my dis-ease in an emotionally intelligent way, releasing adrenalin from my body.

As I respond to events I recognize that only I can make myself irritated, frustrated, and angry and so I manage my emotional style in a way that  elevates my emotional well-being. As a result, I feel much healthier. And Karen is happier for it.

Read on >> Affirm Your Identity

Often we see the another person’s behavior as wrong and our behavior as right. Have you ever thought to yourself, “How could he do this to me?”. In this way we can blame others when things go wrong and do not take responsibility for our responses. To elevate emotional well-being each of us needs to be aware of who we are to raise our emotional awareness. Evaluating your emotional landscape and affirming who you are – what your memories, beliefs, values, thoughts, and expectations (events) are – and taking ownership of your resulting emotions or behaviors (responses), is empowering.

We call this your EAR-Identity. EAR-Identity is who you are. Events occurring in your life are appraised by you, which generate a response. Often the impact of your response can be overwhelming, both to yourself and to others, causing severe physiological distress felt in your body.

If you have an avoidant emotional style you will feel predominantly anxious, bewildered, and personally attacked. You will run for your burrow to ‘avoid’ perceived threats to you and your environment.

If you have a reactive emotional style you will feel predominantly frustration, irritation, and anger from perceived threats to who you are.

If you can identify and affirm your EAR-Identity, and begin to change it cognitively, you will soon be on the road to reaching a new level of self-understanding and greater effectiveness in your personal and professional life.

Read on >> Accept The Emotional Challenge

“Life is a series of events. Every event is an opportunity for change.
It is from the most painful events that you change the most.”
– Dr. Mike Gosling.

Have you ever heard someone say:

• “Oh, she is so sensitive, she always bursts into tears at the drop of a hat.”
• “Now come on son, real men don’t cry.”
• “Reason is superior to emotion. Emotions are chaotic and immature.”
• “Emotions ‘get in the way’ of rational decision-making.”

Know that Emotion is the FORCE of Life.

The contemporary view is that emotions convey information about relationships. Each emotion signals a different relation. And each of us experiences our emotion differently. Thoroughly thinking through and understanding our emotions and the emotions of others is an important source of coping – with ourselves, our workmates, friends, family, and community – and solving behavioral problems.

Dr. Mike and Karen Gosling are emotional growth experts who help you enrich your own lives. In using these talents and abilities, they have invested in, created, and now enjoy the wonderful pleasure and privilege of helping so many people around the world. Their influence has enabled people to solve their most significant, most consistent behavioral problems. Solving these painful events and problems – these emotional health challenges – is the key to a more meaningful life.

In the pages of this blog, and our EmotionMatters Community site, we have dedicated ourselves to helping you think through your emotions and use your emotions to help your thinking. For those committed to embarking on this journey with us, you will find an emotional richness that will come only from applying yourself to some hard work.

Paradoxically, enjoying emotional health … a life of EASE … involves choosing to work the hardest you have ever done:

• learning new emotional knowledge
• understanding your emotional style, and
• developing your emotional intelligence.

The rewards are measured in emotional wisdom and the richness of fulfilling relationships to enjoy unlimited wealth and abundance.

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