Emotional Shifters
- devabritow
- Aug 17
- 4 min read
"How To Manage Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You."
In Shift, neuroscientist Ethan Kross offers a scientifically grounded approach to understanding and managing emotions, showing that emotions are not opponents of logic but are closely linked with cognition and provide essential insights for navigating life. He challenges prevalent myths, such as the belief that negative emotions are inherently harmful or that avoiding them is always detrimental. Instead, he highlights the importance of emotional agility - learning to 'shift' emotions rather than suppressing them.
Shift provides readers with a versatile set of tools—sensory, attentional, perspective-based, environmental, relational, and cultural—to handle emotions with precision and mastery. It advocates for emotional adaptability rather than repression, presenting a compassionate guide to coexist with your feelings, rather than being dominated by them.
"Emotions are not an infrequent experience; we are in a near constant state of emotionality."
And herein lies the problem - at least when you're fixating on a negative emotion that is, more often than not, linked to a memory of an experience. I've written about the panic attack I had in February this year. My smart watch recorded an elevated heart rate of 120+ BPMs when I had been sitting still. It began with a single thought, rooted in a fear experience and my misguided perception that the experience would be replicated.
"Emotion" is an umbrella term that describes a loosely coordinated response that includes what we feel, think, and experience in our bodies in response to events we judge to be meaningful."
During the panic attack, while the perceived, fear-based reaction had no basis in reality, it sent me to the hospital, and the result was being put on sick leave for two weeks. Since then, I have recorded three additional instances of an elevated BPM - all in the same situational context, but because I was now aware of the signs of a panic attack, I could actively work at regulating my breathing, while simultaneously adjusting my train of thought. It takes a while, and although it is still one of the most unpleasant feelings to experience, I'm glad that I know enough now to recognise the signs. Good or bad, there is often value in the things we experience in life, and if one can learn from it, I think it's a win. I'm appreciative of all of the armour that self-help literature provides.
I continue to learn so many new words, ideas and techniques, reading these self-improvement books, and Shift introduced me to "self-efficacy", the concept that believing in your ability to achieve a goal significantly influences your potential to reach it. Kross writes that:
"The perception of our own self-efficacy is a "master belief", one that impacts what we are capable of handling in critical areas of life - like regulating our emotions."
However, it's important to note that it requires effort. The author explains that we often unknowingly allow our senses to lead us astray, and research indicates that when individuals are feeling down, they tend to gravitate toward sensory experiences that maintain that negative state. This is known as the "emotional congruency effect", and it's what I want to learn to master.
"Making Shifting Automatic"
From a personal self-help perspective, this is the crux of the book for me. Theoretically speaking, I have certainly done the rodeo circuit that is personal development over the last (almost) twelve months. From a practical perspective, though, I still have a long way to go. Chapter Nine of Shift, titled; From Knowing to Doing: Making Shifting Automatic was the chapter I almost wanted to read ahead of the rest of the book. It's that hands-on approach I look for in virtually all of the self-help books I read. This ninth chapter involves Navy SEALS, NASCAR, the missing link (not the one you're thinking about) and a subtle Tag Team song reference. And, it all made sense.
"The idea that we should visualize positive outcomes to attain success is well documented. But, Gabriele's (Oettingen) studies showed that not only did it not predict success; it predicted the opposite."
I still haven't come to terms with visualisation as a means to manifest one's destiny, so I felt a sense of validation when I read the above quote. The feeling was short-lived but not in a bad way ☺️. Taking into consideration all of the various factors covered in Chapter Nine, Ethan Kross writes about an additional component to the practice of visualisation that makes the idea of manifestation a little more palatable for me. He then provides a seemingly fail-safe process to guide you in the direction you want to go, without being hindered by the emotions associated with certain thoughts. By dint of its practicality, again, it all made sense to me, and I am going to test the theory in the hope that I can make the 'shift' to a practical methodology.
Coming Up Next Week
I'm not entirely sure which text I'll draw from, but next week's post will be on a shorter passage, poem or the like. I have a few options, and I hope you'll be back to read.
#anxiety #depression #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #wellness #selfcare #selfhelp #thereisnostigma #youarenotalone #mindfulness
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