We are learning that when we label our emotions, it externalizes them — we actually get to see them in front of us and can examine them with curiosity and some distance. Emotions that stay trapped inside of us create a ton of confusion for our nervous system and our psychology. Far better to get them out – and take a closer look. Examine those feelings with some discernment – are they accurate, appropriate for the situation, helpful or hurtful?
When we get our emotions out on the examination table, we also get some much needed perspective.
Today we are going under the hood. We are going to learn about the functions of parts of our brain. Trust me, once you have a picture of key operating parts of that amazing brain of yours, you will want to start engaging the awesome features ASAP.
If you have ever wished that you could lower the temperature or the volume of your emotions, today is your lucky day! You are going to learn how to do just that.
Many of you may be familiar with the term “amygdala” and you might even be able to point it out when you go under the hood and peer into your brain: It is almond-shaped and grey. Looks rather benign, doesn’t it?
Yet that grey, almond-shaped region of our brain is where strong and mostly unpleasant feelings get super-activated. Not so benign after all.
If you were brave enough to reach in and touch that amygdala, you might discover that it feels different than you have long imagined. If you poked around a bit, it would become a lot less mysterious. And what you might come to realize that the almond-shaped region has been highly activated more times than you realized. You might say it is running hot.
What we learned yesterday is that when we label our emotions, we externalize them – we actually are doing an “assist” in extracting the emotion so the amygdala doesn’t get over-activated. Better out than in. Our poor almond-shaped brain region runs hot too often, and in many cases for far too long.
When we label our emotions, we are in effect, turning down the heat and the volume so our amygdala doesn’t go from zero to 10 and get stuck there. Labeling is the gear shifter that taps into both our physiological (think heart rate) and psychological (think thoughts, feelings, behaviors) brain regions.
The simple act of labeling an emotion pulls it out of the amygdala’s high alert system and drops it onto a conveyer belt that delivers it to the examination table. Better out than in. When an emotion is externalized, our heart rate slows and we get some mental clarity. Our nervous system returns to home base.
Ok – now let’s remember that we are under the hood and looking for another part of our brain: the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. You’ll find it near the front of your brain – top of mind if you will. This incredible brain region is much more sophisticated than the amygdala. It is the CEO of the operation. This is where executive functions are located. What are executive functions? Decision-making, working memory and goal-directed behavior.
Work with me here — I want you to see that when we default to ignoring our emotions, they stay trapped in the amygdala. That benign almond-shaped area of our brain stays on high alert. The longer it has to hold onto that emotion, the more intense it gets.
When we label the emotion, we pull a lever that releases it from the amygdala, our heart rate responds in kind and returns to baseline, and the emotion moves on down that conveyer belt to the C-suite. That little trip from almond-shaped receiving dock to the executive office wriggles and jiggles us along the way, releasing tension and easing us into self-control.
Labeling an emotion decreases the over-activation that occurs in the amygdala and increases the activation of our ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (our C-suite) which supports emotional regulation.
If you are reading this and picturing yourself gazing under the hood of your brain with a childlike wonderment, how does that feel? Pretty astounding, right?
Why hasn’t anyone ever taught us this? Why hasn’t anyone ever let us in on this big secret and kept that magnificent controller under lock and key?
All this time, we have completely ignored a core operating mechanism in our brains. We just let our emotional data on a loading dock. There it sat, grinding gears and running hot. Eventually our benign almond-shaped amygdala was bound to overheat and explode. All that worthwhile data smashed to smithereens. Meanwhile, nothing was being delivered to the C-suite. (Can you picture a bored CEO strumming his or her fingers on an empty desk wondering where the long-awaited deliveries were?)
I know I sound a bit like a broken record, but I cannot help trying to find a way to help us all understand that we truly are at a huge human inflection point. We have operated for centuries without the basic understanding of how our dynamic human operating system was designed to function. We made things so much harder than they had to be.
One last little nugget of insight: We need to understand that our brains do not come fully developed. They are designed to grow, change and flex slowly, over time, developing in lock step with our growing, changing bodies. It actually takes about 25 years for our brains to fully mature and bring all these features and functions online.
We need to know this truth so that we can help our kids through all the stages of their development, integrating growing and changing brain functions that match their physical development. We would never expect a toddler to physically be able to do things they’ll do with ease at age 10. Yet we often expect and even demand that our pre-teen get their emotional act together when they don’t yet have the keys to the C-suite.
Here’s your challenge and opportunity for today: When your emotions hit the landing dock (the grey almond-shaped amygdala), can you label them, open the box and take a look at them from a distance, and then watch them bounce along the conveyer belt making their way to the front of your brain — the C-suite? What will your CEO do with all that data to make decisions, draw from working memory experiences and choose behaviors and actions that align with your mission statement
