As Vickie Gray has noted, "Holding back your feelings doesn’t keep them hidden, it just makes your behavior incoherent." [1] Which reminds me of something I first heard from either David Bradford or Mary Ann Huckabay at Stanford many years ago: "We're leaky."
When we try to suppress our feelings, we "leak" in all sorts of ways that send powerful signals to those around us. Our body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, eye contact (or lack thereof) and countless other non-verbal cues shout to the world "SOMETHING'S UP!!!" even as we insist, "Everything's fine."
And when it comes to sensing others' emotional signals, we're like one of those remarkable pigs that can smell a truffle three feet underground. [2] As a species we've evolved an exquisitely sensitive set of receptors tuned to the emotions of those around us. So not only do we convey emotions quite readily no matter what's actually said (even when we say nothing at all), but other people are much more perceptive than we typically realize. We're leaking, and we're fooling no one.
But just because we can apprehend others' feelings doesn't mean we can comprehend them. As neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has written, the pathways through which we experience emotions are a "quick and dirty processing system." [3] We sense something, but we can't quite make sense of it. We feel, but we don't understand.
And this is where things can get incoherent very quickly. Nature abhors a vacuum, and we can't stand the cognitive dissonance that results when we sense another person's emotional state, but we don't understand the rationale for their behavior. So we fill in the gap and invent an explanation that removes the dissonance. Sometimes we're right, and sometimes we're very, very wrong.
The key is simple in theory but sometimes very difficult to put into practice: Acknowledging and disclosing our emotions fills in the cognitive gaps and allows others to clearly understand what we're feeling. Of course, this is harder when we're tired, stressed, vulnerable, threatened, or experiencing emotions that we're reluctant to share, such as embarrassment or shame. So it's essential to practice. Talking about feelings doesn't come naturally to many of us, but like any learned skill, it gets easier with repetition.
Footnotes
[1] @VGrayAuthor (Vickie Gray, 2012)
[2] Truffle hunting demonstration with a pig [0:20 video] (11hblog, YouTube, 2009)
[3] The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, page 163 (Joseph LeDoux, 1998)
Photo © 2011 J. Ronald Lee via Flickr.
7 Responses
Lovely blog. I particularly enjoyed the truffle pigs metaphor. And as you say, we need to practice. I’ve been working with some great tools for practicing, called the Core Protocols (Open source, avail on http://www.liveingreatness.com). One of the tools, Check In, provides a clean container for sharing feelings, while making sharing safe enough that starting to practice isn’t an overwhelmingly risky venture. On safety, freedom and coherence in communication using the Core, see my latest book: Closing The Me-You Gap.
Ed
Great article.
These points, still widely misunderstood by many people, are vital to understanding how our emotions operate. The belief that emotions can be suppressed is being discredited by neuroscience – and as you say “we leak” when we try. The science on emotional contagion is showing just how exquisitely sensitive the system is.
Really appreciate your point that the only way to develop this “learned skill” is to practice.
Thanks, Vickie. I’ve long been a fan of checking in as a way to start meetings. That said, I particularly appreciate the clarity and specificity of the Core Protocols–thanks for the reference. It reminds me of what I’ve learned about agile coaching and feels like a very helpful set of tools. Good luck with the book!
Ed,
As you said, being open and vulnerable is easy to say but not so easy to do. The “soft ” skills are really the more challenging ones and I’m still working on it.
Thanks, Louise and Alan. I think we’re talking about applied emotional intelligence here, and, as you both suggest, this is one of those areas where conceptual understanding is helpful but ultimately insufficient. Reading up on recent research in neuroscience and social psychology has helped me tremendously as a coach (and as a person), and yet in the end I still have to step up, lean into difficult conversations, and talk about my feelings. It’s not always easy or fun, but that’s the only way forward.
Another gem Ed! I just read Leadership and Self-Deception. Not the best written piece of work ever, but it addresses the “porosity” of our emotions really well. Pretending to be nice is never an effective strategy, because your colleagues can generally tell that you are actually livid, as you point out. And they don’t hear your message, they just feel your inauthenticity (is that a word?).
This has been a struggle for me. I don’t have a lot of self-control when it comes to my emotions. So recognizing them when they happen and acknowledging them is really important. Then I can put it aside and deal with people authentically, and not from a place of anger, or embarrassment, or hurt, masked by a smile.
Thanks, Holly! I appreciate that. I’ve also read that book–it was actually a treasured gift from a client. And I agree that like most parables, it’s not great writing, and yet its fundamental point is compelling (and very aligned with this post.)
I’m glad to hear about your own journey in this area. What I’ve learned about myself is that in some settings and in some relationships, I don’t have enough control over my emotions, and I need to be a little more self-regulated to connect with people effectively–but at the same time, in other settings and other relationships, I exert too much control over my emotions, and I need to be less regulated to connect effectively.
The challenge is not getting stuck in one “mode” or the other, and allowing myself to move more freely along that spectrum.