Did you ever notice how emotions flow through society from person to person, from group to group, because of the effects of emotional contagion? They provide the context and the backdrop for most controversies that hit the news. Emotions are powerful and often determine the outcome of an event, as emotions drive actions. Protests, marches, convoys are all driven by strong internal feelings and emotions. We need to realize the power of emotion and learn how to manage and regulate emotions. Because when they get strong they get out of control. But yet society and the media usually minimizes the impact of emotions as such, although they do say how an event was devastating, like the various events over the last year or two described in this blog. But the implicit emotion that produced it is often ignored and yet it is one of the most powerful forces at play in life and in the world.
The problem here is that people just look at explicit emotion, shown outwardly, when it is in implicit emotion that builds up inside a person that causes problems, because when it comes out it is usually explosive. It can then be dysregulated, which means it is not level or stable but is unpredictable, since it can be unpredictably weak or strong at any time. Dysregulated emotion results in problematic behavior that is dangerous to one another.
Emotions are the most powerful, invisible, intangible force that emanates from a human being, and it is a contagious and infectious force! People underestimate its power and yet hate and fear motivate wars! If people learned how to manage and temper emotions wars could be eliminated. When we feel an emotion emanating or exuding from someone else we often accept it as legitimate and absorb it inside us through emotional contagion and come to let it affect us too. When we are around someone who is angry or read angry statements on social media we can feel angry too. Do you want to feel angry? Can you manage it or will it get the best of you? It is better to realize that emotional contagion is happening and so develop an inoculation to it, so that we can appraise it and decide if it is positive or negative, destructive or constructive, so that we can decide whether to block it or absorb it, and how to handle it if we absorb it, so that it doesn’t get the best of you. Emotions can be managed.
The emotions of fear and hate are among the strongest, most powerful, destructive emotions that we have and cause many wars. At these times, as weapons and tanks gather at the border between the Ukraine and Russia, it is easy to see how these two emotions can contribute to destruction. Usually there is strong fear of the other that drive us to be aggressive and explosive, as if the fear is correct and real. Fear can be real but it may not be based on correct facts. And even if it is, the action needs to strategic, planned and methodical.
One of the things that we have to do as a society is learn how to regulate and manage our emotions, because emotional dysregulation affects society in a strong way. Emotions that are too strong, experienced implicitly inside us as people, and expressed outwardly as actions, cause too many problems when they produce unregulated behavior, like destruction, violence, vandalism, homicides, suicides and wars. All these actions and others are produced not just by behavior, but by the strong emotion that preceded it. The strength of the emotion provided the motivation and the impetus for the destructive behavior, so we need to learn how to regulate emotions.
People may say they have the freedom to express their emotion and do the behavior they want. That is true but it comes with a limit, and that limit consists of a responsibility to others, a responsibility to contain one’s emotions and behavior so that it does not result in destruction caused by recklessness or violence. Otherwise, the idea of freedom is only used as an excuse to be violent. This is a way to make a mockery of the precious value of freedom that we all cherish. Freedom comes with a responsibility to handle it carefully and respect its limits. We have a responsibility to others. Self-regulation helps us accomplish that.
By recognizing an emotion is present inside of us, and identifying what that emotion is, and predicting what type of behavior it is likely to encourage in ourselves, we can work on regulating it. If we anticipate that the strong feeling inside us is likely to prompt us to act irrationally, we have to ask ourselves, do we really want to swear, accuse someone, punch someone, kiss someone, throw something, or worse, shoot someone? We may feel like it, but do we really want to do it just because we feel like it? When we know that Emotions Don’t Think? The Mind Thinks. Do we want to do this when we know that someone’s feelings could be hurt? Or they could be injured? When we realize how it could be costly to us in the future? Are the next few seconds or moments of excitement and elation, on accomplishing something likely destructive, maybe meeting a vengeful feeling’s need, really worth hours, days, weeks, months, years or even decades of guilt and agony if someone is embarrassed, humiliated, hurt, or even killed? Just because it feels like it is worth it for that precise moment doesn’t mean you have to actually do it, because you have a long life ahead. You will want to feel joy, happiness, pleasure and satisfaction, and these feelings may not be ever possible to attain if a destructive act is done in this one brief moment you feel like it.