The Squeaky Wheel by Guy Winch Ph.D

Author:Guy Winch, Ph.D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

Zen and the Art of Emotional Regulation

Of the three components of our emotional experiences, our physiological responses are by far the hardest to control directly. Sure, we can try to lower our heart rates or blood pressure by measured breathing (in, two three; out, two three; and so on), and doing so might even affect them a tad. But truly controlling our autonomic nervous systems is simply not a possibility for most of us. Maybe the rare Shaolin monk or master yogi can drop his blood pressure on demand, but he’s also far less likely to show up at Bed Bath & Beyond with a busted cappuccino maker.

That leaves managing our behaviors to gain control of our emotional responses or changing our thoughts and beliefs to do so. As for our behaviors, we are all experienced at trying to hide from the outside world what we feel on the inside, as doing so is part of life in civilized society. If our boss yells at us in the middle of a presentation we spent weeks preparing for, we try to cover both our embarrassment and our desire to whack the boss over the head with our notes. When the new object of our affections invites us for a romantic home-cooked dinner that tastes as if the butcher had a sale on ferret meat, we hide both our dismay and our gag reflex.

Controlling the behavioral expressions of our emotions by hiding them in such ways is called suppression. Let’s assume that as stranded airport passengers, we know that spewing out our anger and frustration as soon as we’re within spitting distance of the airline clerk will not likely endear us to them or result in our being bumped up the waiting list. Instead, we want to appear as calm and as reasonable as possible so we stand out from the other irate passengers and so we elicit whatever goodwill and favor the temporarily all-powerful reservation clerk has left.

But what can we do to suppress our rage and frustration at being stranded? First, we should probably avoid dwelling on vivid images of our daughter’s scoring the winning goal in her soccer game, looking up into the bleachers with a tear in her eye and wondering why we are not there. Next, we might try speaking more slowly (unless we were slow talkers to begin with). Slower speech generally sounds less angry and agitated. Finally, we can try to force a pleasant smile when we reach the check-in clerk, even as we grind our canceled boarding pass to a pulp under the desk. With suppression, we still experience all the anger and frustration of the situation, but our efforts are focused on hiding those feelings from the person to whom we address our complaint.

Perhaps the best example of suppression is the game of poker, as playing it practically necessitates an expertise in hiding our emotions. Keeping a “poker face” means hiding our excitement when we hold a good hand and hiding our disappointment when we hold bad cards.

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