[Neurons] 2024 Neurons #7 SCALING YOUR EMOTIONS

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2024 Neurons #7

February 5, 2024

Emotional Intelligence Series #7

 

 

SCALING YOUR EMOTION'S

INTENSITY

 

Because an e-motion involves motion that is going out of you (ex-motion),
it's not surprising that your emotions involve a degree of energy.  From
what you think and evaluate as you interpret your experiences in the world,
your brain sends signals to your body regarding what to do and how to
respond.  Your interpretative centers in your pre-frontal cortex activates
your associative cortexes and your motor cortex which then activates you to
sense (feel) things in a way that allows you to respond appropriately. 

 

This enables us to not only ask, "What do you feel?" (#5), but also "How
much do you feel X?"  And with this question you can begin to scale an
emotion's intensity?  "How much do you feel afraid?  Or angry?  Or joyful?
Or in love?"  This gives us yet another way of operationally defining an
emotion- an emotion is an energy field.  Imagine the emotion as an energy
bubble that surrounds you, give it a color:

           In anger, you're in a red bubble and it can range from 0 to 10
in intensity.

           In relaxation, a blue bubble and you could rate it in
percentages, 20%, 50%, etc.

           In joy, a golden bubble and you could measure it as low, medium,
or high.

           In grief and sadness, a dark bubble and you can scale it very
dark to gray. 

 

There's many ways that you could talk about the intensity of the emotion.
Years ago when working with men coming out of the Federal Prison here in
Colorado, I was commissioned to do "anger control" with them.  So I created
an anger scale.  I took all of the words for anger that I could find and put
them on a scale ranging on the bottom for "very little" to anger in the
middle to out-rage and violence at the top.                

                             Violence
Anger than has now become physical.

                             Out-raged                         

                             Rage / Wrath
Anger pretty intense, at an 8! 

                             Fury /    Ire

                            Anger
In the middle of the scale: 6 or 7

                             Indignation /  Offended

                             Stress

                             Frustration
anger level at a 4 or 5

                             Agitated / Upset

                             Vexed /  Irked

                             Dislike /  Annoyed
Anger at a 1 or 2 

                             Bothered /  Peeved

 

Once you scale an emotion, you can now make distinctions in how much you
feel a particular emotion.  The men that I worked with were under the
delusion that their experience of anger was an all-or-nothing affair.
Either they had it or they did not.  "You wouldn't like me angry!" a couple
of them told me.  "Why are you a son-of-a-bitch when you're angry?" I would
ask them-keeping my distance (!).  Sheepishly, they would admit, "Yes" they
were.  As they would talk about a provoking event, I would ask, "How much
anger did you experience?"  It was always "10!"  "So you can't make it any
stronger?"  They always said they could-so they were not truly at a 10!
"Okay, turn it down to 9."  "Are you man enough to do that?"  If they said
"8" or something, I would say, "Turn it up to 9, now 10.  Okay, good, now
down to 7."

 

The amazing thing is that once you think about the energy level of an
emotion, everybody seems to have the innate ability to turn it up and down.
Make it more; make it less.  Sometimes I had to help them do that.  "Think
about the threatening bully in diapers and holding a rattle.  Good.  Now
feel the anger at 10."  They couldn't!  

 

In our training manual on Emotional Mastery, we have a page of a dozen
emotional scales- a scale for joy, love, relaxation, etc. and a scale for
fear, sadness, guilty, etc.  In each of the scales I have searched for words
that are synonymous, or nearly so, with the key word.  For example, on the
scale of Joy, at the lowest levels there is content, feeling pleasant.  A
little higher is playful, laughter, mirthful.  Then delight, happiness,
ecstasy at the top.  And where language fails us, the scaling itself offers
a sense of degree.  And when you can scale or gauge the degree of intensity
of an emotion- it gives you a way to describe it, at least a little bit more
accurately.

 

I found scaling as an excellent first step in training people to begin to
manage their emotions.  It breaks the all-or-nothing frame and enables a
person to get in touch with their inner powers for amplifying or dampening
their emotional intensity.

 

If you have been in a learning state as you have read these two pages, how
much interest, curiosity, and fascination did you experience?  Was it a lot
or a little?  Did that degree of curiosity intensity on the scale enable you
to have been in your best the learning state?  Now suppose you amplify or
reduce your curiosity intensity to a level where it is just optimum for you;
now reread this article.  How does that impact your learning?  Your
enjoyment of learning?

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

 

Have you seen the brand New Book from Neuro-Semantics Publications---
Thinking for Humans (2024)?   If you want to learn how to become an
excellent thinker --- to think clearly, precisely, creatively, critically,
and lovingly, this is the book for you.  We have a special deal on the book
right now - write me at meta at acsol.net for that deal.  This book would make
a great gift!

 



 

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