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Exploring the Universe of Emotions

and Managing Emotions
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COMPLETE LIBRARY
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Clearly it’s not the event or situation that

impacts the outcome it’s what happens
emotionally as a result of those events and
situations that really make the difference
between life and death, success and failure,
happiness and misery. This is the distinction
that is so often missing in modern medicine.
Earlier I said that the real risk of heart disease One of commonest feelings that people live with
were not so much the widely publicised is that they are ‘not enough’. They feel that they
traditional risks of blood pressure, cholesterol, are deficient in some way or there is something
diabetes etc but the relatively unknown social, lacking in the world around them. These feelings
educational, interpersonal or physiological risks of deficiency may be personalised into ‘I am not
such as poverty, social inequality, low education a good enough husband/wife, father/mother or
attainment, stress, social isolation, depression, friend’. Women often specialize in feeling bad
anxiety and anger. These things in and of about their physicality: ‘I am too fat’ or ‘my (insert
themselves won’t necessarily kill us but what these appropriate body part) is too big or too small’.
things do to our biology can. Men’s specialist inadequacy is often centred on
their ability to provide, or their strengths and
Low educational attainment doesn’t cause heart physical ability. Why don’t I have a six pack, or
disease but it usually leads to poverty because better biceps? Many people don’t feel good
the individual doesn’t have the knowledge, skills about themselves and lead lives of quiet
or self-confidence to earn a decent living and that desperation. Whether their backside looks big in
creates poverty. But even then it’s still not the those jeans or not is largely irrelevant it’s what that
poverty that is creating the heart disease it’s the observation does to the person’s physiology that
fact that poverty usually creates emotional screws up their health and happiness. In the same
distress, worry and pressure – especially if that way it’s not actually the chocolate cake that
person has a family to support. If the poverty makes someone unhealthy, or the fact that they
creates emotional incoherence in the physiology didn’t go to the gym again this week - what’s
then it is probably experienced as worry, panic, doing the most damage is the self flagellation,
anxiety and depression. The person may feel guilt, self disgust and remorse they feel after
worthless, helpless and socially isolated which eating the chocolate cake or not going to the
further suppresses the immune system, increases gym again. That’s what’s really doing the
cortisol levels even more thus laying the body damage. It’s important to understand that how we
wide open for a host of diseases of which heart feel about what we’re doing often has a much
disease and cancer are just two. bigger effect on health and happiness than what
we are actually doing.
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Vicious Cycles caused by Figure 3.0 The Performance

Mismanaged Emotions Grid
Take exercise for example. One of the primary
benefits of exercise is determined by the way
someone feels about the exercise. If you force
yourself to go to the gym but don’t really enjoy it,
then your body will react catabolically and you
will be operating from the negative side of the
performance grid. In other words your workout
will be breaking your body down not building it
up. In contrast, if you love going to the gym the
exercise will provoke an anabolic response and
will be much more beneficial to you because we are on the left hand side of NE axis we are
you’re operating from the positive side of the said to be in anabolic state or “build up” state.
performance grid and you’re building your body This is underpinned by a range ‘anabolic
up. In our coaching work we’ve seen many hormones’, particularly Dihydroepiandrosterone
individuals who are exercising regularly but still (DHEA). DHEA is the ‘performance’ or ‘vitality
have poor physiology and when we have hormone’, the body’s natural antidote to cortisol
changed their exercise regime to incorporate and is associated with more ‘positive’ emotions.
routines that are much more enjoyable their It is the molecule that makes testosterone in men
physiology has improved significantly. and oestrogen in women. High performance is
obviously much easier when we feel positive.
Remember, what we eat and how often we These positive emotions then increase the levels
exercise are relevant to optimal health but they of DHEA still further creating a virtuous cycle.
are nowhere near as relevant as we’ve been led
to believe. Emotion is the elephant in the room.
When we understand emotion and create
emotional coherence so we can differentiate
between the various emotional tunes our body is
playing and behave appropriately then our
health and happiness will improve dramatically.

The simple unequivocal fact about health and

happiness is that emotion is the active ingredient
and developing emotional coherence will not
only make you more productive but it just might
save your life.
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Emotions and Feelings: The Because it’s about perceptions, human

behaviour plays a huge part, hence the
Critical Difference importance of understanding the real drivers of
behaviour, namely emotions. Since emotions
Most people, including medical professionals use play such a huge part in this job it’s very helpful
the word “emotion” and “feeling” as inter- to have some understanding of them, your
changeable terms believing they are essentially emotional state and how that’s influencing your
the same thing. They are not. behaviour when you’re interacting with markets.”
Learning how to create greater emotional
Going back to the integrated performance model coherence has therefore been extremely
(figure 3.0 above) – physiology is just the raw valuable. Henry was one of the very few
data or the biological ‘notes’ that our body is analysts to predict the credit market collapse of
playing. Emotion is the integration of all the 2007, successfully moving his client’s
various physiological signals or ‘notes’ into a tune. investments ahead of the turmoil and massively
In contrast, a feeling is the awareness and enhancing his firm’s reputation and profile as a
recognition in our mind of the tune that is being result. You can read Henry’s case study at
played by your physical body. Or as www.coherence-book.com.
neuroscientist, Joseph LeDoux suggests feelings
are merely the ‘observation’ of the emotion . Making the distinction between emotions and
feelings may seem like semantics but it’s an
These ‘notes’ are quite literally energy (E) in absolutely crucial differentiation because it
motion (E-motion). The human system is a multi- suddenly resolves so much of people’s
layered integrated hierarchy in a state of constant misunderstandings about how we function. Plus
flux with each system, heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, differentiation is the second critical step in the
brain playing a tune that contributes to the overall evolution of anything so if we want to develop
score of the orchestra. Our body is always as human beings we must elevate our ability to
playing a tune – whether we are aware of that differentiate between different emotions,
tune or can recognise it or not. When we between emotions and feelings and feeling and
become aware of the tune that all our bodily thoughts. For us to develop as business leaders
systems are playing then we are ‘feeling’ the e- we need to improve our ability to differentiate
motion. Emotion is, therefore, the link between things that are not traditionally thought of as
biology and behaviour. A fact not lost on Henry related to business – human biology and human
Maxey – CEO of Ruffer Investment Hedge Fund. nature. Most of which isn’t even given a cursory
Ruffer is an independent and privately–owned nod in Business School. And yet the benefits of
investment management firm employing over 160 this knowledge are phenomenal. When leaders,
people, with offices in London, Edinburgh and senior executives and employees understand
Hong Kong. When we interviewed Henry on his that emotions and feelings are completely
experiences with Enlightened Leadership he said, different phenomena it enables them to learn
“The whole profession is about perceptions... how to control both and ultimately build better
relationships with customers and colleagues
alike.
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There is little doubt that some individuals have And sophisticated control does not mean simply
already learnt a degree of emotional “self- throwing a blanket over the whole orchestra; it
control” or at least they think they have. However means knowing how and when to allow the
such self-regulation often only extends to the expression of each musician within the orchestra
control of the more obvious manifestations of and how to bring coherence to the tune being
body language rather than the emotional energy played to create something genuinely
itself. For example, an individual may be able to astonishing. When we learn genuine control
conceal the fact that he is feeling angry or is over our emotional repertoire then we alter our
desperately unhappy. He may be able to stop physiology and this can literally protect us from
himself from lashing out at a colleague or bursting the illness and disease caused by mismanaged
into tears in a meeting but this is usually no more emotions. It can also protect us from poor
than gross control of body language. It might decision making.
look like he’s “got his act together” but inside his
body he is still experiencing the negative
consequences of those negative emotional
signals whether he actually feels the feeling or
expresses those feelings or not. In other words it
might look like he’s listening to Beethoven and he
may even be able to kid himself that his body is
playing Beethoven but his physiology is still
reacting to what’s really going on – thrash metal
at full volume.

Going back to our orchestra metaphor again,

underneath the external façade of “controlled
emotions” is a vast number of individual musicians
each playing different “notes” or sending subtle
(and not so subtle) signals around the body. An
examination of these uncontrolled signals can be
a very revealing window on the underlying
emotional state that is currently impacting the
individual. Few people recognize let alone
control the fine emotional nuances of their
physiological orchestra.
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References
1 Coates, J (2013) The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Risk Taking, Gut Feelings and the Biology of Boom
and Bust Fourth Estate, London