“You Are NOT Too Sensitive” Brief Summary of Show:
In this episode learn to take inspired action as we ask the question, “Are we too sensitive in the workplace?” Hosts Kyle and Christopher tell stories about being sensitive in the workplace, how they don’t think sensitivity us a weakness, and how you can turn it into a superpower!
Calls to Action:
Tell us your “inspired stories” stories by visiting www.InspiredActionPodcast.ca
Christopher Lawrence LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/career-life-coach-christopher-lawrence/
Kyle Kalloo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-kalloo/
Change My Life Coaching & Strategic Leader LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/6446498/admin/
Change My Life Coaching: https://changemylifecoaching.ca
Strategic Leader: https://strategicleader.ca
Resources:
Lisa Feldman Barret: The New Scientific Understanding of Emotions https://youtu.be/gGeKVBv1L3
“You Are NOT Too Sensitive” Transcript:
When someone calls you sensitive, like you’re too sensitive, you’re so sensitive. What they’re actually interpreting is their own emotional experience of the world. That’s what they’re interpreting.
[Narrator] Is the thought of being imperfect keeping you from taking action? Welcome to inspired action for imperfect humans. Each week, we give you real life stories and thought-provoking research that inspires your soul to live a more fulfilled life through your own actions. From the heart of Calgary Canada, here are your hosts, award winning coaches Christopher Lawrence and Kyle Kalloo.
Hello.
It’s showtime, showtime.
Really big show.
Are you ready to rumble? I always liked that. Are you ready to rumble? I don’t know, was that World Wrestling Federation WWF? That was my Toronto days of watching wrestling.
You know what bothers me about that? I just want to talk about what bothers me.
What bothers you?
You don’t know, this drops at three in the morning. I think, is when Shane drops it just for those early risers. ‘Cause we have a few. And so, I am just like curious if that was obnoxious for the 3:00 AM riser.
No, the people who are rising at 3:00 AM knows they’re ready to go. It’s the ones that are barely opening their eyes at nine o’clock, 10 o’clock that want no talking, no noise until 2:00 PM. That’s those folks that would find that obnoxious. So that’s probably you.
That’s not true.
Don’t be so sensitive.
Oh, girl. What a passive aggressive way of sharing your own emotional experience. Do you know that that’s what that is?
No, I did not.
Girl, that’s what, I had a different topic today, but now we’re talking about this. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding, this is what we’re gonna talk about. We’re gonna talk about being sensitive. Ooh girl. What you just did in that moment. Everybody listen to this, especially if you’ve ever been called sensitive. What Kyle just did in that moment besides being a complete jerk, a passive aggressive jerk. Actually I’m just kidding. What Kyle just did is, is when someone calls you sensitive, like you’re too sensitive. You’re so sensitive. What they’re actually interpreting is their own emotional experience of the world. That’s what they’re interpreting. That’s what they’re interpreting.
Tell me more about that.
This is the thing. Your brain, its whole function. The brain’s whole function is to you use peripheral sensory data.
True.
To basically help you regulate so that you can propagate the next generation. That’s your brain’s primary job and it uses fragments of sensory data. Okay, and just so, I’m getting into research already here. That’s good. We’ll just change the order today. This comes from Lisa Feldman Barrett. So, so you can look this up on YouTube the new scientific understanding of emotions.
Okay, I like that.
Okay. She’s written, she’s written two books. She is a brilliant researcher. She looked at meta analysis of emotions and brain research and the connection. You know how we talk about the amygdala, the lizard brain or the croc brain taking over and that kind of thing? And we can call it like an amygdala hijack and that kind of thing. It’s not real. Your amygdala, like for example, in all of the data, the amygdala response showed up for, mostly we talk about it for fear, right? The amygdala response in all of the research showed up 30% of the time. So that is still statistically significant enough to have a peer reviewed paper, a rigorously–
Wow, there’s some serious words you are throwing out there.
Girl.
I thought you were gonna say it’s sickening. I thought that was the word you were going for.
Bitter Betty’s butter. Bent backwards.
Rigorous and significant.
Rigorously.
I thought you were actually gonna say sickening.
So 30% is enough to have a paper, like a rigorously peer reviewed paper put it in a medical journal. But when you look at the meta analysis, it only showed up in 30% of the study. So it is statistically significant, but that means that your brain can like, like your brain can also or let me get the words right on this because if there’s researchers listening. In 70% of the studies, your brain was getting to fear in different ways. So the amygdala isn’t always involved.
Interesting.
So the whole croc brain thing is kind of out the window, right? So the theory is like layer upon layer, right? You have your amygdala and then your limbic system and then the neocortex. And then we call it the battle of the brain where the neocortex is in a battle with the limbic. the older parts of the brain, the amygdala and the neocortex. But actually what she did, her and her peers looked at thousands upon thousands upon thousands of studies around emotion and brain scans and this and that, and what they discovered. So this is a meta analysis of the best research is what this is. So what they discovered are that there are a significant amount of myths in our beliefs around the world. So when it comes to sensitivity, I’m gonna tell a story now. Girl, twice in my career, I was called Mr. Sensitive. Twice. One time I was working for a leader, I’m gonna call her Sally even though that’s her real name. And–
I’m gonna call her Sally and that’s her real name. Yes!
It is. It’s her real name.
Whoa, okay.
You had to lean back for that laugh, bro. Lean back.
You are not holding any of the punches today. You’re like sensitive. I’ll show you sensitive. Let me call her out.
But I think people need to hear this though.
Okay, okay, go. I’m curious.
I think people need to hear this because I think sensitive people in the workplace get a bad rap, particularly in the corporate world. And it’s like, but I don’t think people understand the advantage that there is to leading with emotion. So they’re, like, are people sensitive? It’s like, again, that’s an interpretation of somebody’s own emotional experience with what they’re seeing. And I’m gonna explain this in a couple minutes here, but Sally, you know, I was working at Black’s photography. What Sally didn’t know is that I was in my first year of sobriety from being like a hardcore drug addict. Oh my God, drugs were a problem. For me, anyway. But you know, so there, I was having some volatile moments for sure where it’s just like, you know, it’s like she’d say things that I would get kind of wrapped up in it and lead with my emotion. And, you know, again, this goes back to a conversation that we’ve had around leading, sorry, a conversation we’ve had around like leaders, not leading, but being good managers. And Sally was a phenomenal manager. Like she could get the job done. You know, she ran two stores in the same vicinity. There was a Black’s photography on the second floor of Eaton center and a blacks photography on the first floor of TD square. And she ran them both. Right, so, you know, like she could manage. She could get the job done. Smart lady, nice lady, funny lady too, right? But terrible leadership.
That’s okay.
So she, you know, we’re sitting down having a conversation and she says, okay, Mr. Sensitive, we need to have a conversation.
Really, she just started off just like that? Mr. Sensitive.
Yeah, yeah. And we are taught that sensitivity is a liability in the workplace. And then, and so it’s just like, you know, I was angry. I was upset and I don’t know, which to the sensitive person, like if you, ’cause we don’t see sensitivity as a superpower. We don’t, but it is. Sensitivity is a superpower, right? Because what sensitivity means is that you are highly attuned to your own human experience and the emotions that you’re feeling. What sensitive people have is what we call emotional granularity. So I’m gonna talk about that in a minute. Girl, I’m on today.
Yeah, I was just gonna say, I just said one word to you and we have this research, we have this breakdown. You’ve just changed the way I think about the croc brain now that I’ve been coaching and talking about for a long time. So this is great. It’s very refreshing actually to get this insight.
Well it explains so much about some–
And it makes sense, that’s what I like about it.
That’s the point. So basically, you know, being a young worker, I walk away and I see, you know, and having, you know, a stepdad who’s a former Calgary police officer and very logic based, very rationally based, you know, he was the first person in my life. Although I also had some encouragement from my stepmom in this way in, and probably I would say her approach was more pragmatic than my stepdad’s, but they were very much like kind of check your emotions at the door, right? Check your emotions at the door and make rational, logical objective decision.
We’ve chat about, yeah.
And it’s interesting because I have trained myself to remain objective, but objectivity and sensitivity are metaphors for how we describe our own emotional human experience. So I walk away from Sally and I’m feeling, you know, like, oh, sensitivity is bad. This is the third time I’m hearing it now from somebody that I respect, you know, stepmom, stepdad. And, by the way, if you ever tell my step parents that I respect them, I will come for you. Do not let them know.
I’m going to send them. I’m gonna send them this podcast.
So, I actually sent him this research. Do you notice response was? I sent him this research and I just kind of outlined it. ‘Cause he and I had this conversation about emotion versus rational decision making all the time. So I sent him this research and do you know what his response was?
Profanity for sure.
It was fuck you with 13 exclamation marks.
There you go. Totally. That’s an emotional response, Mr. Sensitive. So anyway, I walk away from Sally, third time I’m hearing this and I’m thinking to myself, this is a liability. Sensitivity’s a liability, check your emotions, right? So I trained myself. I go through my time at WestJet, WestJet actually, I think there was a different appreciation and understanding of sensitivity in that company because of the culture of the company. I don’t think that there were a lot of strong leaders really great managers, some strong leaders, but, you know, I think it was just no accountability to good leadership, right? But there was a different understanding. I go into oil and gas, right? So now I’m in my late twenties, early thirties. I go into the oil and gas industry and it’s a totally, you know, very different industry. And, I heard the same thing from a vice president as well as a director. Oh, you’re very sensitive, aren’t you? But it wasn’t as a compliment, it was as a, I’m uncomfortable with this. Again, it’s their emotional experience. So they’re saying check at out the door. I’m curious, so again, I thought this is a liability. I’ve got to work on it. And then I thought, well, how do I use this to my advantage? And then I went and became a life coach, you know, and now we’re award winning and you know we’ve built a company and it’s, you know, for whatever success means by somebody who’s own definition, I feel like a successful person, which does not mean I have no problems, right? Not as many as you.
Stepping in your step, you’re stepping into it, right? Which is what I like, I mean, can I share a story?
I wish you would.
Yeah, I was facilitating yesterday. And I think that, and I’m curious on your perspective because I believe there’s a correlation here on this. So I was facilitating a workshop with one of our corporate clients and with our team and we’re going through it and you know we’re breaking down a few things and the person, one of the person participants said, you know, I have to recognize that I can’t take it personal. And you know, and I just kind of stopped him. And I just said, but is personal.
It is personal. It’s only your experience.
And you’re acutely aware of that experience. Just like what you just said, and there’s nothing wrong. Just because I take it personal doesn’t mean it’s this negative thing that I’m gonna blow up. I can take something personal to say I’m gonna do a better job with this thing. I can tell you something personal and say I actually care a lot about this thing because it is personal. You are a person. Who else are you gonna take it as? I can’t take it as you, I can’t take it as other people. Right, I can be mindful of my sensitivity, my emotions, the personal impact I’m having, the story I tell myself and then say I’m gonna choose differently. And do you know what he said? He’s like, I have just been taught that I shouldn’t, just don’t take things personal. And I said, tell me what happens when you say you don’t take things personal. ‘Cause I know you still do. And he goes, yeah, I do. So then who you saying don’t take it personal to? Because if it doesn’t change anything, then why bother, right? Or you’re stifling your own thing that you want to do, right? Which doesn’t make sense ’cause it’s going to come back.
That’s very intuitive, Kyle, of you. And the interesting thing about this is that even intuition, it’s still an emotion based off history. So this is how it works. Let’s go back to the brain thing. Can we do that for a second?
Yeah, let’s do it.
So this is the brain thing. The brain thing, oh, I hope those geese are not nesting.
I just looked at it, yeah.
Oh, sorry.
I looked at it and I said I know he’s gonna comment on it. We can see this, we’re in different offices, but we can see the same areas, and there’s this building and these, and I just like please do not mention anything about it. They’re gonna be fine.
I’m sorry, I forgot we were doing a podcast. I just like, I’m such an animal lover, right? Mr. Sensitive. So I’m like looking out the window and I see this beautiful geese just like flying in. And I just hope they’re not nesting on that building. ‘Cause I don’t know how their babies are gonna get down. Anyway.
If you’re watching this, you would see my eyes flick up ’cause I could see it as well. And I brought it back down. And in that moment I said to myself, Lord, do not let this man see that. And then you did. Anyway.
I did. Okay, so.
Break it down.
So I’m gonna break it down. So think of it this way. You know like in the old style computers you had like a CPU box, right? It was a box, and then you had to attach a monitor to it.
Everything to it.
You had to attach a mouse to it and keyboard to it.
Everything, yeah.
And so, but here’s the thing, the compute, without those things, you could turn the computer on and the computer would be running.
Right, you just couldn’t see it.
It would still be doing what it’s doing. Our brain is doing that all of the time. So, but what it’s using–
Great metaphor.
Think of like the, you know, eyes and touch, and so it’s sensory data.
Five senses, yeah.
And so what it’s doing is it’s taking fragments of sensory data and that’s all we get is fragments. ‘Cause we never get the whole picture. We get fragments of sensory data and our brain takes that and it processes it and it processes it relying on history. So based off previous experience, Where it doesn’t have history, it builds.
Right.
So you can’t actually create this. You don’t create emotions. Your brain builds emotions based off of that as a matter of regulation. So the emotions are there to regulate, right? That’s why they’re there. So anybody that says leave your emotions at the door, check it at the door. Your brain prevents you from doing that. Your brain prevents you. You cannot have a single, unless you are not neurotypical, you cannot have an interpretation without emotion. You cannot have an interpretation without emotion. We’re gonna put this YouTube link where she summarizes all this data, it’s from the institute of coaching. We’re gonna put the YouTube link in our chat. Everybody needs to–
Yeah, I think that’s great for people to just get the detail. ‘Cause I know we can’t cover it all, but you know, there’s opportunities for you to be able to click on that and see more information.
Why are you tryna rush me? Are you trying to rush me on this podcast?
No I’m not, I’m just saying. ‘Cause I know when people are listened to it like even myself, I’m just like, oh, well tell me more. Let’s talk about that more. And again, that’s just a whole nother story, but sometimes, because for some people, including myself, there’s a paradigm shift that’s happening, right? So it’s like what you even know, know what you’re accustomed to, what you hear about, and then you move in it because for so long, so many people have been told to check their emotions or don’t rely on their emotions. I know it was, you know, a few years ago, I’ve stepped more into my emotions, right? Just being aware of it, allow it to process. Don’t be so quick to turn it off, right? But be mindful, say okay, great, I understand why I’m feeling that way. I understand what’s happening for me right now. And being deliberate about my next words or choices, right? And still honor the emotional piece of me.
That’s totally it, right? So we, all of our experiences, Kyle, so we use to predict, right? We use to predict, cause it prediction is about regulation. It’s about saving energy in the body, right? So we use to predict. We use this information and we use what we see, feel, touch, taste, smell in combination with our emotions and the history of those emotions. So there’s a couple of things that I think that people need to know. Especially Sally and Chris and Andy. Andy was something else, I’ll tell you what. Oh, he invited me to leave TransCanada so many times and everybody loved him as a VP. But he was the most disorganized vice president I have ever worked with. I didn’t work for him, I worked with him.
That bus today, that bus is in full steam today. That’s the hydraulics on this bus. The amount of bodies you’re running over.
You know, they’re all good people, right? But, so here’s a couple things that people can also know. First thing is we cannot actually read emotion on people’s face. We cannot predict the emotion that we’re reading on people’s faces. So like as an example, when we furrow our brow, we say that’s scowling and scowling is an indication of anger, but actually in the research, scowling showed up only 30% of the time with anger. So that does, it’s statistically significant. Scowling can definitely mean anger is what that’s saying. But 70% of the time we might be doing something else with anger, right? So the idea here is that we don’t, like your interpretation is like oh, they must be angry. Do you remember I used to do this all the time where I’m like, I don’t think this audience is engaged. Do you remember I would say that, and I would base it off of what their faces are. You’re like, no, Christopher they’re concentrating.
Yeah, exactly.
I’m like, are you sure? Right, like and he’s like–
I used to say that too.
Yeah, totally. So it’s, well no, that never happened. I’ve never been wrong with you except for that one time. And the one time I was wrong with you was when I chose to make you my friend.
I’m scowling. For those people are wondering, yeah. I have this scowl look on my face.
See I would interpret your look as confused. Maybe a little dumbfounded. Okay, so let’s talk about this. So we cannot actually like read people’s faces. That doesn’t exist. What we’re doing is we’re taking the sensory data that we receive into our body and we’re using our history and our emotions. And you are always using your emotions because your brain prevents you from having any interaction with the world without emotion. It prevents you from doing it. So the idea is that that you’re relying on history and saying, oh, they’re angry or they’re sad or whatever, right? But it’s not necessarily true. So we don’t wanna do that. The face does not speak for itself. Therefore this face does not speak for someone’s emotion. Your brain is guessing. Even if you read others well, you’re still guessing.
Right, right.
Right? So it uses history to detect, that’s what it does.
Okay.
Okay? The other thing is there’s no dedicated circuitry in the brain for your emotions. So it’s like, we think fear comes from this place. Anger comes from this place, actually just like everything. You know how you, there’s people who have a stroke and the part of their brain dies that allows them to, you know, use their left side. But then their brain makes a new neural pathway and they start using their left side again, okay?
Right, right, yeah.
So, just emotions are the same. There’s no dedicated pathway for emotional circuitry. It happens in all sorts of ways in our brain, okay? The third thing, another myth is that is the body is important for emotion, but unimportant for thinking. That’s untrue. You cannot think without emotion. It is absolutely impossible. So these people that use, you know, that call me Mr. Sensitive or people that are extremely pragmatic, people who are non-emotional and us sensitive people wish we could be more like that ’cause life would be easier. Actually, Kyle, it’s untrue. They’re still using emotion.
Of course, yeah.
They’re still using emotion to make their decisions. The only time that isn’t true is if they’re not neurotypical.
Right. Like me, okay, got it.
Well, no, you’re not. That’s not the truth actually. Even though people who work with you would say that you probably have some sociopathic tendencies. I know everybody in this office is like vying for a psychological review.
Oh my Lord. Oh my Lord.
Okay, so what can people do with this?
Good question.
‘Cause we’re at some time here, so we’ve gotta move things along. What can people do with this? So here’s the thing. Ideally, we want to create experiences that seed our brains to predict flexibly. This is actually what emotional intelligence is about. Right? It is about making sure we can predict flexibly. So instead of when we see a circumstance, we get angry, it’s like, well, what else could there, you know, what other things could be happening? So I do this all the time when I drive, right? It’s like, I used to be a very angry driver, extremely angry driver. We’ll tell that story another day. And you know, and similarly to Kyle, Kyle used to be very dismissive. If he couldn’t get what he wanted, he moved on. Very quickly, right?
Done, yes.
So, in this case with driving now, one of the ways that I seed different experiences so my brain could predict differently is I start to make different assumptions as opposed to they did that deliberately, it’s more like oh, what if their grandma’s in the hospital dying? What if they’re in emergency? What if they’re just a little bit tired and made an absent-minded mistake? Right, ’cause–
Or wanna get home to the toilet right away.
Yeah, ’cause we’ve all done it, right? So we’ve all had that experience in some form or another, right? So when I do that, all of a sudden my brain starts to predict differently. So now when somebody cuts me off, my instant reaction is to wave.
Yeah.
I just wave and it’s weird. Like some of them are like, why are you waving at me? And I’m like, I don’t know, now that’s my new habit.
I would think some would wave back ’cause then the realize what they’ve done maybe, and they would just as a reaction, do you find that the wave back to you? Yeah, just say.
Sometimes they do.
Yeah, I could see that for some people like oh–
Sometimes they do.
‘Cause I know sometimes when, you know, you and I, if we cut someone off or did something or didn’t even see someone walking by something and almost hit them, we’re like oh my God, I’m so sorry. ‘Cause we’re just like, I realize it right now.
It’s funny the reaction you get. Some people get madder. Some get the emotion disgust. So they’re like, ah. You know, like you shouldn’t have screwed up even though you’re apologizing, you know, that kind of a thing.
Yeah, how dare you?
And some people are like, okay, okay, okay. Like, thanks for apologizing, right? So here’s what else people can do. So cultivate these experiences to think differently. Ideally, you do it in the moment, but it’s hard. It’s like exercise. It’s still a good investment of your time and money. This is why, Kyle, as coaches we’re quite unique with our clients in the sense that it’s never been about the session, it’s always been about the life and why people, we allow our clients to reach out to us between sessions. It’s not a 24/7 helpline, but this is what makes us so unique is because we do allow for that because, I have told my clients this. Like in the moment, I need you to reach out to me rather than waiting because the coaching in the moment might be more valuable than waiting a week and a half until your next session, right? So sometimes that’s not possible, but the closer we can catch it, the more likely we can do. Now that was kind of an intuitive thing. Like I was doing it because I knew it was the right thing to do based off of my own experience using outside sensory data, and my own history and experience. I knew that that was helpful, but I didn’t know why. Now I know why, because we’re changing the experience in the moment so that we’re creating new histories for our brain so that there’s different ways of doing it. This is what good psychologists do. Bad psychologists keep you in just talk therapy.
Yeah.
Right? Good psychologists, they do a bit of talk therapy, but then they move you into this realm.
And that’s what people want anyway, they do, right? With knowing or not, that is what they want.
Well some don’t know that that’s what they want, right? Like there are people who just keep finding the next professional to tell their story too. So ideally, we do this in the moment. I’ll give you an example, I was doing this last night. Last night, I was feeling quite anxious. So I get, some of our listeners will relate to this. I get a little bit of kind of like health anxiety. So like, I’m so attuned to the sensations in my body. That’s that sensory perception. But based off of, this is what I understand now, is that based off of the history, my history, I’m over-focused on the sensory experience in my body. So my brain is misinterpreting the data into, oh, this is a health issue, right?
Making into something that it might not be.
That’s it. So having just had our vaccines, I’m thinking, you know, every tick and bop I’m like, am I, you know, one of the .016% of people who’s gonna have an adverse reaction and get a blood clot or, you know? Like this is where my brain goes. And I know I’m not alone in this. Like is more common than people realize. But what’s happening is that I’m over interpreting the sensory data based off of my history, right? Well not over interpreting, I’m just interpreting. My brain is interpreting the sensory data, what’s happening in my body based off history. And so the history that’s locked in is a history of medical trauma, right? So my brain is more hyper attuned to this is what’s happening. So super powerful experience. So last night in the moment, to create resiliency, I was retraining my brain to predict more fluidly and flexibly in the future. So I’m saying, well that’s fear, right? So you gotta name the emotion, that’s fear. And the idea with it is that I start to change the story. So I undo my history. So I try to put other things. I’m like, well, it could be a blood clot, but what else could it be? Well, it could just be that I’ve had two nights of poor sleep. It could be that I’ve created a bias to focusing on my body sensations because I know I just had a vaccine. So now that’s my focus. That’s like saying, Kyle, don’t think about the color red. Just don’t think about it. What are you noticing right now?
Red.
Everything that’s red, right? So it creates that bias, right? So it’s like maybe it’s that. I’m like, you know, maybe I ate something that’s, you know? Maybe I, you know, I started, like I increased my physical activity, so maybe I’m experiencing my body in a new way right now. And so just kind of training flexibly. So what the interesting thing was is that the anxiety started to come down, right? The anxiety started to come down. And this morning when I woke up and some of the, and I’m not ignoring symptoms, by the way, but some of the symptoms were there. I was like, oh, I mean that could be anything, you know? So it’s, you know, it feels better than yesterday, so it’s not a problem. You know, like these kinds of things, right? So and listen, like check with your doctor. I’m gonna do the whole liability thing. Check with your doctor, blah, blah, blah. It’s just, you know, I know my body well enough to know. So this is part of what people can do. The other thing that they can do is focus. And this will be my last point. Cause I know that we’ve got to wrap this up. The other thing that they can do is focus on emotional granularity. So basically what this means and this is the part that gets me and I feel this is my emotional experience. I feel so righteous about this. And I feel, I feel very .
If there ever was a righteous song and a tambourine to go with it.
Oh girl, you just listen to this sweet voice. This sweet, scratchy, bird sounding voice. So here’s the thing, I feel so validated by this next point, because people who talk about check you emotions at the door, we do have people not people, we have circumstances, not people, we have circumstances where we lead with emotion or where it’s tucked in the backend, but it’s always there. And so in certain circumstances, some people are leading with emotion. So the idea, if you’re on the receiving end of somebody’s quote sensitivity, find out what’s happening with their emotion. What are they telling themselves based on their history? Right? And then start to be flexible. Help them get flexible with that, right? By saying, oh, this was my intent or this is what I meant, you know, whatever it is. But I feel so justified because it’s like, but if I am leading with emotions in that moment, there’s a reason why that’s happening. And it’s not my fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not Chris, Sally or Andy’s fault. It’s just the circumstance. It’s just like they have led with emotions at other times in their life. Right? So the way that I look at like, is it better that somebody is angry and shouting or somebody is quietly angry and suppressing it? I’m not sure that either is right. The point is to acknowledge it and move through it. So this next point really speaks to this because, you know, I have found in my experience people like that, when you, and even in my coaching when they ask about, it’s like I’ll say, well, what’s the emotion you’re feeling? And they’ll say, well, I think that, you know, John, blah, blah, blah, or Jennifer, blah, blah, blah. And I said, and then I’ll say, so what’s the emotion? And it’s like, well, I think that. And I’m like, actually, what you’re giving me is what you think. What I’m interested in is the emotion. And so I’ve actually handed my clients a list of emotions and said I want you to choose some things off of this. So the more emotionally granular we can be, the more flexibility we have when emotional events occur, therefore increasing our ability to predict flexible outcomes in the future. So the idea of emotional granularity is have a big vocabulary for emotional words and use those words. So basically what she says is having a larger vocabulary of emotional words. This allows the brain to have more flexible repertoire of emotional events and it can make and perceive in others in particular situations. So basically that’s an aspect, one aspect of emotional intelligence is having a large vocabulary and utilizing that. A brain that is emotionally granular is a brain that can make any number of predictions and regulate action and experience in very flexible ways, in ways that allow people to cope better with immediate situations. People who are emotionally granular not only cope better with situations, they’re also physically healthier and recover from illness faster. Doesn’t that just blow your mind?
Yes. You gave a lot today.
I know, and we’re so over time. Oh my God.
You gave a lot today, which is good, which is good. I think it’s a big thing–
But the difference between when I lead a podcast and when you lead a podcast is that this is interesting.
So, what imperfect inspired actions are you gonna take after listening to today’s whopping filled great information today? We wanna hear from you. Go out there, take some action, lead with your emotions, and it’s okay to be sensitive.
[Narrator] It’s our goal to build a global community of inspired action takers and we can only do that with your help. So if you love inspired action, please leave a review on your favorite podcasting app and share us on your socials. You’ve heard from us, now we wanna hear from you. Go to inspiredactionpodcast.ca and tell us what is the inspired action you took this week? Next week on inspired action for imperfect humans.
Unlike you, I’m very careful about what I put in my mouth, you know?
Yeah, tell that to the last 50, anyway. So today.
