Communication Basics: Emotional Sense Will Come Before Rational Sense

For some crazy reason, I was taught that the emotions are the caboose of my faith and reason the engine of my faith.  This way of viewing things, coming off of a battle with depression in the 80s, led me to make more errors (or commit more sins) in five to 10 years than all my prior experience of the Christian faith combined.  I remember real well seeing the diagrams where faith, or rational faith to be precise, came before the cars on the tracks with the caboose of feelings at the rear.  I believe both Campus Crusade (now CRU) and the Billy Graham Association used this picture extensively.  The combination of my bad experience, Dan Goleman's work on emotional intelligence, and studying Scripture have convinced me that Rev. Tim Keller is now right when he says that emotions are not the caboose of our faith according to a recent article in Christianity Today.


The image that I have spoken about is pictured below:

It is found in the booklet called The Four Spiritual Laws pictured below:

But to head off any objections quickly in advance, let me point out that my putting emotions before reason does NOT result in feelings, followed by faith and then followed by fact.  The diagram, if reversed as below has mixed categories logically that don't belong together.  So up front I disavow any view that looks like the following illogical (Do you see how I still value logic and reason?) scheme:

Now that I have answered that concern up front let's continue.  According to Goleman, my Bible and Tim Keller, our emotions have to come before our reason or rationality.  But let's be clear, second goes with first.  The best of all worlds has the two working together like the first and second commandments.  The first commandment is the greater, the second commandment is the lesser between the two and the two together for the greatest commandment.  I learned this principle of greater, lesser, and greatest first from my studying at the Center for Biblical Research in Pasadena, CA (now in Redlands, CA.  Dr. William Bean taught all of us the importance of knowing the distinction of greater and lesser.  But this was really driven home to me later with the example of how KJV translators viewed how they were to translate the word for justice.  In some contexts, when the Hebrew word meant justice in addition to rightewousess it is translated as justice.  But at other times when it stands for both both righteousness and justice it was to be translated as judgment.

So let's look at some examples of greater and lesser before moving back to the topic of emotional and rational.  Let's lay out what I have just said in a more graphic format:

GREATER                          LESSER                                                GREATEST

Righteousness                      Justice                                                     Judgment

Plumb line                             Level line                                                Level (er)  (vertical and horizontal)

1st commandment                  2nd commandment                                 2nd commandment sums up 1 & 2

Living or dead                       Lion or dog                                             Living Lion over all other combos

Food or not food                   Full loaf or half-loaf                                 The full loaf of food is greatest


You get the pattern.  So what is the pattern I see for emotions and reason?  My answer is:

GREATER                             LESSER                                              GREATEST

Emotional                               Logical, rational                                    Rational emotion (credibility)


If you disagree with my order consider this.  So do the charts that many Christians grew up with in the evangelical setting.  You ought to react that way based on your education.  But please take your education another step forward.  Search the Scriptures to see if what they taught you in pubic or private school is true.

People claim all the time that Scripture is their only rule and authority, but in actual mental health deny it.  They respond out of a defensiveness in the sense that they do not want to hear that their position is not good enough.  Or worse yet, they feel a sense of grief over having to let go of an idea they so prized.  So let's bring Scripture itself into this messy situation.

We read in any translation I have ever read: "the fear of the LORD [Yahweh] is the beginning of wisdom".  To me the beginning comes first.  So the emotion of fear comes before the reason of wisdom.  Note that it does not say that "wisdom of the LORD [Yahweh] is the beginning of fear".  This is not the only place we see mention of emotion before reason.  "Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy".  Notice that the reference is first to fear and then to reason.

Note to this diagram that shows somewhat (the best would be where there is more overlap) my point if you move from right to left like the Hebrews:

THE mistake people make is that they think that the greater and lesser are mutually exclusive rather than realizing that they both are necessary to reach the greatest.  Consider this example.  The recent killings and suicide at Santa Barbara were followed by deep expressions of grief and deep reason in some cases.  In one expression alone the question was asked: "When will the insanity end?"  This was asked by a father feeling the grief of losing his son, but also still in possession of his rational faculties.  He has more credibility at this moment than anyone not touched by the tragedy both because of his grief but also because of his reason. The danger for the rest of us is that we can ignore his grief and we can sidestep his rationality.  He clearly feels the grief and sees the insanity.  He knows delay does not make sense in light of this continuing new tide of the same kind of outcomes.  So why do he rest of us think it does make sense emotionally and rationally?  Could it be that we have become cold to the emotion and only cold rationalists able to delay, because his emotion does not touch our own?  Have we become so bad at communication that we can't even listen well to either emotion or reason?

It appears we have. There is nothing that is calling us to do something.  We are going to do the same things again which means the insanity will happen again.  We will once again bring in the emotional experts to heal the wounds rather than prevent the wounds.  We will continue to bankrupt the system.  WE will be so proud of ourselves for being ahead of past research and of making the latest discoveries.  But this man is hurting, is he not?  So, what if we or our best friend is next?  So what if we only ignore him?  I got a feeling a lot of people might feel like he does, that they have been slighted yet again.  That just sets off further anger that is unresolved.  And anger was the emotion involved in the killings.

No, emotions cannot be sidestepped, they must be faced.  It is the only way to begin to diminish anger.  But don't take my word for it.  Take the word of the man who no longer has a son and who feels now that his question is not being addressed in a prompt fashion.  All the rest of us must look slow to him.

Talk to Rev. Tmothy Keller, talk to Daniel Goleman.  But more than that think about what the title Christianity TODAY (my emphasis) says in relation to the man's question of "When?". Can we say TODAY to this man is when we will do something.  Will you do something TODAY?  Will you contact me TODAY and help me form a team response?   Or will your emotions continue to run just a little later on the tracks than it should.  Will the caboose arrive just a little late, when the engine arrived on time?  Will it continue arriving late with some well-worn excuse or can we hear the whistle of our emotions that says get on board with this guy now and do something.  Let's stop the insanity NOW, not LATER.

Don't fall into the errors (sins) of the caboose like I did.  I pray that I have communicated with you in such a way that you cannot ignore that man's grief nor the grief you can feel through him.  Ask the man who has lost a son, how it feels and why he feels the way he does.  I think he can prove more than I can at this moment. Go ask him, if you still don't think emotions comes first.  Should he not feel grief first and most?  May God's word move you to both emotion and reason and then to action.  May God bless all of us to learn to communicate in this way.  Remember the greater and the lesser together are the greatest.  That man gave all of us an expression that was the greatest statement of all.  Respond to it.  Don't just sit there.  How can you do that?  You can't, right?  I can't.  So I am doing what I can.  I pray you will too.


Sincerely,

Jon,
A friend of a man with
the courage to speak what
he feels eloquently.

Communication 101: 10 Ways to Calm Down the Angry

You probably have heard that the first thing in defusing the angry is to stay calm.  That is one part of some very good advice, when dealing with the angry.  To be frank, I think dealing with angry people has been my hardest struggle, when it comes to my emotions.  I am great at moving someone from fear to confidence, but not as good at moving someone from angry to calm.  So I have been studying this task.  Here is what I have learned so far (organizing it according to my IQ pattern found in my ARWAT method).

Here is the best advice I can give so far in ten fairly basic steps:


1. Get Engaged - ask the angry person questions to show you are listening.

2.  Use Anger as a Meter - gauge their anger like you use a Geiger counter to alert you to the degree of the problem.

3.  Assert Your Eyes or Hit the Road Together - Show you are not trying to avoid them through eye contact or get them to move with you rather than against you.by taking a walk together.  

4.  Tune In - get involved in listening to them fast and don't wait until anger has risen to the top of the bell curve where they are now totally out of control.

5.  Own Up Maturely - make sure that own what is yours including your mistakes and admit them maturely and not condescendingly.

6.  Lower Your Thermostat - stay calm while they are angry.  It is back to that advice to return a soft answer in return for anger.

7.  Take a Step Back - See things from their perspective without necessarily agreeing.  Acknowledge what their concern is that has them angry.

8.  Use Magic Phrases - Try things like, "Yes, I agree." or "You're right" or "I'm sorry".  Nothing disarms like taking their side on anything you can agree on as common ground.

9.  Don't Feed the Angry Person Data - this can say that you are not listening and that you are being disrespectful.  Find instead some way to be respectful toward their concerns.

10.  Set Limits - Say what you will let be and what you won't let be, because you get what you tolerate.  If their rage is a little too melodramatic, a little too frequent, a little too abusive, then give them a chance to change to what you can tolerate from what is intolerable.  Give them a different kind of choice.



I got the content for this from an article by Men's Health titled: 11 Ways to Calm Down an Angry Woman. I figured there is no way I couldn't learn from an article with that title.   But like I said, I have re-organized it so that it follows my logical intelligence material (ARWAT) as well.  That way the emotional and the logical brain can talk to each other more easily through parallels.  So if you learn my logic tool as well as my emotional tool you should be able to make the emotions and logic work together which is better than either one alone by far.

Anyway, I hope these ideas give you a way from anger to calm at least for yourself and hopefully a way for yourself to help others to move from anger to calm.  I sure wish I could do this like I can move someone from fear to confidence.  That one I have known well for years due to some good teaching from my dad.

I wrote my points for moving from fear to confidence today, so maybe I can post those things tomorrow.  So I hope you have found a better way to communicate, while considering the emotions of another person's mind and not just their mind's logic.  Take care.



Sincerely,

Jon



.

Communication Basics: Getting Your Mind Mentally Healthy First

I am writing a book that has a major component in it that deals with communication.  Here's the short of it:  If anyone wants to know what my book is about, then it is about MENTAL HEALTH as the starting point (not an ending point).  Here's the slightly longer of it: If we don't IMPROVE our emotional intelligence (EQ) FIRST and logical intelligence (IQ) SECOND to get credibility intelligence (CQ) THIRD, then get me out of here quick!  People's minds are otherwise land mines!

For a long time, education has not started with our emotions, but with our logic by default.  Emotions were bad, logic good.  Emotions were to be fought and controlled and logic was to be followed and let loose. This is contrary to the latest in brain science.  Read Dan Goleman in full on emotional intelligence, if you want the brain science.  I suggest his book, Emotional Intelligence as a good place to understand the biology behind the emotions.  I can't outdo him on that part of the topic.  But I would like to outdo him on other parts.   The tool that I use for my EQ is the AJECC method (please see other posts for the details).

What I do, is that I go beyond his basic biological and emotional findings and take it at least 2 more steps. First, I find it in my Bible, as well as in his biology, that it is accurate that emotions come first, since "the fear of Yahweh [translations: "the LORD"] is the beginning of wisdom", not the logic of action is the beginning of wisdom.  Logic or rationality is the IQ aspect of wisdom, but it follows, not leads.  I believe in communication that takes into consideration both EQ and IQ.  They have to communicate with each other, not stifle each other, as I learned in my undergraduate years.  That wonderful theory of logic first sent my life into a personal tailspin that I could not wait to see end, when it was happening.  I made incredibly stupid decisions based on logic first or logic alone.  It also nearly killed me physically.  Do not bypass your emotions, but rather let both emotions and logic communicate with each other to establish CQ, or what I call, a Credibility Quotient.  The most credible people are those in touch with both their emotions and their logic. They don't lose or stifle either one.  My favorite tool for IQ is my ARWAT method (please read other posts for details).

So what is the other step forward?  Second, I think the test Goleman has for emotional intelligence is weak. It only tells whether you are in touch with emotion and it doesn't really develop a parallel universe of emotions that interconnect with logical intelligence.  Aristotle, of classical fame, does this better than Goleman does in his book, Rhetoric.  A less classical and more contemporary set of authors is Richard S. Lazarus and Bernice N. Lazarus in their book, Passion and Reason: Making Sense of Our Emotions, that gives us a more up to date version of Aristotle's kind of treatment of emotions.  (I have to admit here that I have only skimmed the book so far.  I plan on reading it in full with great expectations so far.)

Please let me add to the "Biblical", "Classical", and "Up to Date" arguments, a "Real Life Story" to demonstrate the power of emotions.  Lincoln and Jesus were both fond of stories and I think it is a good idea for one at this point.

I lived in the Los Angeles area at the time of the L.A. riots in the early 90s, as I recall.  To give you some perspective of the magnitude of this event, imagine standing above the area of the Rose Bowl and seeing a dark black cloud of smoke over the entire Los Angeles Valley with sun breaking through around each edge of the black smog from the cities' fires.  The only other image that I can compare it to is from the movie, Godzilla and the Smog Monster, if you ever watched it.  (Admittedly, the movie wasn't too good.)

There was another cloud in the city at the time.  It could be called the cloud of great fear.  This followed a cloud of immense anger.  As a result of this fear, our school, a predominately Caucasian/white school, and another school, a predominately African American/black school, decided to postpone a football game between our schools.  The problem is that the postponement, while a good idea, was not enough.  Fear was very much still present as we road the bus to the game at the opposing school.

To shorten the story, I decided that I needed to address the fear head on, if were to avoid a disaster during the game.  I stood up on the bus and told the players, as they were gathering their gear together, to remain on the bus, because I was going to address the other coach.  As I expected, team captains asked for an explanation.  I told them that they were too fearful to play and that I was going to offer the other coach a forfeit rather than seeing them "get killed" on the field due to their fear.  As I expected, they stepped up and said they wanted to play.  I said that it could happen under only one condition.  That they were not going to play fearful and so they would play the game the way that I suggested to overcome their fear.  They swore they would and so I gave them my instructions for overcoming their fear.

They apparently were really afraid, because they really listened.  They went on the field and scored something like 38 points, as I recall.  But more importantly, they held the other team to -7 yards for the entire game.  The lesson I shared with them that day intuitively, from fearful situations that I had faced, was a lesson in moving from fear to confidence.  No one can tell me that emotions don't matter.  Yes, logic was there too, but these players were keyed up to play by the emotion of fear moving into confidence.  Now I consciously know, not just intuitively know, why my instructions worked.

This is what we now need.  We need people equipped consciously to deal with emotions and then logic. We need to gain credibility on this planet where too many things are more incredible rather than more credible.  I don't want to hear "awesome" again, I want to hear "credible" again.  People need to ask, "What is my CQ?".  I have my "CQ method" laid out on paper, but I have not put it on-line yet like EQ and IQ.

I am a Christian, but much of what I say about communication can be used by anyone regardless of persuasion.  It is true that there is no one I trust more than Jesus Christ, both as a man and as God, who has shone their face on this earth because he was not a master at manipulation, but a master at credibility through not only his IQ, but his EQ, leading to CQ, which means in terms of significance, his credibility.

If anyone asks me, "How do you know he is God?"  It is because he was a master of EQ and IQ, and therefore CQ, that is unequaled in any person I have ever met.  His word is primarily confidence building and balanced with fear only as necessary.  I have learned from him that as only a human being, not to be fearless, but to be confident or "strong and courageous", if we go back to the time of Joshua.

I find that he even surpasses the great John Wooden, who I was fortunate to get to know a bit personally, and who I think emulated his Savior, Jesus Christ, in that regard.  If I can tell you anything emotionally, then please do one thing, emulate Jesus Christ.  It will save you a lot of wear and tear on that mind of yours.  May you have a great day filled with greater credibility.
 

Sincerely,

Jon

Communication 101: Emotional Intelligence (EQ) AND Logical Intelligence (IQ) EQUALS Ethical Intelligence (AQ)

For the most part on this blog or site, I have spoken to the issues of communication in terms of logical intelligence (IQ) - "Why wouldn't you switch to this new method, because it works where others fail?".   That is all well and good and I am not saying that all my appeals have been logical appeals, because I have also made some emotional appeals in among the logical.  But today I want to make an ethical appeal - one that combines emotional intelligence appeals with logical intelligence appeals - while purposely not trying to insult either one.  In  other words, though I have always acknowledged the emotional side, today I want to make it more explicit.  Sticking with my blog's tool or method focused approach - I want to introduce you to the AJECC method today to go alongside my ARWAT method.  (These two methods mean that I will also have to develop a ethical method as well, but not today!).

This has been a long time coming, in part because psychologists have a hard time agreeing on the emotions. Well to no surprise, using the best of the old and the best of the new worked for me again.  I combined Plutnik's new ideas on emotions with Aristotle's old ideas on emotions (with some of my own stuff mainly gleaned from Scripture and language study since the Bible uses language) to get to where I arrived today.  I was not there yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that as opposed to where I am in today. Hey, if you keep driving, you usually get somewhere eventually!

Yesterday I put together Plutnik's stuff in a new format, but also noted some emotional gaps in his format.  For one thing, Darwin and his crowd die hard, even when they are wrong.  This kept Plutnik's model of emotions a little blinded.  So reading in Aristotle's Rhetoric today, I looked for his section on emotions (pathos) to see if he could yield insight.  Once again, some old Greek writer woke me up with a new thought. What if pathos (emotional appeal) is the greater part of our neurological function, the logical (logos) is lesser part of our neurological function, and the ethical (ethos) - combining the two together - the greatest part of our neurological function?

Here's an example of what I am driving at with this idea.  The problem in most appeals today is that they are either all logical or all emotional or at least come too close to those extreme kinds.  I am tired of both standing alone without the other.  I want some emotional intelligence with some logical intelligence and I am prepared to get mad about it.  That's right, emotional about it; but without losing the other half of my nervous system, of course.  Why shouldn't a person be upset about something being slighted according to Aristotle?  And that is exactly what is happening.

Ironically, today is s special day nationally - it is in the United States the National Day of Prayer.  It is also in Wisconsin at least Mental Health Awareness month as declared by Governor Walker.  It is also the day that two mental health related deaths occurred in Wisconsin with one in Milwaukee and one elsewhere (among others I am sure).  In each case there was a mental health related element that went unresolved.

Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn got angry (at a reasonable level) today about not enough being done for the mentally ill.  He said that "none of the investments seem to go to the heart of the problem', when it comes to mental health.  He also wanted to be clear that he was not saying this cause any hard feelings in the system, but to simply say that not enough was being done for the mentally ill.  I concur.  When is the madness going to stop?

Sadly, the very place where both emotional intelligence and logical intelligence should be addressed is also where mad men and mad young people choose to carry out mass killings and their own suicides.  We are in dire straits.  I do not know how children today can go to school in many communities without fear.  I ask: "How do they do it?"  Do they just believe it will not happen here - we are fearless?  Is that a solution or masking over a deep problem?  I think it is the latter.

That is why I think we need to promote EQ of the mind in both private and public schools to really address the problem.  Here is how I see each:

I am not certain how easy this "picture" will be to see and read, so let me repeat some of it.  First, I should explain that I have used my ARWAT method to set up an ideal order for emotions.  Remember I don't think that either emotion or logic is bad and that actually the two together is the ideal.  So here is the order of our emotions or feelings (ideally speaking only):

1) Acceptance & Shame (Acceptance is not the same as shameless)
2) Joy & Grief (Joy is not the same as grief-less)
3) Emulation & Envy (Emulation is not envy-less)
4) Confidence & Fear (Confidence is not fearless)
5) Calm & Anger (Calm is not anger-less)


Let me draw out these ideas a bit further:

Acceptance happens when we feel ready (whether due to internal or external reasons)
Shame happens when we feel unready (whether due to internal or external reasons)

Joy happens when there is a will and a way (whether due to internal or external reasons)
Grief happens when even if there is a will there is no way (whether due to internal or external reasons)

Emulation happens when people want to be as one example, "like Mike" (whether due to internal or external reasons)
Envy happens when people want to keep others from being "like Mike" (whether due to internal or external reasons)

Confidence happens when people can do something (whether due to internal or external reasons)
Fear happens when people can't do something (whether due to internal or external reasons)

Calm happens when a person is acknowledged or seen  (whether due to internal or external reasons)
Anger happens when a person goes unacknowledged or unseen  (whether due to internal or external reasons)

Let me also lay out intellectual intelligence though I have spoken or written about ARWAT before:

 This tool combined with the first (see my other previous posts to better understand ARWAT as a method) combine to give us a mind that is ethical.  Aristotle spoke of three elements of persuasion: the ethos (ethical), the pathos (emotional), and logos (logical).   This latter too is logical.  But combined with emotional intelligence, the two together can make a person ethical in terms of knowing good from wrong and greater from lesser.

It is time to resolve the mental health crisis.  I say mental because the schools are doing it.  They do not grade kids on emotional health.  They grade them only on logical health.  I have counseled people all the way up to summa cum laude's that were suicidal.  They had IQ, but not EQ.  I failed in EQ also back in 1983, and I was so devastated by the experience that I resolved and I asked the Good Lord not to ever bring me back there again.  Folks, I have not ever been back there again especially in the last 10 years with a raised IQ, but also through years of counseling and good reading to where I have now raised my EQ.

I can't tell you how much I want to make this the month to change things.  Why not choose the emotion of joy now over the emotion of grief?  Is not putting the solution off simply inviting grief?  Do you really think children are safe when adults and children lack emotional intelligence?

If you do I think you are like Magic Johnson who convinced himself that AIDs could never happen to him.  If you will use your emotional intelligence and realize how it devastated Magic at least use your logic and remember he was wrong to think it.  Let's make this Mental Health Awareness Month into Mental Health Change Month in Wisconsin and in the rest of our nation and the world.  Can you give an emotional reason again not to chose joy now over more grief again?  Please, I beg you do not procrastinate.  It is too potentially costly to our schools.  Let's bring back emotion into our teaching, so that the ethic of mass killing followed by high IQ person committing suicide may end.  I pray to God on this National Day of Prayer that He will make it so.


Sincerely,

Jon