Hiding and fighting those feelings/emotions!

From the song 'Can't Fight This Feeling' by Reo Speedwagon:

I can't fight this feeling any longer,
And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow,
What started out as friendship has grown stronger,
I only wish I had the strength to let it show.

I tell myself that I can't hold out forever,
I said there is no reason for my fear,
'Cause I feel so secure when we're together,
You give my life direction, You make everything so clear.

And even as I wander
I'm keeping you in sight,
You're a candle in the window
On a cold, dark winter's night,
And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might.

And I can't fight this feeling anymore,
I've forgotten what I started fighting for,
It's time to bring this ship into the shore,
And throw away the oars, forever.

'Cause I can't fight this feeling anymore,
I've forgotten what I started fighting for,
And if I have to crawl upon the floor,
Come crushing through your door,
Baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpOULjyy-n8

"Emotional intelligence is important, but the unbridled enthusiasm has obscured a dark side. New evidence shows that when people hone their emotional skills, they become better at manipulating others. When you’re good at controlling your own emotions, you can disguise your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can tug at their heartstrings and motivate them to act against their own best interests.
According to these experts, emotional intelligence helps people disguise one set of emotions while expressing another for personal gain."
- Adam Grant, The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-dark-side-of-emotional-intelligence/282720/

Did you know that the way we manage our emotions is stable over time?
According to the following article,  "Our ability to identify and manage our own and others’ emotions is fairly stable over time, influenced by our early childhood experiences and even genetics."
But, we can improve our emotional intelligence through coaching programs.

Can You Really Improve Your Emotional Intelligence?
by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/can-you-really-improve-your-em/

EXTRA:
What triggers an emotional response for you that can derail your success?
Find your emotional triggers here:
http://outsmartyourbrain.com/find-your-emotional-triggers-on-this-list/

"75% of careers are derailed for reasons related to emotional competencies, including inability to handle interpersonal problems; unsatisfactory team leadership during times of difficulty or conflict; or inability to adapt to change or elicit trust."
- The Center for Creative Leadership

"As much as 80% of adult 'success' comes from EQ."
- Daniel Goleman

"We now understand that higher-level thinking is more likely to occur in the brain of a student who is emotionally secure than in the brain of a student who is scared, upset, anxious, or stressed."
- Mawhinney and Sagan

"All learning has an emotional base."
- Plato

"People in good moods are better at inductive reasoning and creative problem solving."
- Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, and Palfai

#MainMessageForToday
Research shows that people who are more emotionally intelligent are more successful. Learning is also easier when the student is emotionally secure. But like everything else, there is a bad side to emotional intelligence. People who can control their emotions well can easily disguise their feelings and/or manipulate others.

Would you react this way?

From the song 'Please Don't Leave Me' by Pink:

I don't know if I can yell any louder,
How many times have I kicked you out of here
Or said something insulting?
I can be so mean when I wanna be,
I am capable of really anything,
I can cut you into pieces,
When my heart is broken.
...
How did I become so obnoxious?
What is it with you that makes me act like this?
I've never been this nasty.
Can't you tell that this is all just a contest?
The one that wins will be the one that hits the hardest.
But baby I don't mean it,
I mean it, I promise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eocCPDxKq1o

Sometimes, the reactions of others can cause us to have negative thoughts and react in a certain way....

How would you react if you think you are right, but everyone (a crowd) believed you were wrong?
Clip from the movie 'Gladiator' showing the roar of a crowd:
https://youtu.be/X1UmHfWCw-4

Thinking/thoughts clearly led to Catniss' reaction in this clip from the movie 'The Hunger Games':
https://youtu.be/5XmzSjqIPHs

"We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us —how we can take it, what we do with it —and that is what really counts in the end."
— Joseph Fort Newton

"Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions."
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

"It is the mind’s job to protect and take care of you, to solve your problems and make sure you’re safe. So, if you feel a surge of emotional upset, it moves into action, trying to help, looking for the source of the upset—for the problems—and generating solutions."
- Unknown

"We define emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions."
- Salovey and Mayer

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." 
- William James

"There is no separation of mind and emotions; emotions, thinking, and learning are all linked."
— Eric Jensen

"There are emotions which are biologically oriented and then there are complex emotions which are saturated with thoughts and cognition."
- Jack Mayer

#MainMessageForToday
Thoughts (thinking) and emotions are linked although people sometimes cry or laugh or show other emotions without thinking. Thinking can make something seem worse than it is and therefore cause us to react in an emotional way. 

"Macho man, I've got to be a macho man."
- From the song 'Macho Man' by Village People
https://youtu.be/AO43p2Wqc08

How Laura Munson dealt with her husband when he said he was leaving....
She was emotionally strong!
http://theweek.com/article/index/99512/he-said-he-was-leaving-she-ignored-him

Men seem to have a tough, macho (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/macho) image.

"Men are no more immune from emotions than women; we think women are more emotional because the culture lets them give free vent to certain feelings, "feminine" ones, that is, no anger please, but it's okay to turn on the waterworks."
- Una Stannard

Do you know that women cry more than men at work?
Women are usually more emotional....

"Many years ago at my first management job, I cried while firing an employee. It was the first time I had ever fired someone, and this employee was an older woman whose part-time job was being eliminated."
- Mary Pat Whaley
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20121002125827-15345987-should-female-leaders-cry-at-work?trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A67333731442407374605%2CVSRPtargetId%3A2882%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary&trk=vsrp_influencer_content_res_name

"Women, on average, tend to be more aware of their emotions, show more empathy, and are more adept interpersonally. Men on the other hand, are more self-confident and optimistic, adapt more easily, and handle stress better."
- Daniel Goleman

Do women show their emotions more than men (on their faces, through actions, or vocally)?

Did the woman seem more shocked than the men in this clip from 'Home Alone 2: Lost in New York'?
https://youtu.be/h_bUcNjmuSk

Women seem to fight more....
Clip from the movie 'My Best Friend's Wedding':
https://youtu.be/WlB-BbWBzd8

Do some women seem tougher than men?
Clip from the movie 'Boomerang':
https://youtu.be/v4kXrblmBE8

#MainMessageForToday
Do you believe men control their emotions more than women?
Are women more emotional than men across cultures?

From 'Desiderata', #1 song on LifeLessonsForAll.com 2013 Top 10 List (http://lifelessonsforall.com/2013TopList.html):

Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

https://youtu.be/3bUTcy6w2Rw

The display of emotion varies by culture....

"Take, for example, the expression of enthusiasm. In the United States, it’s culturally acceptable, even admirable, to show enthusiasm in a business setting, assuming it’s appropriate for the situation. When arguing for a point in a meeting, for example, it is quite appropriate to express your opinions passionately; it can help to convince those around you....
In many other cultures, however, enthusiasm means something quite different. In Japan, for example, there are strict boundaries about when and where people are allowed to display emotion. During the regular workday, Japanese individuals are not typically emotionally expressive. Even if they feel excited about their work, they will rarely show it explicitly."
- Andy Molinsky, Emotional Intelligence Doesn’t Translate Across Borders
https://hbr.org/2015/04/emotional-intelligence-doesnt-translate-across-borders

Some people show no emotions (are emotionless robots). And now robots may be capable of emotions....
http://www.tested.com/tech/robots/455319-emotions-reconsidered-how-robots-may-experience-feelings/

WE WEAR THE MASK
By Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over–wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plECI8mov2E

Do you wear your heart on your sleeve?
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/wear+heart+on+sleeve

“I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

How often do you wear a "fake smile" or feign affection?
Are you prim and proper? (http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/prim+and+proper)

"By the time most of us are adult, we've learned to mask our true feelings - at least as they show up in our face - because we have to get along at work, at home, and in social settings. So we pretend to be interested, we pretend to smile, we assume a bland expression when we're actually peeved, and so on.
Of course, we're not perfect at these polite deceptions. We don't always manage to stifle that yawn completely. But for the most part, the face we present to the world is a polite mask that hides our true feelings....
But the face does sometimes give away our strongest feelings."
- Nick Morgan, 7 Surprising Truths about Body Language
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorgan/2012/10/25/7-surprising-truths-about-body-language/

#MainMessageForToday
Have you struggled with your emotions?
I have personally struggled with the show of emotions. I sometimes seem to be a contradiction. I can be emotionally detached, but yet most people could tell what I am feeling from the expression on my face.

From the song 'Let It Flow' by Toni Braxton:

First thing Monday morning
I'm gonna pack my tears away,
Got no cause to look back
I'm looking for me a better day.

You see the thing 'bout love
Is that it's not enough,
It's the only thing it brings you is pain,
There comes a time
When we could all make a change, darling.

Just let go,
Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow,
Everything's gonna work out right, you know.
Just let go, let it flow, let it flow, let it flow
Just let it go, baby.

https://youtu.be/lIjJ5mvjjiA

Did you know?
Involuntary Emotional Expression Disorder is a disease where a person uncontrollably cries or laughs.
http://psychcentral.com/lib/involuntary-emotional-expression-disorder/

On the other hand...

"Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary."
- Mark Twain

"Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you."
- Roger Ebert

"How you react emotionally is a choice in any situation."
― Judith Orloff

"The sign of intelligent people is their ability to control emotions by the application of reason."
– Marya Mannes

"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 
 

#MainMessageForToday
Part of self control is the ability to control your emotions. Your emotions should not rule you.
But, a person who controls his or her emotions may seem insincere and aloof.
What is the "correct level of emotional control"?

Do you consider yourself to be "emotionally tough"?

"I'm not the type to get my heart broken,
I'm not the type to get upset and cry,
'cause I never leave my heart open,
Never hurts me to say goodbye.
Relationships don't get deep to me,
Never got the whole in love thing,
And someone can say they love me truly,
But at the time it didn't mean a thing."
- From the song 'Cry' by Rihanna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnMP1oqPTto

"As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery… we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness."
- Dalai Lama

Freedman et al.: "Emotional Intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests it is responsible for as much as 80% of the 'success' in our lives."
- From Handle With Care: Emotional Intelligence Activity Book

"If you don't manage your emotions, then your emotions will manage you."
- Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman, Transforming Anxiety

"We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt…"
- Dorothy Day

"We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us — how we can take it, what we do with it — and that is what really counts in the end."
- Joseph Fort Newton

Theme for the week 9/13 - 9/19: Managing Your Emotions, inspired by this quote from last week:
"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
- Epictetus