Eddy Calming Upset People with EAR

How Statements Showing Empathy, Attention and Respect Can Quickly Defuse a
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950057-62-7
Verlag: Unhooked Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 150 Seiten

The level of stress and conflict in today's world is higher than seen in decades. We all can use tools for managing the emotions this has caused. Yet, these upset emotions and conflicts can often be calmed immediately through the use of a simple EAR Statement?, a method developed and refined by Bill Eddy over the past fifteen years and taught to hundreds of thousands of professionals and individuals. Following on the success of his widely-known BIFF Response® method and books for written communication, this new book on EAR Statements for verbal communication will come in handy in all kinds of upset situations: family conflicts, workplace disputes, neighbor controversies, and any other setting.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eddy, Bill

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1 Emotions Are Contagious This book teaches you a method of calming people who are upset, whether they are angry, afraid, sad, or any other type of upset feeling. It is a way of defusing an unnecessary conflict or a way of showing caring for another person, and everything in between. You could be dealing with a family member, friend, co-worker, stranger, or someone on the other side of a heated issue. We call this method an EAR Statement™, which you can use in person, on the phone, or on live calls on your computer, such as Zoom or some other virtual platform. It is a simple verbal calming method that anyone can learn, although it does take practice. It’s a way of connecting with another person’s experience and giving something of yourself, whether it’s your empathy, your attention, or your respect. The fundamental principle of an EAR Statement is that emotions are contagious—both positive and negative emotions. Therefore, this first chapter will explain how emotions are contagious, so that the rest of the book can explain what you can do to turn negative emotions into positive ones for yourself and those around you. We All Get Upset Sometimes We all get upset sometimes. It’s part of what makes us human. The beauty of our emotions (all of them, positive and negative) is that they help us survive and thrive together. This is largely because we can influence each other with our emotions. Emotions help us work together. Emotions get us help from others when we are in distress. With emotions, we can calm each other down or stir each other up. We can turn each other on and turn each other off, simply by the emotions that we show to others. In other words, our emotions are contagious. This little book is about how we can help each other calm down. This is an important part of all relationships and interactions with anyone, especially in today’s world. There’s a lot of stress, anxiety, anger, polarization, depression, and simple nastiness going around these days. By calming each other down, we have more of our brain power available for logically solving problems, individually and together. We also need to avoid the dangers of emotions that get too upset, such as when they lead to violence against others or ourselves. Because they are contagious, we can help regulate the intensity of each other’s emotions by the emotions that we express. In our work with High Conflict Institute, we deal with many situations involving high conflict people (HCPs) who escalate conflicts—often without realizing it but sometimes on purpose—in families, at work, in legal disputes, and anywhere. We have learned that high conflict emotions are highly contagious. Intense anger, intense fear, and intense frustration for too many people makes things much worse, because intense emotions can block good thinking. It is better for everyone to learn how to calm each other down enough to think so we can solve problems big and small. This does not mean that we have to accept bad situations and not get upset about them. It means that we need to use our best thinking, as well as our emotions, in deciding what words to say, what actions to take, and who to turn to in order to solve problems that we cannot solve alone. John is Angry A good place to start in understanding how emotions are contagious is the mechanics of how we absorb each other’s emotions. I could start with an extreme attention-getting example of a violent incident between neighbors, or at a job site, or a mental patient in a psychiatric hospital, or a police-community confrontation. But it is better to start out simple. Let’s take a look at a minor family argument. John got some negative feedback in his performance review at work today. Now that he’s home, his bad mood is about to spread to his wife, Mary, and their 3-year-old son, Sammy. “They don’t appreciate how hard I work for this company you know?” John exclaimed to Mary. “I feel like quitting. Some days I just hate it there!” he yelled and pounded on the table. “John, you better not quit!” Mary replied with irritation. “You know how tight our money is right now. We’re barely getting by!” Suddenly Mary yelled at their son, “Sammy, put that down!” He was throwing a toy truck in the air. “Why are you yelling at him!” John yelled. “He’s not doing anything wrong. Give him a break.” Looking at Sammy, he said: “You can keep playing with that, Sammy. Your mother’s over-reacting—again! And she’s not even listening to me!” Sammy starts crying, looking afraid. Then their dog walks by and Sammy kicks the dog. This is a simple case of emotions are contagious. In fact, it is pretty ordinary, wouldn’t you say? John didn’t lose his job. Mary’s managing their budget. Sammy’s playing with something that one of the parents thinks is okay. It is not the end of the world. But emotions are intense and there is the potential for much bigger trouble. How emotions are handled in a situation like this makes all the difference between a brief moment, a big argument, or even violence. This gives us a chance to examine how John’s emotions quickly transferred to Mary and then to Sammy, and what could be done about it. How Emotions Spread In this case, John’s facial expression, his tone of voice, and his hand gestures (pounding the table) all expressed his intense anger at the moment. Immediately, Mary caught his emotions and became angry too—not just at John but also at Sammy. Next thing you know, Sammy has caught the emotional stress of the situation and starts crying, then kicks the dog. Most people do not think about how emotions spread at all. But if you break it down, there are at least three steps. Here is a brief summary of how it works based on research in this field. (Kuang, et al, 2019): Other person’s emotions 1) Emotional Contagion (your automatic reactions) 2) Emotion Regulation (your conscious control learned with age) 3) Mood State (your positive or negative emotions) 3 Steps of How We Process Other’s Emotions This means that you do not have to absorb other people’s emotions. It depends on how your mind and body automatically react, how you consciously interpret the other person’s emotions, and the mood you end up with. Depending on these factors you can stop the other person’s emotions from impacting your mood and possibly turn things around to influence their mood. Let’s look at each part of these three stages. Emotional Contagion Automatically, you react biologically and with your deeply held beliefs. These responses are unconscious and almost instantaneous. BIOLOGICAL RESPONSES Amygdala: The amygdala in your brain is particularly sensitive to facial expressions, tone of voice and hand gestures, in order to read other people’s moods and intentions. The amygdala can react to intense emotions faster than you can consciously realize it. Your body might already be reacting with fight, flight, or freeze. Looks like Mary reacted with fight (“You better not quit!”). Mirror neurons: We have neurons in our brains that cause us to imitate some of the behavior of those around us, which are called mirror neurons. Apparently, this is one of the key factors of group behavior in a crisis: we may see each other running and immediately start running; or fighting; or hiding or freezing in place. This is also how we learn a lot, by imitating each other. Researchers suggest that this is a big part of how children learn. We also mirror each other’s emotions. Someone tells you how well something went, and you might say (and truly mean it): “I feel your joy!” Or someone tells you about something that went terribly wrong, and you might say (and truly mean it and feel it): “I feel your pain.” It seems that this a big part of empathy. What did Sammy learn to do when both his father and mother were angry? He mirrored their emotions and then took it a step further and angrily kicked the dog. It is not surprising, then, that your mind and body may start mirroring another person’s emotions. But this does not have to be automatic. Our brains can be trained to override our amygdala responses and to override mirroring. With practice, this can become almost automatic in many situations. Much of adolescence is learning the difference between a crisis that needs an instant amygdala-driven protective response, and what really isn’t a crisis or can be completely ignored. Teens also learn whose emotions to pay a lot of attention to (usually the most popular in their group) and whose emotions do not matter much...