How to Survive Emotional Explosions

I sit down to consult an elderly patient with her relative.

I observe the patient sitting calmly and comfortably in the chair closest to me.

But her relative perches in the next chair, her eyes locked onto me with an intensity that would make house of flying daggers look like a shower of confetti.

I’ve never met them before or had anything to do with the patients care so I’m feeling apprehensive.

Its clear from the moment the relative starts talking that she wants to unleash her pent up anger on me, an innocent bystander.

She comes at me shouting a flurry of complaints. Its a mix of pure rage and contempt that sends me into shock as I desparately try to process what’s happening.

She pounces on every word I say, she has no intention of engaging rationally.

I can feel my fight or flight reaction bubbling up inside, its flavoured with a strong dose of disgust.

I’m trying to think with the logical part of my brain but as she keeps stabbing me the emotional part of my brain is straining to break free!

It takes all my mental energy to stop it from fighting back.

I acknowledge and empathise with her anger and frustration and explain my position.

Its no use, she is fixed on an impossible outcome and circles round an infinite loop of vileness.

I look into her eyes almost pleadingly and can see not a shred of human decency.

Testing my Emotional Might

I’ve always had a strong sensitivity to moral justice and believe everyone should be treated fairly.

When that value is violated it becomes very difficult for me to suppress my emotional reaction.

I’ve talked about mindfulness practice previously and this has helped me to become consciously aware of my reactions.

However when the emotional fire is ignited unexpectedly, extinguishing it still takes me a few moments.

I’m not going to tell you that I can happily eat shit without retching.

I may not vomit anything up but those spasms still hit me in the middle of my chest when I feel triggered.

I’ll tell you one thing though, I’m grateful to be able to reflect on incidents like this. It reminds me of the need for mindfulness practice and gives me the opportunity to really test myself.

I remember when playing the video game ‘Mortal Kombat’ as a kid, every so often there would be an interlude between battles called ‘TEST YOUR MIGHT’

It was a minigame where you could see how strong your character was by trying to smash through a pile of blocks with your hand.

It helps me to think about my ‘Emotional Might’ being tested in these situations.

If I’ve generated enough mindful presence then I can smash through the blocks easily, if not then my hand will just keep bouncing off until it becomes too painful.

We tend to expect other people to handle situations the same way that we would, or at least how the majority of normal people would.

This is why its such a shock when we see someone acting contrary to this expectation.

I’ve always been curious what makes people intentionally inflict emotional damage upon innocent people.

What can be done to defend against these emotional explosions?

Whether you work as a:

• GP

• Retail Sales Assistant

• Call Center Agent

• Flight Attendant

• Restaurant Server

The chances are you have come across people that want to make you feel as shit as they do and will launch surprise attacks on you.

People have their problems, we don’t know whats going on in their lives, we have no control over that or how they choose to act towards us to express it.

We can only control ourselves and our own reactions.

We have to learn to absorb the explosions and either direct it elsewhere into useful energy or we have to completely nullify it.

What we don’t want to do which is tempting is to explode back as we will definitely get caught in the collateral damage.

Emotional Explosions

For the purposes of understanding emotional explosions there are 2 important brain structures to be aware of:

1) The amygdala- the emotional centre of the brain.

2) The prefrontal cortex- the logical thinking part of the brain

The amygdala is part of the old school brain in evolutionary terms which is geared purely towards survival. It stores all of our emotional memories associated with fear, rage and joy.

The prefrontal cortex is part of the new school brain that developed from the old school brain later in evolution. This allows us to think logically and rationally about things.

When our brain perceives information the signal goes first to the amydala which assesses the emotional content of the information. Shortly afterwards the signal arrives at the prefrontal cortex where it registers with us as an actual thought that we can decide how to respond to.

The amydala has a special power that it can utilise when the information it receives is associated with an intense emotional memory.

It can essentially take over the brain and engage the body into action to respond to the emotional trigger instantaneously.

In the case of the angry relative the amydalas script may be something like this;

—“You are a Doctor, you have not complied with my demand”

—“In the past when a Doctor has not complied with my demand it has resulted in harm and suffering for me”

—“You are trying to cause me harm and suffering. You are endangering my life”

“Therefore I need to fight for my life by inflicting as much damage as possible on to you”

The amydala triggers this emotional explosion so quickly that the original signal didn’t have a chance to reach the thinking prefrontal cortex. The amygdala’s declared emergency shuts everything down.

This means the person wasn’t able to think about the reaction it just happens.

People will later say,

“I don’t know what came over me”

“I wasn’t thinking”

These emotional explosions were pretty useful for our primitive ancestors to survive against predators and threats

But this ‘go crazy first ask questions later’ mentality can be quite problematic for functioning humans.

DO’s and DON’Ts when dealing with Emotional Explosions

Lets think about what to do when someone hits you with one.

Now that you know the theory behind emotional explosions you should be better equipped to recognise them when other people are triggered.

The difficulty is if you get caught by surprise your amygdala is going to feel it first and with so much emotional intensity incoming is bound to raise the alarm and trigger your own emotional explosion.

For now we will just focus on preventing this by diffusing the other persons existing explosion rather than curing your own emotional explosion once its already in motion, I’ll save that for another newsletter.

DO

Stay Calm

Maintain your composure, your calmness can help to diffuse the situation.

DON’T

Take it personally.

Remember their reaction is not necessarily directed at you personally, its the memory of someone else that has triggered them.

DO

Validate Their Feelings

Acknowledge their emotions and validate how they are feeling. Empathy and understanding will not only help make them feel better but also takes you out of the firing line so that you are on their side.

Until they have calmed down and their rational mind comes back online you need to take cover emotionally.

DON’T

Minimize Their Feelings

Avoid dismissing or minimizing their feelings, even if you don’t fully understand them. Validate their emotions instead.

DO

Listen Actively

Give them your full attention and actively listen to what they are saying. Show a genuine interest in understanding their perspective. Allow them to speak without interruption

DON’T

Argue or interrupt

Don’t argue against them or make them feel wrong for having their feelings, it will just add more fuel to their fire.

DO

Offer support

Offer your support and reassurance to them. Let them know you are there to help and support them through their emotional experience.

DON’T

Rush them

Avoid pressuring the person to “snap out of it” or find a solution immediately. Let them process their emotions at their own pace.

Shouting

If they are shouting at you persistently, try raising your voice to a level just below theirs.

This can be difficult if like me you’re naturally soft spoken, as raising my voice can sometimes make me feel angry when I’m trying not to be.

Be mindful of this and maintain normal tone and composure as if you were speaking to a slightly deaf beloved grandparent.

During the conversation gradually reduce the volume of your voice back to normal, if you’ve done everything else right then this should psychologically influence them to follow you back down.

Rudeness

You have to make a judgement based on your own standards.

If they are being rude and saying things that are clearly personal and offensive to you then tell them its not acceptable and if they continue you will have to leave or end the engagement.

Say it once with authority and conviction so that they’ve heard, there’s a chance that their rational mind will come back in response to it.

If they continue to be rude or argue back either remain silent until they burn themselves out or leave the situation.

Both ways make it clear you will not engage with them if they continue to be rude to you.

 Summary

• If you work in a general public service role, you will come across people that will take their rage out on you.

• You cannot control or reason with them logically once they have begun.

• The rational thinking part of their mind is offline so there is no point.

• Your words fall on deaf ears and will only further enrage them

• You have to wait patiently for them to come to their senses

• Prioritise supporting them to ride out the Emotional Tsunami with empathy and active listening

Remember you have the ability to fully control your reactions.

Lets keep working on it.

That’s all for now

Lewis

P.S

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