Riding the Winds of Uncontrolled Emotion

A few years ago, my wife and I took a vacation to the San Diego area and booked a hot air balloon ride. Neither of us had done this before so we both felt a little apprehensive as we met the pilot, talked with our fellow travelers, and watched the enormous balloon begin to take shape from the continuous flow of hot air fueled by a propane tank. According to our pilot, “Hot air balloons are the safest form of transport known to man.” I was a bit dubious as I remembered the wizard of Oz taking off in a balloon and saying, “I don’t know how to steer the blasted thing!”

So, I asked the pilot, “How do you steer a hot air balloon?” His answer was quite interesting. Since there is no motor or engine, the balloon is entirely at the mercy of the winds. Before taking off, he studies the wind currents, even sending up a trial balloon as preparation. Therefore, he knows at 500 feet, the wind is blowing southwest, but at 900 feet, the direction is northeast, and so on.

One of the interesting things about a balloon is the absolute stillness and peace of the entire experience. One doesn’t feel the breeze blowing because the balloon is moving in sync with the wind itself.

Emotion is the wind of our human experience. Without it, we would be like robots waiting for a programmer to give us instructions. The word itself comes from the Latin term movere from which we get words like: motive, movement, stirring, agitation, etc. In other words, emotion (or e-motion) is what motivates us to do things and is essential for human life. Anger, for example, is a defensive emotion to protect myself or another person. Fear prepares the body for fight or flight, while joy tells us all is well and gives us the energy to celebrate. Every emotion has a purpose, even the negative ones; and so, like the pilot, the better we understand these currents, the better we will be able to navigate and journey in the direction our logic tells us we need to go.

We Cannot Control Emotion Directly

The first step in getting better control is, paradoxically, recognizing that I cannot control my emotions directly. I simply cannot change how I feel about anything by making a simple decision. For example, it’s the first day of vacation and the family is up early packing the car for the Great American Road Trip. The kids are grumpy and whiny, the wife is frantically going over all her checklists and the husband is getting more frustrated that no one’s having any fun. So, out of exasperation he says, “We are spending a lot of money on this vacation and I command all of you right now to be cheerful and in a good mood!”  Of course, it doesn’t work that way. Emotions do not vanish by being banished. At most, they go underground only to emerge later in a more toxic form.

We Can Change Emotion Indirectly

The good news is that, like the wind, it is the nature of emotion to change. So, when you are bothered by difficult and painful emotions it is good to practice self-distancing. Take a step back, change the subject, go for a walk and remind yourself that this is an emotion that is trying to tell you something. It can actually be a clue to help you get your needs met. For example, that apprehensive, anxious gut feeling you have before an important meeting could be telling you that much is at stake and you need to be alert and prepared. Without that emotion, you may become complacent and sloppy. The goal is to work with your emotions like the pilot of the balloon works with the wind, not against it. In other words, to develop a curiosity about why you feel the way you do in any particular situation.

Overreaction Is A Clue

In Schema Therapy, an exaggerated response to a particular situation is a telltale clue that a core belief or “lifetrap” has been triggered. For example, I know an airline mechanic who used the hand cleaner GoJo at the end of the day to cut the grease. Well, GoJo has a sweet smell to it and when he got home his wife accused him of being with another woman. In fact, she was so upset she kicked him out of the house for two weeks. This overreaction was a clue that helped her begin to work on her Abandonment and Mistrust core beliefs.

Changing Beliefs and Behavior

The heart of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is: “Changing how you think and changing how you behave can change how you feel.” For example, people who struggle with OCD are often very judgmental and critical of themselves. A client once said, “I was at work and had the thought, I could take these scissors and stab him in the eye!” Then she tearfully said to me, “I am such a terrible person. Normal people don’t have these kinds of thoughts!” (Notice that it wasn’t the original thought, but the judgment she made about the thought that created the intense emotions of anxiety and self-loathing.) “The truth is,” as I explained to her, “normal people have weird thoughts like this all the time. They just say to themselves, ‘That was strange, where did that come from?’ and then they let it go.” I continued, “You are perfectly normal, but this emotional overreaction could be a clue as to what may be driving some of your OCD.”

Behavioral change can be especially powerful in relationships. Couples who have been together for a long time can become complacent and frankly lazy about maintaining the warmth and affection and excitement in their relationship. The emotional consequences can be loneliness, boredom, and lack of sexual desire. However, making a few behavioral changes such as having a pleasant conversation every day, exchanging a hug and kiss as often as possible, and making a date night a priority are some simple behavioral changes that can rekindle the flames of love and affection.

Final Word

There are times when a person is trapped in a very difficult mood state such as depression or mania, or they are assaulted with extreme anxiety resulting in panic attacks that have hijacked all reason. During such times, medication prescribed by a psychiatrist and therapy with a professional counselor is called for. Think of it as a supercharged propane tank that can get the balloon out of some nasty cross winds to a higher spot where the air is calmer.