The emotional abduction

How many of us have often found ourselves coming home after a stressful workday, starting to share what happened with our partner or family, only to realize that as we speak, they’re doing something else? Our heartbeats quicken, our face flushes, our muscles tense like violin strings, and the thought rushes into our head, ‘Here we go again, as usual, they never listen to me!’ A moment later, we find ourselves overwhelmed by a strong emotion that takes over us and our thoughts, leading us to react by raising our voice and arguing. The evening is ruined… and maybe in the following days, we feel a certain ‘bitterness,’ regretting what happened yet telling ourselves, ‘I couldn’t have acted differently!’ In how many other situations, both in private or at work, can we feel overwhelmed and flooded by a river of emotions that we can’t seem to control, and even before that, identify?

Whenever we find ourselves in this situation where our mind experiences a sort of ‘blackout’, and we display a disproportionate and immediate emotional reaction to the stimulus (be it a gesture or a word) or the situation itself that triggered it, we are in the grip of what Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence, 1995) defined as ‘uncontrollability of emotional reactions’ or ‘emotional hijacking’.

It might seem surprising, but emotional hijacking occurs in just a few seconds—six seconds, to be precise. In this minuscule fraction of time, where we are unaware of what is happening within us, we react on ‘autopilot’ to the stimuli of our emotional brain, which completely takes over the more rational part of our brain. In such situations, the focus is on ‘satisfying and/or responding’ to the emotion, preventing us from analyzing the situation we are experiencing rationally.

Yet, if we think about it, these magical six seconds can be our “lifesaver”!. So, how can we avoid or prevent emotional hijacking?

• By learning to pause, breathe, and observe what is happening within us
• By becoming aware of our emotions and the thoughts that originate them
• By learning to recognize the triggers that unleash certain emotions and subsequent reactions.

The more skilled we become at becoming ‘emotionally intelligent’, the greater our ability to choose how we want to feel and how we want to behave.