The Spirit
of Ma’at Vol 1, No 10
by John & Nicole Clark
authors of Adventures in
Dreamtime and The Oceans of Emotions
What is
happening to our children? is the cry from politicians, parents, educators, and
concerned people across the country. School shootings, violent behavior, use of
designer drugs, youth crime, and academic apathy are everyday topics on
national news, and policymakers are looking for answers.
Where
does the violence come from? How can we stop it? Gun control or firearms
education, metal detectors, early behavior detection, and the prosecution of
parents are often presented as possible answers. Yet these measures simply
treat the symptoms, not the problem itself.
This
problem can be defined as low Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - and it exists
throughout our culture. When we possess high Emotional Intelligence, this means
that we handle our emotions in a way that is healthy for ourselves and others.
Our
body often presents us with strong negative feelings, and, if we have good EQ,
we can actually make use of these states to move into complementary states of
clarity, personal responsibility, and positive action. Low EQ, on the other
hand, results in the kinds of emotional suppression which eventually lead to
outbursts of violence in all its forms.
Techniques
for facing and changing fear into confidence, anger into forgiveness, and grief
into joy have been generally nonexistent in American culture. Almost as rare is
the paradigm of personal responsibility that creates a matrix for emotional
health and intelligence (EQ). Though child-rearing has evolved since the last
century, skills in nurturing EQ have been greatly lacking. Many parents tell
their children to, ''Stop crying, don't be a sissy!'' In the worst cases,
children are physically punished and abused for expressing feelings in ways
that are deemed inappropriate.
With
low emotional intelligence, children feel helpless. Receiving little or no
solid emotional support at home, many are at the mercy of peer pressure,
worries, and anxiety throughout their years in school. And yet none of us,
children or adult, have actually been taught how to deal with our fears, our
anger and resentment, and our pain.
Children
with low EQ deal with fear and anxiety in a variety of unhealthy ways: by
acting tough and unshakable, or showing off and bullying other children,
perpetuating the cycle of fear - or by hiding and becoming underachievers with
low motivation.
Yet our
children are presented with no alternatives. And according to recent studies,
this absence of choice leads to bottling up or suppressing important and valid
feelings.
We have
sought to give children the choices that can lead to healthy EQ. Our first
efforts in this direction were to present the EQ message in person, in the form
of teaching stories. We read these kinds of stories to over twelve thousand
children in schools from Florida to Canada - and met with unanimous acclaim
from educators, parents, and the children themselves.
Out of
these experiences, we created Adventures in Dreamtime and The Oceans of
Emotions - two picture books designed to teach basic habits leading to
emotional health. Now we have letters from parents and teachers across the
country, including many from Littleton Colorado, testifying to the usefulness
and effectiveness of the books as teaching materials.
These
books feature two young dragons who learn to face and embrace their fears,
forgive when they are angry, make choices when they are apathetic, send love to
their hurt and pain, find the joy on the other side of sadness, and trust the
flow of emotions that we all experience. The books present specific techniques
for dealing with each emotion, all in a story format.
Children
get the EQ message much more easily than adults do. They pick it up fast, and
learn the tricks. Every time we do a presentation, we are amazed at how fast
the kids learn.
Our
Current Situation
The
Dalai Lama has said, ''Americans generally pay plenty of attention to education
of the mind, but not enough to education of the heart.'' Sadly, the psychotherapeutic
community as been highly ineffective in creating a useful model for emotions in
everyday life, and the scientific community has only recently begun to conduct
studies that shine light in this area.
And the
media, which could be a prominent source of emotional education, teaches us
some very dangerous lessons. As Lisa de Moraes reports, ''By age 18, the
average young person will have viewed about 200,000 acts of violence on
television. Perpetrators of violence go unpunished in 73 percent of all violent
scenes, and by the end of the program, bad characters are punished 62 percent
of the time, while good characters committing acts of violence are punished
only 15 percent of the time.'' (Hollywood Reporter). These are not just
statistics, for the message they impart reaches us subconsciously.
On July
21, 1998, on CNN, President Clinton made a national call for media companies to
produce nonviolent materials for children.
How can
we turn things around? How can we gain control over our own emotions and
feelings, and then bring EQ into the education system?
Eliminating
Subliminal Messages
The
first step in teaching our children emotional intelligence is to develop this
quality ourselves. And we can begin by eliminating media influences in our
homes. This is important because the subconscious mind does not distinguish
between reality and fantasy, and identifies with whatever it perceives. Thus,
we cry at a sad movie because we are identifying with the characters, and
because we are subconsciously perceiving what is happening as if it were real.
We are
especially influenced when we are not paying attention directly. If, for
example, we are actively listening to the sad lyrics in a song, we are at least
consciously aware of what is being said. But if the lyrics are playing in the
background while we pay attention to something else, the meaning reaches us
subliminally, without conscious discrimination. Subconsciously, we ''become''
the character who is bemoaning his or her fate, and our mind takes in this
fictional experience ''as if'' it were really happening. And the music with its
rhythms drives the words even deeper, for music creates a kind of hypnotic
effect.
So, at
least in the beginning, when we want to increase our EQ it is important to turn
off the television, the radio, and all music that has lyrics, for these are all
hidden sources of emotional response.
This is
important especially for very young children, because they learn much more than
adults do by what they see and hear.
Stop
Rewarding Violence
In
learning to stop rewarding our children and spouses for their violent outbursts
of emotion, it is important to realize that strong attention is considered a
reward to the subconscious mind!
For
example, you are ''rewarding'' a child for lashing out violently when you
strike the child, yell, or scold. Between spouses, nagging is a subconscious
reward. Child or adult, when another responds strongly to our behavior, we are
learning that this behavior ''gets results.''
Also -
and this is mostly true for younger children - if one child receives a lot of
attention for negative behavior, others in the family will learn by observation
that ''violence gets results.'' In fact, between birth and six years of age, up
to 50 percent of all learning takes place through observation alone.
Understand
How Emotions Operate
Emotions
are ''energy-in-motion'' in our bodies - literally, they are electrical
impulses that travel our nerve pathways, setting off chemical releases that result
in internal changes that we experience as emotions.
Emotions
are a combination of biological functions, hormones being released by specific
endocrine glands into the blood stream to change heart rate, blood sugar
levels, endorphin levels - even the number of white blood cells and oxidants in
our body tissues. Emotions are our mechanism for processing emotional and
physical trauma in our lives. And if they are resisted or suppressed, emotional
events are anchored into biological memory through calcification of nerve
endpoints and their reflexive tissues.
We can
feel this ourselves if we are paying attention. Here are some physical changes
that we can be aware of in our bodies when we are experiencing emotions:
*
Anger. We can feel the heat rise in our face and feel our heart rate increase.
* Fear.
We can notice that we are perspiring, that our heart is racing, that we are
holding our breath, and that our knees are wobbly.
* Pain.
Sharp pain causes a general heightening of our awareness.
*
Upliftment. We often get tears in our eyes and a catch in our throat when we
see a wonderful scene in a movie or hear the inspiring lyrics of a song.
*
Depression. True depression leads to a feeling of numbness.
Though
humans can make a conscious choice to either express or suppress emotions, our
techniques for handling feelings as they are encountered have generally become
automatic over time, and normally involve various kinds of suppression or
sublimation.
When
suppression occurs, the glands and organs associated with the particular form
of the response slowly calcify, shutting the body down over time. We experience
this effect as ''aging.''
There
are many ways to suppress emotions, the most common being simply using our
spoken language with word patterns such as I don't feel... I can't... It's hard
to... or I feel like...
But
suppressing emotions verbally requires a lot of energy and years of practice,
so we often resort to stronger measures, including alcohol, drugs, sugar,
cigarettes, negative music, personal liability law suits, simple denial... The
list goes on and on.
Probably
the most powerful realization you can have where emotions are concerned is that
you are the source of your own feelings. Nobody else can cause your emotions.
Whether the choice is a subconscious response learned in childhood or a
conscious one maintained in adulthood, no one else can ''make'' you angry,
fearful, or sad.
Once
you understand that you are responsible for how you feel, the next most
liberating understanding we can have is that every negative emotion is its
opposite emotion ''trying to get out.''
In
other words, we experience fear as a negative because it is blocking our
feelings of safety and faith, or trust. And so, in a very real sense, the
feeling of trust is an ''attribute'' of fear.
Because
of this, fear, if it is allowed expression, actually becomes a gateway to
trust, courage, confidence, and self-esteem. In the same way, grief leads to
joy, happiness, and passion; apathy leads to decision-making and action; anger
leads to forgiveness, harmony, and cooperation; and unconsciousness and
confusion lead to clarity and understanding.
Sometimes
we have suppressed our awareness of the emotion itself, and so we have a hard
time identifying which emotion is involved. But we can trace the source of
negative feelings to the inner words that we are speaking:
*
''What if...?'' indicates fear or worry.
* Blame
- the thought that someone else has harmed us - indicates anger.
* ''It
hurts to...'' indicates pain.
*
''They always...'' or ''I never...'' indicate grief or sadness.
*
''It's so hard to...'' or ''I can't...'' indicates apathy.
* The
feeling that we cannot know something (as opposed to curiosity or interest)
indicates unconsciousness.
The
general technique for expressing our emotions in a healthy way is to accept
them, and invite in their attributes. We do this by noticing the emotion, and
saying to it, in effect, ''I invite you, I welcome you.''
So, for
example, instead of trying to ''get rid of'' fear, we say to the fear, ''I
welcome you. I know that you are faith and trust returning.'' It helps this
process if we begin it by breathing consciously for a few moments. Then, we get
the idea of allowing the emotion to move through us, knowing that its attribute
''wants to return'' and will do so when we make space for this to happen.
Here
are some other suggestions involving specific emotions. When we feel...
* Pain
- breathe, send love to the pain, breathe again.
* Anger
- breathe, say ''I forgive you,'' and see ourselves taking a loving action
toward the object of the anger.
* Fear
- breathe, say to the fear, ''I embrace you,'' and remember and repeat to
yourself that fear is faith returning.
*
Grief/sadness - breathe, remember that grief and sadness are joy returning.
Imagine that you are crying ''tears of joy.''
*
Apathy - breathe, stand up, straighten your back. Imagine yourself making a
choice of some kind.
* Unconsciousness
- breathe, say, ''I choose to be open to understanding and clarity.''
You can
help by taking an active part in making your local school aware of the
materials that are available for teaching EQ to children. Our books are one
technique, and there are other, comparable materials.
Talk to
school counselors and find out about their anger management programs. Many
schools have no programs implemented at all, and some have very intensive
programs.
Find
out what your community offers, and share what you know. You will find that
many people are eager to learn more, yet have had nowhere to turn.
Understanding
emotions is a process, but the techniques for mastering emotions are very
simple, and do not require higher education to learn or to teach. You are the
master of your emotions and the doctor of your self-esteem, and only you have
the cure.
So take
back the power and get to work.
John T. Clark
has been researching and applying tools of emotional intelligence for 10 years,
and is a dynamic presenter, facilitator and public speaker. He has been
published in the EQ magazine Six Seconds, which is distributed to schools
throughout the nation.
John is an
illustrator and artist, and has led seminars on mythology, creativity,
emotions, and ''conscious languaging'' since 1995. He also is a trained suicide
hotline volunteer, and has helped thousands of people through crises. At this
time, John is president of PremaNations, Inc., and is writing, illustrating, and
publishing books for children that teach emotional intelligence through stories
and entertainment.
Nicole K. Clark
is the creative director of PremaNations, Inc., where she conceptualizes and
writes empowering stories that teach EQ to children. She also has created Get
Real magazine, an Internet 'zine for teens, designed to give them uplifting and
self-inspiring alternatives in their lives.
Nicole has been
publishing for three years, and has been an international model for eight
years. She has made a life study of nutrition for the body and for the mind,
with emphasis on emotional intelligence, and has recently completed Glamour
Body, a mind/body nutrition book based on a gluten-free diet.
John and Nicole
have presented EQ to dozens of schools and thousands of individuals. They have
been guest presenters in high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools,
and have been featured on many local news and radio stations as people with
''answers to anger management.'' Their web page at premanations.com has links
and information on emotions and EQ, and features their two currently published
children's books, which may be purchased at Source Books.