Clarity and Emotional Intelligence

I know a lot more about emotional lack of clarity than emotional clarity.  Like, four decades more experience in the lack dept.  But what I’ve found is that emotional clarity comes when one respects one’s emotional intelligence, understands it is an imperative intelligence in the scheme of things, as important as what we think of as ‘brain power’ or thinking intelligence.  

We live within many cultures (western, institutional/corporate, mainstream education) that don’t recognize this.  It has even been said that feeling-life is the orphan of the self, treated less-than in relation to other aspects of oneself.  So, those of us with that propensity, we experience shame through our continuums and feel the need to defend that perspective.  Decade after decade , we feel less than those with other strengths.  It’s not respected, or understood.  It’s not a cognitive approach.  Our schools don’t teach about emotional intelligence, our institutions and systems in the west have an alienation from this perspective.  There is no validation, nor affirmation for emotional intelligence.  We’re on our own.

So, what is this emotional intelligence?  What is emotional clarity?

Because of the external influences I am indoctrinated to and live under, there is an education to turn away from and not acknowledge the workings of my feeling life.  In doing this, I become estranged from the depth of me, the part of me that is soul connected. And also in doing this, I disrespect a core aspect of myself.  The pain of that, the ache, drives me to know something else. When I begin to know this feeling in me, stop turning away, no matter how unpleasant or unattractive, I begin to glean what is.  

Lao Tzu:  Seeing what is small is called insight.  Abiding in softness is called strength.

When I start to respect this core aspect in myself, I become more clear about the layers of feeling.  My discernment grows, it matures.  My appreciation for this subtly begins to spill over into the nature of other things.  I begin to recognize the care (the feeling) around me.  For example, I see the beauty of our food resources, the care and glory in this food made for our well being.  It inspires respect and care in the way I work with the food and for whom I work for in preparing.  It’s a circle;  I care, they care, you care.  Food has simple but definite vibration that my feeling life responds to.  What is the quality?  What is called for?  How does it need to be met?  What is being asked for?  My thinking mind, my experience join in and have a place. I’ve been learning not to let that override the more subtle impressions, but to be a servant to what is.  

This also occurs for me around small children and occasionally other people. If  I’ve valued this emotional intelligence, I’ve become interested and gotten to know my fears, experienced the mired self in her various stews.  I do this for my own benefit but mostly because I value relatedness.  The intimate experience of knowing pain and pleasure in oneself helps me in relating to others.  It opens my world, makes all my experiences more spacious.

A few years ago during a retreat, we participants spent a week learning a sacred dance.  It was about 20 minutes long and was physically very demanding.  There was a lot of standing from kneeling positions, rolling on the ground and standing from there.  Up and down.  A lot of sequences.  I found myself migrating to the back of the class, because I couldn’t do it well and I suffered the embarrassment of this and shame.  But I also noticed, though I was incapable of physically doing it, my spirit, my feeling was exactly in the right place in myself.  I felt a right connection in myself during the movement of it.  It dawned on me, isn’t it this that matters?  So, my despair and self disappointment was replaced by, “my perfectionist self can’t, but I can as I can”.  And I became able in this way (not the way I imagine I should be able).  My spirit, my feeling for the movement rescued me from the impossibility that was my physical self.  

During that week, I had the memory of being a child around the family dinner table, and the question being asked: What do you want to be when you grow up?  As an adult, I remembered that the answer was:  to be a nun.  But during the sacred dance retreat week, I remembered the truth. I said as a six year old, I wanted to be holy and the adults at the table put it in my head that holy wasn’t an occupation, so I’d have to be a nun.  I didn’t want to be a nun, I wanted to be holy; two different things.  And then at 10 years old, I wanted to be a dancer, which is the same thing (to me) as being holy.  That is the thing about emotional intelligence.  It finds its way (from nun to dancer), it navigates for the rest of me if I listen, if I stay true to it and don’t betray it.  Emotional clarity is not what I think of as clarity at all.  It’s a state of listening and following even when it doesn’t make sense to most of me.  It’s a willingness to not know or adhere to what is known or what is prescribed.

The methodical, linear-minded ordinary thinking is a different language entirely to feeling-mindedness.  When ordinary feeling becomes mired, confused, bogged down in despair, shame, the other aspects of myself— the body, the mind can be allies.  Initially the body’s inability in the sacred dance discounted the feeling capacity; it was caught up in its lack.  The creative mind had the perception that it did and the feeling part was inspired to see what really mattered in the moment.  But it took 3-4 days of acute ordinary suffering for this to happen, with the myriad of influences I was subjected to during that time.  That’s a lot of coinciding energies.

It’s emotional clarity that appreciates the sublime silence experienced in a group sitting, the weighty quiet shared.  It’s emotional clarity that is willing not to name or identify an experience or thing, but appreciates the experience of being there, with it, in it.  Emotional clarity celebrates the opague, the intangible, the moment of inexplicable intuition, the mysterious.  An understanding and clarity often unfolds after the event.  For me, it is not often immediate. 

If I don’t respect or acknowledge this aspect or capacity in myself, it won’t show itself.  Emotional intelligence is necessarily veiled because of its tendency in the world, and in myself to be discounted and disrespected.  If I begin to have an appreciation for it, it surfaces and is readily at my disposal.

Emotional Competence and Autoimmunity

In his illuminating book, When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection, Dr. Gabor Maté, introduces this interesting concept of emotional competence in relation to autoimmunity and stress-disease.  His clear and simply spoken statements of the workings of the psycho-immunology-endocrine system is refreshingly understandable and straight forward.  This book is definitely worth a read for a better understanding of the physiology of this system's relation to disease and the stress response.  Also, an additional bonus is his erudite position on the now-rampant autoimmune disorder problems that have evolved in western culture and their possible holistic management.

Such a great descriptive phrase:  emotional competence.  What does it mean?

Mate describes the four requirements for same being:

1. the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress.

2.  the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries.

3.  the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past.  What we want and demand from the world needs to conform to our present needs, not the unconscious, unsatisfied needs from childhood.  If distinctions between past and present blur, we will perceive loss or the threat of loss where none exists.  and

4.  the awareness of those genuine needs that do require satisfaction, rather than their repression for the sake of gaining the acceptance or approval of others.

Mate claims the absence of any one of these criteria, disrupts homeostasis, leading to ill health.

What are autoimmune disorders?  There are almost 200 identified autoimmune disorders ranging from mild to lethal.  Most people who have one, ultimately will have a few others in addition. The most familiar to the general population are:  Addison's disease, Grave's disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis,  Alopecia Areata, Aplastic Anemia, Cardiomyopathy, Celiac, Chron's, Fibromyalgia, Raynaud's, Psoriasis, Ulcerative Colitis, Schlerodema and Restless Leg Syndrome to name a few.  An autoimmune response is when the immune system recognizes healthy tissue or cells as invasive and attack, creating inflammation and damage to tissue/muscle/bone/organ.  It's an error message to our (psycho)immune (endocrine) system and it results in havoc to our health.  There are no exempt systems.  Mate suggests it's base is in emotional incompetence: learned, suppressed responses possibly believed to be needed for survival (especially at a young age) carried into adulthood as a habit leading to a physiological dysfunction.  Mixed messages swallowed, a turning away from one's truth in order to live.  Some examples of these emotional burdens are, "the (always) good/compliant/cooperative girl",  "the perfect son", the child never allowed to have or show anger for the convenience of the adult (avoidance of rejection).  A common mixed message is: "you can do anything in life you want to/you can't do anything in life you might want to, you're not good enough."  According to Mate, the messages are often subtle, insidious, originally related to survival, remaining long after survival is a moot issue.  They become a modus operandi, a way to live a life; hence the chronic dysfunction becomes embedded, ultimately becoming dis-ease.  The body becomes confused and attacks/eats away at itself.

Some reminders may be needed here before we erroneously jump to the conclusion that autoimmune disorders are purely psych/emotional based.  No disease has a single cause.  We are complex organisms influenced by DNA, social and environmental input.  All three aspects running amok creates a 'perfect storm', insuring disease outcomes.  As we don't have much influence over the DNA aspect, it is possible we can impact the social and environmental factors. 

Stress is a disturbance of the body's internal balance in response to perceived threat, including deprivation, a disruption of psychological harmony or emotional nourishment.  The word "healing" has an ancient derivation of the word "whole".  It's a phenomenon of finding balance and harmony.  Looking at disease as a cause-and-effect model of science is incomplete and erroneous, because it's not one cause, not one effect, but a myriad of influences on this sensitive and complex organism.  Perhaps viewing disrupted homeostasis or disease from a biopsychosocial model is a more whole approach.

Mate says: "Life is possible only within certain well-defined limits, internal or external.  We can no more survive, say high-sugar levels in our bloodstream than we can withstand high levels of radiation emanating from a nuclear explosion.  The role of self-regulation, whether emotional or physical, may be likened to that of a thermostat ensuring the temperature in a  home remains consistent despite the extremes of the weather conditions outside."  He goes on to say, "Children and infant animals have virtually no capacity for biological self-regulation; their internal biological states-- heart rates, hormone levels, nervous system activity-- depend completely on their relationships with caregiving grown-ups. Emotions such as love, fear or anger serve the needs of protecting the self while maintaining essential relationships.  Psychological stress is whatever threatens the young creature's perception of a safe relationship with the adults, because any disruption in the relationship will cause turbulence in the internal milieu."

We see the importance of the four foundations of wellness:  optimum nutrition, adequate rest, connection to the creative/divine, and exercise.  As I mentioned in my post Social Beings, nourishing social relationships should be part of these foundations.  Western culture at large is set up to be nuclear, stressing hyper-independence. In another scenario, family/dear friends are in possibly far-away places. A connection with those you love and whom love you is a marker to good health.  Conversations that make you feel connected, affirm you as valuable, that reinforce one's life purpose is an absolute requirement for keeping our psychosocialimmunity strong and intact.  The "error messages" received earlier in life, with awareness and courage can be healed working through a creative process, engaging in a healing with a bodywork practitioner or with traditional psychological professionals.  But the day to day love connections we have is what sustains us, even can correct that which has been undermining both in our past indoctrinations and our health.

The pursuit of self awareness, self care and a more mindful approach to the daily details of our lives positions us in a place of availability.  Availability in recognizing patterns that serve and don't serve us and a prayer of a chance of healing the patterns that work against our wellness and wholeness.  Emotional competence may not be a (present) given, but it can be earned and developed.