Emotional Intelligence

"Yes, that’s the key revelation. But another key element, which was quite revelatory for me when I read it, is about the impact of fear on your brain. The impact of fear as a physiological response was well known when he wrote the book, but what was less well known was the idea of fear as a neurological response. He pointed to research showing what happens to the brain when fear is triggered, and it’s very damaging. There’s a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is part of the limbic system, and deals with emotions such as fear and distress. Its main purpose is to alert you to danger and it sends an emergency signal. All those physiological responses you have are basically the body’s response to that emergency signal. That’s what people experience when they experience fear, but it’s not just the fear of a dog barking at you or someone attacking you, it’s fear based on a fear conditioning. These are moments when something happens to you that induces fear or distress, and can include fear of failure or fear of being upset, and the same response occurs. That’s why I like Goleman’s book, because it makes you aware these triggers are going to happen. They are always going to be there. It’s the element of incurability: your first response is always going to be a fear response. If you feel insecure, you feel insecure about certain things, and those insecurities will be triggered by certain incidents that act as reminders. That triggering is going to happen, it’s set in your brain. He calls them ‘neural hijackings’—that’s the key phrase. The amygdala has jumped in and said. ‘there’s an emergency here,’ and that overrides what Goleman calls the thinking brain. That’s what’s absolutely crucial to insecure people. It’s what they can’t lose, no matter what the claims of all those self-help books. Disabled is a better word, but yes, it’s absolutely disabling. What he points out — which is why I thought it was so brilliant when I read it — is that it’s actually a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s about traumas that occurred when you were very young and it’s about how you deal with the trauma, when you’re tangentially reminded of it. It’s that that creates the fear response. It brings you to a halt, and prevents you doing things. It prevents you actually moving your life forward, it prevents you taking risks in your life."