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Music and mental health are independent endeavors that bring people calm, focus and joy. They overlap a lot. (*Understand “mental health” as well-being in the overlapping life contexts of cognition, emotion, social, physical, spiritual and financial existence). This column will explore both to edify and entertain about how to use them to enjoy and thrive —email column ideas to NTMusicandMentalHealth@gmail.com.
Today, we’re getting into Emotions. We’ll be looking at the practices of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Emotional Hygiene (EH). So far, we’ve built out a CBT toolbox with mono-tasking, a primer on CBT basics, meta-cognition, and using Intentional, Non-Judgmental, Self-Awareness. EQ is a logical next step.
Emotional Regulation is critical to being effectively proactive to any stressor. Think of it this way — if our emotions are in the ‘driver seat’ of our life on a moment-to-moment basis, we’re mostly reactive not proactive. Which would you prefer as you engage in relationships, your job, your passion projects, events that surprise and challenge you, or just trying to get to sleep?
Understanding emotions starts with this fundamental fact: Emotions are not a choice.
Emotions are an organic response of our central nervous system. They come with the package of being an animal. Emotions are our body’s response to environmental stimuli — whether those are stimuli we want to be experiencing or those we’d prefer not to.
Ultimately, the capital P Purpose of emotions is survival, or aka vigilance. When emotions are what we prefer to experience (ex: love, bliss, happiness, euphoria), the survival modality is about bonding and connecting with other homo-sapiens because there is safety in that context. If the emotions are those we prefer not to feel (ex: fear, disgust, anger, grief), the survival modality is about responding to a direct threat of harm.
It makes sense to have a quick moment (or minutes) of reactive response if there’s a bear chasing us or a person with a gun threatening us. But we definitely don’t want that reactive period to continue for longer periods of time than necessary, which would mean we become hyper-vigilant, a core symptom of PTSD. We want to deal with the threat and then de-escalate back into emotional regulation of vigilance.
When we’re emotionally provoked (stressed), cortisol is released into our bloodstream. We need cortisol to help our body be strong for fight/flight response; we don’t want cortisol to be in our bloodstream if Amazon doesn’t have the Classic Air Jordans we’ve been jonesing about for months. (*There’s quite a bit more to unpackage about ‘what-if’ we don’t de-escalate, or the threat continues for long periods of time … that will be covered more in future columns about anger management, assertion, boundary setting, trauma, C-PTSD, CPT and more.
You could read/listen to “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk now if you prefer not to wait.
Emotional Intelligence is the way to:
1. Acknowledge that emotions are not a choice.
2. Manage them effectively.
3. Get out of the business of provoking ourselves emotionally when not facing a direct threat of harm, where we are instead navigating contexts like challenge, adversity, and inconvenience.
Let’s focus on when we are the ones perceiving a threat of harm, when what’s really going on is having to adjust to circumstances that we’d prefer not to experience. Such as that jerk at work or the barista getting our drink order wrong. Those are not reasons to push the cortisol button and become emotional.
If we get emotional, then it is likely because:
1. We’re either already irritated by multiple things and don’t have good EQ structure to deal with our stressors.
2. We have a sensitivity to certain stressors that is maladaptive.
3. Both. Dig what clinical psychologist Michael Benner has to say about ‘the bruise.’ Too bad he didn’t have two hours longer to get into the weeds on explaining the details, but lackaday, we’ll keep calm and carry on. I strongly suggest you trust his explanation about the bruise because he’s correct; we all have them, and healing them will increase the quality of life exponentially.
Emotional Hygiene (EH) is a prosthetic skill of EQ. Apply the concept of washing your hands after using the lavatory to your emotions, it’s like cleaning up if there’s been some emotional messiness such as humiliation, intimidation, embarrassment, betrayal, et cet. Most of us weren’t educated about his – we were told to hide from our emotions or treat them like weakness. Being candid, folks – that’s dumb. And toxic. Recall: emotions are not a choice. They are our nervous system telling us that it thinks survival might be a priority.
Use your EH to deal with the after-effects of emotional provocation, whether it be organic or self-induced. Listen to Guy Winch describe EH here.
I’m recommending only one musical composition today, and it is Miles Davis’ “Corrado.” This cut is pure emotional vigor and splendor. It is controlled chaos, psychedelic bebop for over 13 blissful minutes. It’s simultaneously structured while also brimming with white-knuckle fluidity. Listen and be attentive to your emotional response. Remind yourself you are safe with Miles and Crew. Practice controlling the emotions that enter your body. Then play it again and again and …
NEXT: ABC Worksheets! These will cast internal light so bright that Unhelpful Thought Patterns will be scorched out of existence. Be good to yourself and be patient. CBT takes time. Aloha!
