the role of the pre-conditions The art of handling emotions, like any process for living life well, requires certain pre-conditions. Pre-conditions create the environment where a process can begin and be maintained. The general pre-conditions for CCI include: * equal rights between individuals,
* respect (each individual is valued), * self responsibility (I take care of my own process) and * privacy (personal emotional expressions are not referred to and stay confidential). Without these pre-conditions emotional process is limited.
basic assumptions Underlying all human activity are basic assumptions. Here are some of the basic assumptions that underpin CCI: We all have basic personal human needs2:
*To love and to be loved (Loving is basic to being human.) * To understand and to be understood(Making sense of ourselves, our relationships, our world.) *To be self directing, while also being part of a bigger whole (Choosing our own way, while also having a greater shared place of belonging.)
There are no negative emotions; all emotions have a purpose. Often they reflect our personal history, our earlier experiences and responses. If the three basic personal human needs listed above remain unmet, hurt and painful emotions may be generated. CCI does not see these feelings as necessarily negative - they are useful signals telling us something about ourselves and pointing out the way forward.
Emotions are experienced throughout the whole body. They involve feelings, thoughts, muscles and behaviours, our voices, our skin and sweat glands, our breathing, our heart rates! Emotional awareness and processing can work at any of these levels. Emotional health involves a harmonizing of head and heart. Please note, the basic assumptions given above are quite broad, and therefore open to a range of interpretations. The need 'to understand' raises all manner of questions - for example, what kind of beings are humans? Are we spiritual creatures? On such questions CCI supports personal freedom of belief. CCI is not in itself a belief system. It is a worldwide group of likeminded people sharing these values, pre-conditions and basic assumptions, practising the art of handling their emotions and finding answers to their questions. CCI is a growing and evolving way of emotional process, and open to exploring new ideas and methods within the pre-conditions (equal rights, respect, self-responsibility, privacy) given above.
the reality Recent scientific advances have provided validation for the CCI emphasis on healthy handling of emotions. Emotional realities are powerful and make a difference in everyday life. Daniel Goleman, in The New Leaders, states the obvious when he writes, 'when people feel good, they also work at their best' (p.17). He urges his readers to 'generate the emotional resonance that lets people flourish' (preface, page xii.) This leadership style is 'new' because it accepts the importance of personal emotions. CCI heartily agrees with this. And this approach is not just for 'new leaders' - it is for any of us who parent children in a family, chair a meeting, host a dinner party, work in an office or other setting, coach or play a team sport. When people's emotional lives are acknowledged and valued, they flourish. Our society has tended to see emotions as 'irrational', and to favour rational intelligence over emotional intelligence. It is true that recent advances in brain science (for example, Joseph LeDoux's work, The Emotional Brain) have discovered that our brains house two centres of knowledge: the rational and the emotional ways of knowing, and of memory. (This is most clearly seen when we are under the influence of very strong 'survival' emotions - for example, when we are panicking we
tend not to behave very rationally!) However, strong connections exist between the two centres and they normally work together. CCI is interested in the phenomenon of emotional memory (our earliest memories are stored emotionally, not rationally), and in exploring ways to co-ordinate emotions and rationality in healthy ways. (see diagram) Candace B. Pert is another scientist with something to add here. She believes that memories and emotions are mediated via receptors on cell surfaces and the signalling substances that interact with them, used to communicate between cells and systems. These receptors and substances are found both in the brain and throughout the whole body, linking them. This makes sense of terms like 'gut feeling' and intuition - ways of knowing that are not necessarily 'logical' or 'rational'. Pert talks of the 'bodymind', she urges us to think holistically: 'Your body is your subconscious mind, and you can't heal it by talk alone.' (See Molecules of Emotion, Candace B. Pert, chapter 7). Emotions are real and have a powerful impact on everyday realities on our feelings, our minds, our bodies. They need to be accepted and expressed in a healthy way for the positive contribution they can bring to our lives. CCI offers a respectful format for doing this.
the emotional and rational centres in the brain
the cerebral cortex is where rational intelligence and memory is located
thalamus: where all incoming information is first received
amygdala: a key part of emotional intelligence and memory
spinal cord
All incoming information is received in the thalamus, which acts as a relay station. It then passes information on to either the rational brain (the green arrows) or the emotional centres (the red arrow). The route to the emotional brain is shorter and quicker than the route via the rational brain - thus emotional responses can be more immediate, i.e. experienced first. Finer tuning of feelings and understanding of emotions comes via the rational connections to the emotional brain. In normal circumstances these two centres work in harmony, to decide on actions and responses
