David - Emotional agility: get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life

Y ears ago, in the Downton Abbey era, a well-regarded captain stood on the bridge of a British battleship, watching the sun set across the sea. As the story goes, the captain was about to head below for dinner when a lookout suddenly announced, Light, sir. Dead ahead two miles.

The captain turned back toward the helm.

Is it steady or moving? he asked, these being the days before radar.

Steady, Captain.

Then signal that ship, the captain ordered gruffly. Tell them, You are on a collision course. Alter course twenty degrees.

The answer, from the source of the light, came back moments later: Advisable you change your course twenty degrees.

The captain was insulted. Not only was his authority being challenged, but also it was being done in front of a junior seaman!

Send another message, he snarled. We are HMS Defiant, a thirty-five-thousand-ton battleship of the dreadnaught class. Change course twenty degrees.

Brilliant, sir, came the reply. Im Seaman OReilly of the second class. Change your course immediately.

Apoplectic and red in the face, the captain shouted, We are the flagship of Admiral Sir William Atkinson-Willes! CHANGE YOUR COURSE TWENTY DEGREES!

There was a moment of silence before Seaman OReilly replied, We are a lighthouse, sir.

As we travel through our lives, we humans have few ways of knowing which course to take or what lies ahead. We dont have lighthouses to keep us away from rocky relationships. We dont have lookouts on the bow or radar on the tower, watching for submerged threats that could sink our career plans. Instead, we have our emotionssensations like fear, anxiety, joy, and exhilarationa neurochemical system that evolved to help us navigate lifes complex currents.

Emotions, from blinding rage to wide-eyed love, are the bodys immediate physical responses to important signals from the outside world. When our senses pick up informationsigns of danger, hints of romantic interest, cues that were being accepted or excluded by our peerswe physically adjust to these incoming messages. Our hearts beat faster or slower, our muscles tighten or relax, our mental focus locks onto the threat or eases into the warmth of trusted companionship.

These physical embodied responses keep our inner state and our outward behavior in sync with the situation at hand, and can help us not only survive but also flourish. As with Seaman OReillys lighthouse, our natural guidance system, which developed through evolutionary trial and error over millions of years, is a great deal more useful when we dont try to fight it.

But thats not always easy to do, because our emotions are not always reliable. In some situations, they help us cut through pretenses and posturing, working as a kind of internal radar to give us the most accurate and insightful read into whats really going on in a situation. Who hasnt experienced those gut feelings that tell us This guys lying, or Somethings bugging my friend even though she says shes fine?

But in other situations, emotions dredge up old business, confusing our perception of whats happening in the moment with painful past experiences. These powerful sensations can take over completely, clouding our judgment and steering us right onto the rocks. In these cases, you might lose it and, say, throw a drink in the lying guys face.

Of course, most adults rarely surrender control to their emotions with inappropriate public displays that take years to live down. More likely, youll trip yourself up in a less theatrical but more insidious fashion. Many people, much of the time, operate on emotional autopilot, reacting to situations without true awareness or even real volition. Others are acutely aware that they expend too much energy trying to contain or suppress their emotions, treating them at best like unruly children and at worst as threats to their well-being. Still others feel their emotions are stopping them from achieving the kind of life they want, especially when it comes to those feelings that we find troublesome, such as anger, shame, and anxiety. In time, our responses to signals from the real world can become increasingly faint and unnatural, leading us off course instead of protecting our best interests.

I am a psychologist and an executive coach who has studied emotions and how we interact with them for more than two decades. When I ask some of my clients how long theyve been trying to get in touch with, fix, or cope with their particularly challenging emotions or the situations that give rise to them, theyll often say five, or ten, or even twenty years. Sometimes the answer is, Ever since I was a little kid.