The work of Daniel Goleman of Harvard University, best known for his book Emotional Intelligence, speaks to basic principles of emotional health. He and others view anxiety as one of the body’s primary emotions and defines emotional health in part as the healthy management of anxiety. In this view, the healthier we are, the more appropriate is our anxiety to the situation at hand. He refers to Aristotle’s ideal of being angry the right amount at the right time towards the right person for the right reason. The man who comes home from work anxious about the day’s events and angry at his boss but kicks his dog instead provides a classic example of emotion out of control.
Other examples abound, such as the employee who cannot let go of the agitation he feels toward a coworker for an odd habit or worry he cannot control over his boss’s comment that morning. A woman’s inability to stop daydreaming about the love she feels for an unavailable client illustrates the poor efficiency of her emotional system. One’s anxiety in these situations serves as a useful barometer inasmuch as one overreacts. Patients often report this kind of anxiety as feeling like an archaic dictator, a beast who demands they respond in a particular way to a given situation.
However, this mode no longer fits the present situation. Anyone suffering intensely from this kind of anxiety says that if he could only tailor his anxiety more appropriately, he would feel so much lighter. The more emotionally intelligent we become, the more likely our anxiety will fit the ambient temperature of the present conditions.
Rick’s comments:
Emotionally, I am the perfect example of Aristotle’s ideal of being angry the right amount at the right time towards the right person for the right reason. ( Yeah, right!) Actually, I frequently dredge up, particularly during times of anxiety and stress, old arguments and angers. I think about people who are long out of my life—sometimes even a long-ago school friend or love interest—who have no real meaning to my life today.
If I happen to run into a person, generally a family member, about whom I’ve been replaying old arguments or issues, I never feel angry toward them the way I do during my private thoughts. The present reality and past issues seem, with me at least, to exist in two totally separate spheres.
There are times when these thoughts aren’t really intruding—I invite them in! For reasons I still need to work on discovering, I intentionally dwell on some of these past hurts and harms when I am not happy with myself or my life. It affords a kind of grim pleasure that I know could not possibly be good for me. I believe this can be overcome when I am ready to let go of this negative thinking.