Patrick Parker

Emotional Mastery
PATRICK PARKER

EMOTIONAL MASTERY

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Emotional Mastery
1st edition
© 2022 Patrick Parker & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-4017-4

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Contents

CONTENTS
1 Introduction 6

2 Emotional Mastery 7
2.1 Exploration of Emotions 8
2.2 Discovery of Emotional Mastery 9
2.3 Application of Emotional Mastery 13

3 Acceptance 16
3.1 Exploration of the Path to Acceptance 16
3.2 Discovery of Acceptance 18
3.3 Application of Acceptance 19

4 Intuition 21
4.1 Exploration of Intuition 21
4.2 Discovery of the Intuitive Process 21
4.3 Application of Intuition 23

5 Self-Management 25
5.1 Exploration of Self-Management 26
5.2 Discovery of the Zone of Optimal Functioning 27
5.3 Application: Finding and Staying In Your Zone of Optimal Functioning 29

6 Conclusion 30

7 References 32

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a coach, speaker, and author, Patrick Parker has delivered Inner Leadership to leaders
and organizations throughout the United States and internationally. This framework is based
on the premise that once people go within themselves to explore, discover, and apply soft
skills, unimaginable new external solutions and opportunities arise.

Patrick is a Certified Executive Coach and holds the Professional Certified Coach credential
through the International Coach Federation. His work is influenced by experience as a
Licensed Master Social Worker and his first career in classical music, through which he
traveled the world, earned a doctorate degree, and held leadership positions for ten years.

Patrick is available for coaching, training, and speaking engagements and may be reached
at www.patrickaaronparker.com or LinkedIn.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Introduction

1 INTRODUCTION
It is human nature to focus on external goals and outcomes without developing the inner
realm. In the private sphere, this leads to family problems and mid-life crises. In business,
a lack of inner development leads to burnout, overwhelm, a lack of trust and commitment,
reduced productivity, and increased turnover.

The Inner Leadership framework aims to mitigate these issues. It is based on the premise
that once people do inner work on themselves, unimaginable new external possibilities arise.
It provides actionable ways to apply soft skills in order to construct one’s life and career in
the most meaningful way possible.

The overall process of Inner Leadership is simple. When external leadership skills are not
getting the job done, a person pauses and turns inward to develop the soft skills explored in
this book series: mindfulness, communication, emotional mastery, and navigating uncertainty.
Then, the leader comes back to the external issue, applying insight from their inner work
in ways that solve problems and capture opportunities.

External leadership application of

External leadership
soft skills to create new solutions
roles, authority
and opportunity capture

1 2 3

Inner leadership
contemplative, reflective,
soft skill development

Diagram 1: The Inner Leadership process.

The first volume in the Inner Leadership Business Series gave an introduction and overview
to Inner Leadership as a whole.

The second volume on mindfulness--the foundation of Inner Leadership--provided everyday

mindfulness tools including willingness, the Mindfulness Trinity, and patience.

The third volume focused on communicating in a way that balances results, relationships,
and self-respect through cultural competency and trust.

In this fourth volume, the evergreen topic of emotions will be discussed. An emotional mastery
framework will be provided and the tools of acceptance, intuition, and self-management
will be discussed.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

2 EMOTIONAL MASTERY
A healthy respect for the role of emotions in decision making is imperative. Once a person
processes an emotion, they can hear the message it is carrying and let that message guide
their actions.

However, most people are driven by an aversion to what they consider ‘painful’ or ‘bad’
emotions. They feel something they don’t like, and since they don’t have the skills to let it
wash over them and receive the message, they run from the uncomfortable feelings.

People run from and avoid emotions because of emotional myths they have, which was
discussed in Volume II, Diagram Six. These myths tell people that certain emotions are
good and right, while others are bad and wrong.

People also run from and avoid emotions that come quickly and intensely, like a surprise
flash flood.

Some people have a biological nervous system that is more predisposed to feeling intense
emotions. This sensitivity increases when they have historically been in, or are currently in,
an invalidating environment.

Finally, emotions cannot be seen or touched, and a person can often feel multiple feelings
at once. Likewise, certain emotions feel similar: for example, anxiety and excitement have
similar physical sensations.

These factors make it hard to identify what you are feeling. And these factors add up to a
world full of people that are running from painful emotions.

When emotions aren’t consciously acknowledged and cleared, they run a person’s life. The
consequences can be damning. Lack of emotional mastery results in highly fluctuating moods
that make people look incompetent at work. Lack of emotional mastery can also lead to a
chronic feeling of emptiness. People try to fill this emptiness with ambition, which leads
to burn out and angry overreactions that damage trust.

The omnipresence of emotional imprisonment is mostly unconscious. People know not what
they do. The way to break out of the prison of emotional aversion is to learn a skill set to
identify emotions, allow the physical sensations to wash over your body, and wait for the
message from the emotion to arise.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

2.1 EXPLORATION OF EMOTIONS

Emotions are a great gift to human beings. Emotions come from the body’s processing of
stimuli from the external and internal world through the five senses: taste, smell, touch, sight,
and sound. Emotions give people messages about when to act or not act. These messages
help people orient themselves and navigate life and career in a way that feels true and right.

The thirteenth-century Sufi mystic Rumi said it best:

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

In the first two stanzas of his poem, Rumi compares the physical body to a house and
emotions as houseguests. His insight is that, like visitors, emotions come and go. They are
not permanent residents; they are guests.

In the third stanza, Rumi states how to master emotions: welcome and entertain them all!
He doesn’t say ‘deny entry’ or ‘rush this guest out quickly.’ He advocates for treating each
emotion-guest exquisitely. Even if it seems that the emotion is ransacking the house, hindsight
will prove it made way for something better--‘a new delight’--within your life and work.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

In the last two stanzas of the poem, Rumi highlights the importance of welcoming and
including all emotions, because each emotion has been sent as a guide from beyond. Each
emotion has a reason for arriving. Each emotion will guide you if you quit running, raise
your awareness, and implement emotional mastery skills.

I’d like to think that if Rumi were living today, he would extend the metaphor into the
modern era by stating that emotions are the energy of life. E-motions are ‘energy in motion.’
The energy of emotion is just like electricity in a house: it needs to be regulated, constant,
and moderate. Too little, and the light switch doesn’t turn on. Too much, and a fuse is blown.

There are millions of people walking around with the fuse of their inner house completely fried.

When emotions are channeled properly, you can trust that every time you turn the switch
on, the light will come on. Every time you’re cold, the heater will work.

When you haven’t mastered emotions, distressing events create a reaction that is like a fuse
blowing the power out. Problems happen because something you rely on--the regulation
of energy in your house--has been destabilized. Your physical guest house has to be ‘up to
construction code’ in order to handle even the biggest surge. The way to prepare the house
properly is through emotional mastery.

2.2 DISCOVERY OF EMOTIONAL MASTERY

Most people have not come to peace with and accepted that to be human is to feel emotions.
Most people are not consciously aware that emotions are messengers and helpers that inform
decisions. A lack of understanding and skills to master emotions creates a world of people
running scared, which compounds the emotional suffering.

A few years ago, a colleague shared with me an easy but powerful process for mastering
emotions, based on the work of behavioral psychologist Marsha Linehan. She calls it ‘name
it, claim it, frame it, tame it.’

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

Name It • What emotion am I feeling?

• Is the emotion a sign my needs are being met, or unmet?
• How intense is the emotion on a scale of 1-10?

Claim It • Accept and validate your emotion

• Use self-compassion

Frame It What is the context in which it occurs?

• Prompting event
• Separate the facts of the situation versus your interpretation
• Action urge

Tame It • Calm yourself

• Challenge your thoughts and beliefs around the issue
• Distract yourself with a pleasant activity
• Pause. Get out of impulsiveness and into wisdom before acting

Diagram 2: Emotional Mastery Framework (Poole).

Name It
Just as it is necessary to accurately identify a problem in order to solve it, correctly
identifying an emotion is the first step in emotional mastery. If you cannot identify what
you are feeling, it is much easier to become afraid of what you are feeling and get sucked
into an intense, overwhelming void. Therefore, it is important to develop a rich vocabulary
of words to describe emotions.

When psychologist Paul Ekman traveled around the world to study how humans express
emotions, he found seven basic emotions that are universally displayed: surprise, sadness,
anger, fear, disgust, contempt, and joy. By getting a handle on these seven basic emotions
and how they show up for you, you will have a foundation for mastering emotions.

Surprise occurs when something unexpected happens. It normally leads to another emotion
based on whether the surprise is interpreted as good or bad.

Sadness is a sign that someone or something very important to you has been lost. Sadness
slows you down in order to save energy and rebuild strength. This emotion often draws
other people in to comfort you.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

Anger arises when someone or something is stopping you from doing what you want to do.
Anger lets you know when your goal is being blocked. It can create impulsive behavior, but
when mastered, anger can motivate you to overcome barriers and obstacles.

Fear is triggered by danger of physical or emotional harm or pain. Fear triggers the ancient
instinct responses of fight, flight, or freeze. Fear is invaluable in regard to security and safety.

Disgust is a powerful emotion that warns you to get away from what is repulsing you. It is
activated by certain tastes, smells, and feelings.

Contempt is similar to disgust but is primarily directed toward other people and their actions.
Contempt manifests as an urgent need to get away from those who you deem morally suspect.

Joy is excitement, relief, and wonder. Joy lets you know that your needs are being met. It
can come from pleasant sensory experiences, being amused, contentment, and reaching a
goal. The quest for joy motivates people to make friends, have new experiences, have a
baby, and find jobs they enjoy.

Although there are only a few basic, universal emotions that traverse all human cultures,
there are a multitude of nuanced emotions within these basic emotions. So, it’s important
to develop a rich emotional vocabulary by exploring lists of emotions.

Once you have identified what emotion you are feeling, the next step is to rate how intense
you are feeling it on a scale of 1 (minimal) to 10 (extremely intense). Identifying what and
how deeply you are feeling an emotion is the first step in emotional mastery and it allows
you to claim the emotion.

Claim It
To claim an emotion is to be a good host to the ‘visitors’ in your ‘guest house.’ A good
host does not run away, avoid, or deny entry. A good host welcomes and receives visitors
without suspicion or judgment.

However, it is hard to be a good host due to emotional myths discussed in Volume II,
Diagram Six. When an emotion is not received in hospitality, it does not go away; it
intensifies and persists, determined to receive lodging.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

In order to be a good host to even the most difficult emotional guests, self-compassion is
required. Self-compassion is about understanding that it is okay and normal to be stressed
and to struggle. Self-compassion is being kind, supportive, and understanding toward yourself
when difficult emotions come. Self-compassion means remembering that everyone in the
world feels the same emotions as you. The experience of feeling emotions, even intense
emotions, is a normal feature of being human.

Frame It
Once you have identified the emotion you are feeling and used self-compassion, the next
step is to frame the emotion. Just as a picture is enveloped by a frame, emotions are
encompassed by the situation in which they arise.

Stimuli from a situation cause the five senses to activate and create emotions, but no two
people experience a situation the same way. The same event can cause completely different
feelings within the people experiencing the event. For example, when one coworker gets
promoted, they are thrilled, while others on the team may feel jealousy or anger. Therefore,
no one can frame why you are feeling what you feel except you. They do not have the same
biology, history, or vulnerabilities that you have. Only you can frame the context in which
an emotion arises so that you can tame it.

Framing is like being a referee that watches a play in slow motion in order to make the
most accurate, fair ruling on an unclear situation. In doing this, you are looking at the event
or person that prompted the emotion, what thinking errors may have been involved (see
Volume II, Diagram Five for a complete list), and what urges these thinking errors created.

It is also important to frame an emotion within your own mental and physical wellbeing. If
you have been pulling all nighters, have been eating poorly, or have some other unaddressed
physical or emotional need, emotions tend to go into overdrive. The fight or flight modes
of survival instinct kick in much easier. Sometimes framing an emotion is as simple as
saying to yourself “I am so tired that there is no way I can see this situation in a realistic,
fact-based way. I will come to this tomorrow when I am in a better mood and rested. The
world will not end if I do not resolve this by noon tomorrow.”

As a result of the framing stage, you can see the thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions that
drive the emotional intensity. You can actively challenge these with a trusted advisor who
can illuminate blindspots in your logic.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

Tame It
When you feel an intense emotion, hit the pause button. Identify what emotion you are
feeling, validate the emotion, and understand the context in which it arose. If you are able
to take time out from work or life, a way to calm yourself and reduce the energy of the
emotion is distracting yourself through a pleasant activity. Put the situation and your internal
dialogue about it completely away. It will all be there for you to sort out later while you
have fun doing something you love. Taking a break from the distress until the emotions
are dialed down is invaluable.

If you are not able to take a time out, know that the mind-body connection help you
reduce the intensity of an emotion and get back into your wisdom even in the midst of
a stressful situation. If you are feeling sad and yet it is not the right time to process that
sadness, you can stand up straight with your shoulders back and make eye contact, which
is opposite to the slouching and avoidant eye contact of sadness. Similarly, when you are
experiencing any negative emotion, you can adopt a ‘half-smile and willing hands.’ The
half-smile communicates acceptance to your mind; similarly, just making a goofy face in
the bathroom mirror when you’re feeling awful can reset your nervous system. Finally, when
you are feeling angry, you can decrease the intensity through practicing muscle relaxation
and deep breathing.

When a person can work with their emotions in a new way, they can move through even
the most intense, painful feelings and get to the other side, where the emotion has a message
for them. These intuitive messages are invaluable.

2.3 APPLICATION OF EMOTIONAL MASTERY

If you are a ‘guest house’ and emotions are ‘visitors,’ imagine that the guest house is in a
snowglobe. Life can come along at any time and shake you up, whether it’s external (a job
layoff, a relationship ending) or internal (thoughts, emotions, or beliefs). When you get shaken
up, the world gets unclear and confusing. You get ‘lost in the flurry’ inside the snowglobe.
Ironically, human nature is to react to this flurry in a way that keeps the snowglobe shaken
up rather than getting to a place where the storm can settle and the deepest, most clear
wisdom can be seen and accessed.

The process of naming, claiming, framing, and taming emotions is a counterintuitive way
of working with the snowglobe. Emotional mastery ensures you don’t continue to shake up
the flurry after life initially causes a storm.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

To do this, first get a really clear mental picture of what the snowglobe looks like when
the flurry is settled and you are in your deepest insight. You can literally visualize a scene.
Having an anchor for reality-based wisdom will help you know how to ‘get back home’
when the flurry is so intense you get lost.

Second, know what has historically shaken your snowglobe. Know when you’re going into
a situation that shakes you up, such as interacting with your ‘the other’ as discussed in
Volume III. Being aware that you are about to be shaken up can help you create a plan to
stay still until the flurry subsides.

Third, get clear on the ways you shake up your own snow globe. Do you suppress or
invalidate your feelings? Do you act in impulsive ways that cause intense emotions? Do you
cling to thinking errors that intensify emotions? Reflecting on these questions can create
clarity on the cost of emotional myths that shake up the snow globe. Reflection can also
illuminate the value of using emotional mastery to still the flurry.

Finally, create a plan for how to settle the flurry once your snowglobe gets shaken up. What
specific measures will you take to deescalate the emotion before acting? How will you work
with your physical body--which is home to the emotion--to calm you heart rate and nervous
system? How will you work with your mind, which may be producing thinking errors? Who
can help you with this? Reflecting on these questions gives you a concrete action plan for
coping with the emotional flurry that stress brings.

A former client who holds a senior position at a global company came to me to find
solutions for procrastination issues. As we delved into the topic, it quickly became evident
that the issue was not behavioral. This client had a highly conscientious and detail-oriented
style, which made him highly successful in his field. However, the amount of work and the
short timelines was creating stressful, overwhelming emotions that stalled his productivity.

Creating a behavioral plan of action would have doubled down on what already was not
working. Instead, we used the emotional mastery framework to process his emotions and
get to the wise message they had for him.

First, my client named the emotion he was feeling as anxiety, with an intensity of ten out
of ten.

I then asked him questions which allowed him to claim the anxiety. He saw that anxiety
under difficult workloads is normal and universal. He was willing to consider that validating
rather than fighting his emotions could lead him to a new strategy.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Emotional Mastery

Next, we framed the anxiety. The prompting event was clear: a sudden increase in workload
with tight deadlines on projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This anxiety came
from thoughts, assumptions, and beliefs that anyone else in his situation would be able
to perform to expectations and he was slow and less capable. He assumed that he was less
disciplined than those who were more willing to work late hours and get things submitted
on time. Therefore, his action urge was inaction. He felt defeated and lacked hope.

Instead of dwelling in hopelessness, I helped him use clear, measurable facts about his career
that helped him see his thinking was distorted. He had climbed the ranks of his company
for over two decades through a combination of hard work, meticulous conscientiousness,
and an easy going communication style. The latter two qualities were in direct conflict: he
was not willing to diminish the quality of his work in order to meet the deadlines, but he
was also afraid to speak up and negotiate.

As we worked to tame the anxiety, my client decided that anytime he felt overwhelmed,
he would call his wife from work or play with his child if he was at home. These pleasant
moments reduced the intensity of of his anxiety enough that he was able to hear the message
it was sending. He began to see that his issue was not procrastination or lack of work ethic.
It was from a lack of assertiveness and boundaries around the unreasonable expectations
he was under!

We discussed ways to negotiate the timeline and workload using his strength of gentleness
combined with a little assertiveness. Once he brokered deadline extensions, his work pace
picked up. His major insight was that coming to peace with and understanding his emotional
world gave him dynamic momentum to solve problems and capture opportunities.

Becoming a master of emotions matters because it leads to a deeper ability to access intuitive
solutions. But what do you do when your reactions to emotions create so much intense
suffering that you cannot allow the emotion to deliver the message it is carrying?

You develop your capacity to accept pain.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Acceptance

3 ACCEPTANCE
No matter how emotionally masterful you are, life events create patches of emotional
quicksand: painful situations you ‘fall into’ when you least expect it. Just like with real
quicksand, the more you struggle against the reality of your situation, the faster you sink.

Yet it is human nature to fight the quicksand of emotional intensity. If only things could go
back to the way they were before, when it felt safe and you were pleasantly walking along
enjoying life and taking in the view.

When exquisitely gut-wrenching situations arise, people flail as they try to escape the
quicksand. But resistance is futile. It just makes you sink faster.

3.1 EXPLORATION OF THE PATH TO ACCEPTANCE

Rather than sinking in the quicksand of a surprising life event by fighting reality, a better
way is to sit still. You’ll still sink, but much slower. You will calm down enough to see a low
hanging branch that you can hold onto until someone comes along to help you out of the
quicksand. That seemingly flimsy reed you can hang onto for dear life is called acceptance.

Acceptance
Exploring options
New plan in place
Denial Moving on
Avoidance
Confusion
Elation Depression
Shock Anger Overwhelmed
Fear Frustration Helplessness
Irritation Hostility
Anxiety Flight
Bargaining
Struggling to find meaning
Reaching out to others
Telling one’s story

Diagram 3: Path to Acceptance (Kübler-Ross and Kessler).

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Acceptance

As a person anticipates an uncomfortable or painful situation--such as anticipating the

passing of a loved one or a job layoff--the physical sensations of a pit of the stomach or
an ache in the heart occurs. Anticipation feels like all of life is in limbo. The uncertainty
can be excruciating.

Once the actual event happens, the shock and numbness of denial arises. Denial is an
important defense mechanism. In this stage, the mind cannot fully process reality. Life
feels dreamlike. As the finality of the loss begins to gradually sink in, frustration arises. You
realize life has changed and it will never be what it was before you fell in the quicksand.

Anger emerges from the frustration once your unconscious mind feels safe enough to survive
the intensity of this stage. Still, it is easier to feel than the sadness that comes later. But
the anger must be mastered so that you can feel sadness. Otherwise you stay in resentment
and victimhood and never get to acceptance, which is the only thing that can pull you out
of the quicksand.

After the intensity of anger, the unconscious mind gives you a reprieve as you go back into
a safe stage of bargaining. People try to find fault with themselves and what they think they
could have done differently. This stage is an intellectual exercise that gives relief from the
emotional intensity of anger and prepares you for what is to come.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Acceptance

After bargaining, sadness sets in as reality can no longer be escaped. Deep emotions present
themselves; it can feel like the ‘guesthouse’ is overrun by ‘visitors’ who are on a rampage
to set the house on fire.

People often forestall on appropriate sadness because they believe sadness is something they
can snap out of and fix. But the truth is that sadness gets you much closer to acceptance
and meaning than denial, anger, or bargaining. Sadness, when harnessed, allows you to slow
down and take real stock of the loss. This inventory allows you to rebuild yourself from
the ground up, prepare for growth, and go to a deeper level of Inner Leadership than you
would normally explore.

Denial, anger, bargaining, and sadness must all be mastered in order to grab onto the flimsy
reed that can help you survive the quicksand: acceptance.

3.2 DISCOVERY OF ACCEPTANCE

When you fall in the quicksand of unexpected, painful situations, don’t struggle. Don’t
fight it. The only way to survive is to cease fighting and practice acceptance. Acceptance is
the best way to handle situations that are out of your control, where any decision forward
will create pain. It allows a person to choose the pain that can create meaning rather than
keeping them stuck.

Acceptance is, first and foremost, a reality check. The reality is that you are in the quicksand.
The more you struggle the quicker you go under. Yes, you are suffering, but the reality is
that being human means there will always be an ordinary amount of suffering and pain
in this life.

Acceptance is not approval. By its very nature, acceptance means you don’t like the situation.
But you don’t fight with the situation, you don’t waste your energy by needlessly fighting
against the forces trying to bring you down. By giving yourself a reality check, you are
acknowledging the fact that there are many things in life outside of your control, like being
stuck in the quicksand of a surprising turn of events. Once you check reality, you can quit
struggling and direct your energy in the most helpful way. You can move forward wisely.
Instead of acting on unhelpful judgements, moods, and impulses that will drown you, you
can start to see resources that can help you..

Acceptance is choosing to ignore the natural inclination to avoid and run away from painful
realities, instead embracing the hurt so you can learn and grow from it. This means allowing
unwanted thoughts, feelings and urges to come and go without struggling against them.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Acceptance

This whole process was summed up succinctly and potently by an anonymous person almost
a century ago:

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is

because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life —
unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place,
thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.

Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to

concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what
needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

Once reality is accepted, emotions are dialed down and you proceed with wisdom, you can
work on strategically changing the parts of a situation you have power over. Acceptance
can help you find a reed, no matter how flimsy, to hold onto until someone (like a trusted
advisor) comes by to rescue you from the quicksand.

3.3 APPLICATION OF ACCEPTANCE

Acceptance is learning how to internally process things differently so that the world and
its people are not so upsetting. By accepting a difficult situation, you can start to move
forward. You may not like any of the options, but acceptance can help you see which action
gets you out of the quicksand.

In order to apply acceptance, identify a situation that is causing suffering. Usually thoughts
of unfairness are a good indication that acceptance has not taken place. Put pen to paper
and write down the facts: what happened, who was involved, why the situation is painful,
and if there are different opinions, worldviews, or cultures involved.

Continue by analyzing how not accepting the situation up to this point has caused the
situation to get worse and how resentment has increased your suffering. Identify what needs
to be accepted in order to get out of suffering, as well as what would change if you could
cease fighting. Then, find the silver lining. What can you learn from the situation?

In the summer of 2020, I was working with a client in the oil and gas field who beautifully
applied the path to acceptance. He was a leader in the oil and gas industry, and we had just
begun our engagement when the price of a barrel of oil dropped to a negative valuation
for the first time in history.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Acceptance

Initially, his reaction was denial, which manifested as shock and fear. He had been through
major cycles in the oil market, but this was unprecedented. He had seen countless co-workers
laid off in past downturns. Was this his turn to get the ax?

Once my client found out his job remained secure, he became angry at the unpredictable
oil and gas market.

As we discussed and cleared the anger, my client began bargaining with“what if ’s” and “if
only’s.” Luckily, he had a trusted advisor to turn this stage into brainstorming. Rather than
ruminating on “if only I could escape the unpredictability,” we looked at the idea of “what
if I found a way to escape the unpredictability?”

As a result, he came into the experience of the moment and felt sadness that his job was not
conducive to the security and stability he craved. Sadness told him to slow down, reflect,
and realize he could not keep pushing forward and suffering through the cycles.

By listening to the messages of sadness and accepting reality, he found a meaningful solution
which aligned with his value of security. He knew that he did not want to transition into
a new career field or leave his company, so before finding acceptance he felt stuck. After
clearing the emotions and getting to acceptance, however, he saw there was an opportunity
for him to move into the renewable energy branch of his company which was not influenced
by the oil and gas cycle. The company was happy to put one of their most high performing
leaders into an expanding division.

By mastering the emotions of each stage on the path to acceptance, my client was able to
hear the message and act accordingly at each emotional stage. As a result, he was able to
align his actions with his values of finding a line of work that was secure and stable.

Unexpected, emotionally intense life situations are like falling into quicksand. It’s scary and
human nature is to thrash and fight. But that just sinks you faster. Acceptance is the tool
to stay afloat in emotional quicksand long enough to get back into wisdom and find an
intuitive, creative solution to move forward.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Intuition

4 INTUITION
There is more than one way to know something. In several languages--French and Spanish
come to mind--there are separate verbs for “to know.” One is a logical, analytical knowing
and the other is an emotional, intimate knowing.

There’s also a third way of knowing something: knowing what you know without knowing
how you know it. It is a gut feeling that comes from a deep understanding of that which is
self-evident yet cannot be proven. This third way can only come when the mind’s rumination
is quieted and emotions are still; it is called intuition.

4.1 EXPLORATION OF INTUITION

Intuition is a powerful aspect of the human experience. It can guide you, keep you safe, help
you find the truth, and facilitate well-being and peace. Like many of the Inner Leadership
skills, it is difficult to quantify. Yet if you look back over your life, you will find times where
you made a decision based on a gut feeling. That is the use of intuition.

Intuition is physically felt as a gut feeling, tingles down the spine, a rush of energy, or
goose bumps. The mind feels light, unemotional, crystal clear, and still. The heart feels a
calm, inspired resolve.

Everyone has access to intuition, but not everyone accesses it. Developing your intuition
takes time, energy, and old-fashioned hard work.

4.2 DISCOVERY OF THE INTUITIVE PROCESS

Intuition is free and available to everyone. It is inside every man, woman, and child.

To develop your own intuition, review the Mindfulness Trinity in Volume II, Diagram Four
to still the mind and the Emotional Mastery framework in Diagram Two of this volume to
calm the emotions. After the mind is still and the emotions are equanimous, you are ready
to enter into the process of accessing intuition:

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Intuition

Prepare Explore Develop Act

Diagram 4: Accessing Intuition.

The preparation stage of developing intuition is like preparing the soil of a garden. Before a
seed is ever planted, the soil must be prepared to receive and nurture the seed. The internal
soil is prepared and fertilized through willingness. Simply state “I am willing to develop
my intuition.” Willingness will quiet the mental chatter that judges and dismisses intuition.
This preparation will also calm the emotions that often speak louder than the still small
voice of intuition.

Once you’re willing to be open to intuition, the next step is exploration. This stage plants
the seed of intuition into the fertile ground of willingness. Exploration of intuition comes
from inner reflection and contemplation, and is in many ways what depth psychologist
Carl Jung’s work was about.

To explore intuition, pray, meditate, or journal. Take a walk and let yourself freely associate
and become open to what arises. Before going to sleep, ask yourself a question that will help
your unconscious give you a message. For example, “what is the next right thing to do?”
A more concrete example might be asking yourself, “should I stay in my stable job which
provides security, should I start my own business, or is there a third way?” The unconscious
mind can solve problems that the conscious mind cannot. Upon awakening, write down
any dreams or thoughts that arise. It is within these unconscious insights that the seed of
intuition becomes a sprout.

In the development stage the sprout comes into full bloom. Blossoms emerge as your
unconscious mind forms patterns, repeats thoughts, and pulls you in certain directions. Pay
attention when you feel drawn to something that seems out of the ordinary or surprising.
Be attuned to thoughts that seem to arise out of nowhere. Just as it takes a beautiful flower
time to bloom, it takes time for intuition to develop. Keep at it. Keep letting yourself be
drawn to intuitive ideas, just as a flower draws itself up toward the sunlight.

The final step is action: harvesting the bloomed crop! The action step is about applying
intuitive insight and making decisions accordingly. But before acting on intuition, imagine
what it would be like to act on your intuition, like a t-shirt you try on for size. Reflect
on possible consequences of the action and whether it still ‘feels right.’ If you choose to
proceed, know that the action does not have to be an intense, rigid, absolute. It can just
be a gentle, flexible experiment. You don’t have to jump in the deep end, you can just dip
your pinky toe. You can take small steps rather than going all in.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Intuition

By consciously and deliberately practicing this process for developing intuition, you will
begin to trust when something feels right or wrong for you. You will follow your intuition.
And intuition will get you closer to your true self, why you are here, and what you can
contribute.

4.3 APPLICATION OF INTUITION

When emotions are equanimous and the mind is still, intuition can arise and facilitate
creativity and innovation. I’d like to share with you how two of the greatest minds in the
history of mankind used intuition to impact the world in fundamental, epoch-shifting ways.

Although Srinivasa Ramanujan had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he answered
‘unsolvable’ problems. His brilliance was confounding to conventional mathematicians who
were biased by his lack of technical ability. Despite his inability to explain his mathematics,
Ramanujan’s four thousand innovations opened new realms in mathematics (and subsequently,
human understanding of they universe). One hundred years later, the logical process of
the mathematics field has finally caught up to his intuitive process, proving nearly all his
claims correct.

Ramanujan had a deep inner connection to his Hindu faith and stated “an equation for me
has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God.” He believed his mathematical insights
were not his own, but came to him in dreams from the goddess his family worshipped.

Ramanujan connected to his sense of intuition by mindfully singing hymns, praying to

his goddess, and eating in a spiritually disciplined way. These rituals stilled his mind and
emotions and allowed him to ask deep mathematical and philosophical questions. The
results of accessing his intuition was so iconoclastic that a professor stated that Ramanujan’s
theorems were “arrived at by a process of mingled argument, intuition, and induction, of
which he was entirely unable to give any coherent account.”

Ramanujan took the third way of knowing, intuition, to arrive at his mathematical solutions.
He knew what he knew, but he didn’t know how he knew it. Albert Einstein, perhaps the
greatest scientist in history, also believed in intuition. Einstein stated that

It is not intellect, but intuition which advances humanity. Intuition tells man his real
purpose in this life.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Intuition

This purpose is not given to me by my parents or my surroundings. It is induced by some

unknown factors. These factors make me part of eternity. In this sense I am a mystic…
what seems impenetrable to us is as important as what is cut and dried...our faculties are
dull and can only comprehend wisdom and serene beauty in crude forms, but the heart
of man through intuition leads us to greater understanding of ourselves and the universe.

As a result of the inner process of accessing intuition, these two leaders revolutionized human
understanding of the world in concrete, quantitative ways. They are proof that when the
mind is stilled and emotions are mastered, intuition can arise.

When you unlock intuitive power, creativity emerges. But creativity creates new problems.
It is like jet fuel: highly potent and only useful when stored and used in just the right way.
Therefore, the storage container of self-management is needed to act on the creative power
of intuition.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Self-Management

5 SELF-MANAGEMENT
As discussed in the last chapter, emotional mastery leads to intuition. Intuition leads to
creativity. But ironically, creativity is often such a bright, intense process that without a lot
of self-management, people are put back into the throes of stressful emotional instability.

INTUITION
Knowing what you
know without
knowing how you
know it

EMOTIONAL CREATIVITY
MASTERY Becoming who
Name it you truly are
Claim it contributing to the
Frame it world in ways that
Tame it only you can

QUICKSAND
Stress
Lack of Emotional
Mastery

Diagram 5: Creativity without Self-Management.

Following your intuition and creativity without the self-management of emotional mastery
is like free diving. In free diving, a swimmer goes into the mysterious, ethereal depths
of the ocean without oxygen. For up to nine minutes at a time. These free divers say that
going into the unknown is such a spiritual, peaceful, and elevated experience. It puts them
in touch with the space between life and death. Free diving connects them to their body,
mind, soul, and the expansiveness of the universe.

25
EMOTIONAL MASTERY Self-Management

Free divers must mitigate perilous risk in order to survive the transcendent experience. There
are stories about the effects of nitrogen narcosis on those who do not completely manage and
master their oxygen. They can start to feel euphorically overconfident and incredibly happy
for no particular reason. They can start to feel intoxicated, with exaggerated emotions and
thinking, as well as irritably jumping to negative emotions, becoming frustrated or annoyed.
They can lose their sense of direction, feel anxious, like something awful is going to occur
for no logical reason. They can become confused, impulsive, and unknowingly following
through on poor thoughts leading to bad outcomes and behavior. And the results are tragic.

Free diving requires physical management. Likewise, creativity requires self-management.

5.1 EXPLORATION OF SELF-MANAGEMENT

There is a correlation between heightened creativity, or heightened engagement with the
art of living and working, and heightened emotion. The more you want to create--the
higher your ambition and the loftier your goals--the more structure is needed. Otherwise
the emotions get too intense.

Many artists, inventors, and entrepreneurs, and everyday people are touched with the fire
of creativity so intensely that they are not able to manage it. Self-management is about
harnessing your creativity in the optimal way at the optimum time in order to channel the
creative power, which Jung stated is often mightier than its possessor.

Self-management is finding the intrinsic motivation to care for yourself so that you don’t
get in the quicksand of intense emotions, even when you are in the highs of the creative
process. It takes a lot of self-management to find a healthy expression of creativity that is
grounded in reality and does not drown you in the ocean of creativity;

For example, when I am in a deep creative zone, the most important thing I can do is
take care of my physical body in order to manage my mood while going into the depths
of insight and spirituality. That means going to sleep and waking up early--no all-nighters,
no matter what--eating three home-cooked meals, cleaning my home, and going to the gym
to work out the intensity of the creative energy flowing through me once it is time to go
and attend to tasks in reality.

Attending to self-management will give you self-respect and pride. It gives you the best
chance of achieving the results you want while not damaging relationships from the
emotional intensity of unharnessed creativity. It puts you in a state where you can ideally
balance vision and reality.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Self-Management

5.2 DISCOVERY OF THE ZONE OF OPTIMAL FUNCTIONING

The zone of optimal functioning was initially developed for athletes by sports psychologist
Yuri Hanin. The idea is that every athlete has a zone of optimal functioning unique to
them. Reaching and staying in that zone helps them perform their best. The zone of optimal
functioning also applies to leaders.

Hanin’s idea was that a person’s energy falls within a range, with a low, ‘depressive’ energy
at one end and an ‘anxious’ energy at the other. In the middle ground is a sweet spot, the
promised land, where a person can function with the greatest capacity to succeed.

Optimal
Performance

Poor
Low Moderate High
Arousal
Diagram 6: Zone of Optimal Functioning (Hanin).

Each person has their own preferred level of emotional energy that allows them to perform
at their best. Usually, the optimal level does not come naturally nor does it effortlessly
maintain itself. It takes work to set yourself up for success. The model helps you gauge
when you are in the zone of optimal functioning and when you exit it.

Some people naturally fall more on the depressive side, where they have to consciously give
themselves pep talks and work themselves into the optimal zone. Others fall on the anxious
extreme and have to intentionally slow down so that they do not burn out.

When people are in their personal optimal performance zone they are in their preferred
level of arousal; not too much, not too little, but just right. Just like Goldilocks! If a person
experiences too much or too little energy (emotion is energy in motion) it can put them
back in the quicksand, as they are out of their personal optimal zone.

27
EMOTIONAL MASTERY Self-Management

Each person’s optimal performance zone is different. Additionally, the zone is different
for each activity a person does within their day. For example, when I give speeches and
presentations, I need a higher level of energy. It is my body’s way of letting me know that
the engagement is important to me. I am being given the energy I need to have in order
to transmit my message to my audience. However,, once the presentation is over, I need to
act opposite to the energetic emotional energy. It is no longer helpful to be that aroused.
That’s what meditation, journaling, talking to a friend to debrief, or physical activity is for.
A car is not built to fire on all cylinders all the time; neither are humans. It’s the zone of
optimal functioning, not the zone of maximum functioning.

The goal in the Hanin model is to live life optimally from ‘on high’ rather than ricocheting
back and forth between the extremes, where low performance occurs. So, how do you find
out what your optimal functioning for an activity is and intentionally reach this unique state?

A few years back I attended a lecture on the zone of optimal functioning by Martha Fontana,
CEO of the Prism Center in Houston, Texas. Martha made an analogy to the Lippizaner
stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria. These horses naturally kick up
their heels and sling mud in untethered freedom. But once a young stallion is selected for
tuition, his highly skilled rider spends at least six years harnessing the stallion’s natural
strengths. The contradiction of energetic horse and disciplined rider melds into intricate,
exquisite equestrian dressage, including magnificently controlled jumps.

Martha went on to say that in every effective leader there is the energetic stallion, and
talented rider who trains the natural energy. The stallion is like the creative energy that
intuition unlocks, and the rider is like the self-management that is needed to check reality
and not ‘drown in the free dive.’

When it is time to perform, the rider must be in control and make sure he doesn’t give
the horse too much rein. The stallion can kick up his heels in the pasture later, but for the
purposes of performance, he has to be focused and managed. Likewise, within each leader,
the ‘talented rider’ must make sure that the ‘stallion’ inside them does not get too much
rein when the high energy of creativity kicks in.

Lippizaner stallions know when to run free and kick up their heels, and when to be trained
and disciplined. If you can find the zone of optimal functioning, you can know when to
use creativity and when to use real-world responsibility. You will use the right energy at
the right time. You will know how to balance and go back and forth between the ‘stallion’
and ‘rider’ within you.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Self-Management

You don’t have to change anything about you. Self-management simply ensures ‘rider’ and
‘horse’ within you are aligned in the ‘dressage’ of the specific contribution you are uniquely
poised to give.

5.3 APPLICATION: FINDING AND STAYING IN YOUR

ZONE OF OPTIMAL FUNCTIONING
Finding and staying in your zone of optimal functioning is an internal process that is unique
to each individual. Prescriptive advice simply won’t work, but here are some general ideas
to try out.

First, break up the tasks in your life by energy level. For example, if I am spending the day
running errands, the optimal functioning level is easy going. If I am writing, I need a little
more energy. If I am speaking, I need quite a bit more energy beforehand, and I need a lot
of self-management afterward in order to slowly come down from the high.

It is important to realize when you are in the zone of optimal functioning, when you are
creeping out of it, and when you are in the dangerous extremes. A helpful analogy is to
think of these elements as a stop light. A green light is the optimal functioning zone. A
yellow light indicates you are performing well but may be in danger and need to slow down
soon. A red light means you are in the extremes of anxiety or depression and need to stop,
calm down, recharge, and get back into wisdom and emotional mastery. If you ‘run the
red light,’ then you are back in emotional quicksand.

The stop light check is a way of regularly monitoring within your body, mind, and the
external environment. You will be able to detect ‘changes in the stop light’ earlier and
redirect your energy to stay in the zone of optimal functioning. This leads to a sense of
competency and emotional mastery.

By regularly assessing yourself, you can recognize red light areas. You can work within the
skills you already have or with a trusted advisor to gain new perspective and skills and
regularly evaluate whether or not you are making progress.

Self-management is about staying in the zone of optimal functioning. Within this zone, peak
performance occurs and you have the best chance to weather the inevitable uncertainties of
life discussed in the last volume of the Inner Leadership Business Series.

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY Conclusion

6 CONCLUSION
In the first volume of the Inner Leadership Business Series, an overview of the Inner Leadership
framework and each of the four concepts--mindfulness, emotional mastery, communication,
and navigating uncertainty--were introduced. The introduction and overview highlighted that:

• It is human nature to focus on external goals and outcomes without developing

the inner realm
• Inner Leadership is based on the premise that once people do inner work
on themselves, unimaginable new external possibilities to solve problems and
capture opportunities arise
• Inner leadership is made difficult by the forces of entropy. Willingness is
necessary to overcome entropy and grow
• Many people spend most of their time in urgency and intensity, which is
antithetical to Inner Leadership
• Trusted advisors can reveal blind spots that keep leaders stuck
• Inner Leadership involves exploring the unknown, unconscious parts of yourself
in order to discover and apply new resources

The second volume on Mindfulness made the following main points:

• Mindfulness is the foundation of Inner Leadership

• Mindful attention focuses on purpose, the present moment, and nonjudgmental
acceptance
• Mindfulness increases leadership capacity through focus, intentional behaviors,
emotional attunement, acceptance of self and others, and intrinsic motivation
• Three practical applications of mindfulness are willingness, attention, and
patience
• Mindfulness is the basis of communication, emotional mastery, and navigating
uncertainty

The third volume on Communication submitted that:

• Communication is largely nonverbal

• Assertiveness is the most effective style of communication
• Effective communication balances results, relationships, and self-respect
• There is a range of behaviors which denote cultural competency. In order to
create higher competency, get to know people who are different in order to
expand your worldview and gain rich, nuanced perspectives
• Trust is the foundation of communication. It is increased through credibility,
reliability, intimacy, and serving others

30
EMOTIONAL MASTERY Conclusion

A summary of this fourth volume on emotional mastery includes that:

• Emotions are messages and helpers from the physical senses. Emotional mastery
is interpreting those messages in ways that decrease stress, intensity, and urgency
and increase intuition and serendipity
• A way to master emotions is through the framework “name it, claim it, frame it,
tame it”
• Fighting against emotions is like struggling in quicksand. The more you fight,
the quicker you sink
• By working through difficult emotions, you eventually arrive at acceptance.
Acceptance allows you to hear the messages the emotions are sending you, thus
finding meaning
• Acceptance is a reality check. Lasting change can happen only once reality has
first been accepted
• Intuition is knowing what you know without knowing how you know it.
Einstein and Ramanujan both credited intuition as an integral part of their
creative process
• Each person has a zone of optimal functioning in which emotions are
equanimous and peak performance occurs. Being in this zone allows you to
uniquely contribute your strengths and ideas to the world without burning out

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EMOTIONAL MASTERY References

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Ecott, T. (2002). Neutral buoyancy adventures in a liquid world. Penguin.

Ekman, P. (2004). Emotions revealed. Henry Holt & Co.

Foreman, A. (2018, May 4). Serendipity in science is often born of years of labor. The Wall
Street Journal.

Fontana, M. (2020, July). Zone of optimal functioning. Lecture, Houston; PRISM Center.

Hanin, Y. L. (2000). Emotions in sport. Human Kinetics.

Harris, R., & Hayes, S. (2008). The happiness trap. Robinson.

Hermanns, W., & Einstein, A. (1983). Einstein and the poet: in search of the cosmic man.
Branden Press.

Jamison, K. R. (1996). Touched with fire. Simon & Schuster.

Jung, C. G. (1969). Psychology and education. Princeton University Press.

Kanigel, R. (2016). The man who knew infinity: a life of the genius Ramanujan. Washington
Square Press.

Kübler-Ross, E., & Kessler, D. (2005). On grief and grieving. Simon & Schuster Ltd.

Linehan, M. (2015). DBT skills training handouts and worksheets. The Guilford Press.

Pederson, L., & Pederson, C. S. (2020). The expanded dialectical behavior therapy skills
training manual: dbt for self-help, and individual and group treatment settings. PESI Publishing
& Media.

Pollack, A. N. (2018). Community health paramedicine. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Poole, S. (2019, November). Emotional mastery framework. Lecture, Houston: PRISM Center.

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person. Houghton Mifflin.

Rosenberg, M. B. (2002). Nonviolent communication. PuddleDancer Press.

Rumi, J. & Washington, P. (2006). Rumi: poems. Alfred A. Knopf.

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