Double Your Emotional Intelligence

Double Your Emotional Intelligence

Primary Emotions Versus Secondary Emotions

Here’s an example of an exaggerated conflict between a husband and wife:

| Wife: “Thursday was trash day. I ALWAYS have to tell him to take out the trash! He’s got ONE chore! One thing. The trash. That’s it! I pretty much do everything else around the house…is that too much to ask for?!”

| Husband: “Take care of everything else? You know how hard I work?! The first thing I think of after a ten-hour shift isn’t, ‘I wonder what level the trash can is at when I get back home.’ You know what I think about when I get home? Nothing. I was on all day. I just want to turn off. Why is that so hard to understand?!”

| Wife: “His version of turning off is retreating to play video games! Can’t he grow up? And he acts like I’m twiddling my thumbs all day. I work too, you know.”

| Husband: “Oh, I’m sure your part-time work is so stressful. Stressful enough that instead of cooking for the past six months, you just order take out. Before we got married you’d always surprise me with dinner. And sex...”

Okay, you get the picture. But let me get to the real issue at hand. For brevity’s sake, I’ll just zoom in on my conversation with the wife.

| Me (to the wife): “The last time you had to remind your husband to take out the trash, how’d that make you feel?”

| Wife: “You don’t understand. It’s not just the last time. It’s every time. He missed the last trash day. We couldn’t even fit it in the garbage cans last week. It’s like he doesn’t even care anymore. And it’s not even just the trash. That’s just one example. It’s like his video games are more important than me. I’m pissed off.”

| Me: “I hear your frustration with your husband’s actions. But how does it make YOU feel when he forgets to take out the trash?”

| Wife: “I just don’t think it’s that hard. I don’t really expect that much from him. I really don’t.”

| Me: “And your thoughts about your expectations are completely valid, however I really want you to describe YOUR internal experience as this is happening. Behind being pissed off, I see sadness behind your eyes.”

| Wife: “If he can’t even remember to change a stupid trash bag once a week, does he even think about me? Does he care about me? Will he just forget about me? I guess it makes me feel worthless. Not important. I think about him and what he’s doing. I want to be a team. But when he doesn’t prioritize the stupid trash—when he forgets about it, I feel that he doesn’t prioritize me. I feel like he forgets about me. I’m scared he’ll forget about me one day and I’ll be all alone.”

On the surface, the wife is pissed. It’s a real emotion. But what’s deeper? What emotion is driving feeling pissed off?

She’s feeling afraid, worthless, scared, etc. She feels that he’ll abandon her.

The first emotion she experiences, which is unseen and unvoiced, is actually something like “being afraid,” which is called primary emotion. The second emotion experienced, what is seen and voiced—being pissed—is called a secondary emotion. Therefore, if you want to double your emotional intelligence, it’ll start with tuning into your primary emotions, then those around you.

As humans, to protect the deepest parts of us, we are often trapped in cycles of expressing secondary emotions, negating our primary experience in life. Other people respond to our secondary emotions, often with secondary of emotions of their own.

>> Examples of primary emotions: shame, joy, fear, love, unworthy, abandonment, hurt, betrayal, etc.

>> Examples of secondary emotions: bothered, tired, busy, anxious, bored, jealous, regret, angry, sad, embarrassed, etc.

When you’re not tapped into your primary experience, you’ll find yourself reacting to situations or people. You’ll feel that life and the people in it are out of control. You’ll then want to control the outcome of situations, which is a helpless feeling.

Therefore, if you want to double your emotional intelligence, you’ll want to start to access your primary emotions more quickly and more fully. Everyone—yes everyone—regardless of whether they know it or not, is unconsciously making decisions from their primary emotions. However, we mask these from ourselves and others. Why is that?

It’s safer to sit in secondary emotions: anger, boredom, frustration, numbness, sadness, etc. Revealing the deeper emotions, both to ourselves and others, feels dangerous.

So instead of saying:

“I’m feeling abandoned,” we often say, “I can’t believe you didn’t text me.”

“I want to be close to you but I feel undervalued,” we often say, “I’m feeling exhausted.”

With that, I want to acknowledge that expressing primaries is not easy. We have good reason not to, whether we learned this defense in childhood or it doesn’t feel safe now. The reality is that in most relationships, there isn’t safety in a relationship to express primary emotions. For most, if we were to reveal to a friend or partner, “I’m afraid you’ll leave me,” we may get rejected or not taken seriously.

In revealing a primary emotion, we are no longer in control. That’s why it’s easier to go secondary; if you’re angry at someone, on the surface, how much power do they hold over you? Not a ton. In fact, if you escalate in anger, you’re going to be pretty hard to ignore. That person will have to take you seriously, or bear the consequences.

Anger is outward, but it can go the other way. Let’s say you use a secondary emotion of numbing out to situations. You turn off—this can either using apathy, tiredness, exhaustion, escapism, or deflecting responsibility. Does another person hold power over you? Not so much. In fact, the more another person wants you to engage, the more you can emotionally detach yourself leaving them to bear the consequences.

So while remaining in secondary emotions creates temporary safety, what’s the result? The same cycles continue. The root issues are never addressed. Everyone lives in much greater anxiety.

So what can you do? First, tune into your primaries. That will now allow you not to let your secondary emotions run rampant. Next, begin to tune into your friend, partner’s, or boss’ primary emotions—notice when they’re using secondary emotions, there’s ALWAYS deeper emotions at play. If you can begin responding to their hidden primary emotions instead of their secondary emotions, your emotional intelligence will rapidly increase.

How might this look? If your partner begins escalating his voice (presenting a secondary emotion of feeling overwhelmed or frustrated), softly attune to his primary emotion—perhaps that’s unworthiness or deep hurt and ask, “Oh my gosh, what did I miss? What did I do to hurt you?”

Tuning into your primary emotions takes courage and it never looks pretty. But if you want to start the process, I guarantee it’ll add years to your life.