Emotional Rigidity Vs. Emotional Agility

Psychology has always fascinated me for the sheer sense of how it explores the topic of individualism and collectivism and how we interact with one another in society. However, what is important to remember is how we drive our inner world is so very important when we deal with the outer world and in dealing with our emotional interaction with other people, i.e. how emotionally agile should we be vs. how emotional rigid.  

However, when we think of our behaviour; we think of our brain – its structure or we think about our emotions. However. There is far more beyond this, which has to be included which begins with our mindsets – our mentality which refers to the manner in which we behave/believe in a certain way prior to an experience. 

Having said that, it was English economist John Maynard Keynes who compiled this famous quote,"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones?”  

At a time of greater complexity, unprecedented technological, political and economic change, we are seeing how people's tendency is more and more to lock down into rigid responses to their emotions... Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility. We are young until we are not. We walk down the streets sexy until one day we realise that we are unseen...The only certainty is uncertainty, and yet we are not navigating this frailty successfully or sustainably."

Why can’t you perform a task or who said you can’t?

There is a certain amount of psychological sense of comfort that comes from familiarity and the exact reverse for unfamiliarity. It is our thoughts, emotions and our stories, which help us to thrive in this increasingly complex world. This is exactly where cognitive rigidity comes into the picture… the inability to convince oneself that one can perform a certain task. 

‘Cognitive Rigidity’ is a term that is even used in daily life where perfectly intelligent people refuse to perform a task, saying that they had never done it beforeand/or will never do it. Havent you ever heard of someone saying ‘No, I can never do that’ or ‘No, that’s not the way I do it’. 

All these thoughts whether rational or irrational are limiting beliefs and impose a sense of cognitive rigidity upon us. However, many experiences in our lives put us in such situations it is difficult to get out of such cages and we remain locked up this way for extended periods of time or if lucky we can break free! 

It is so easy for things to be overlooked until they reach extreme levels and it is very hard to work on the damaged areas. Perseveration, compulsions (OCD), Perfectionism, difficulty meeting unmet expectations, insistently repetitious behaviours: which all are the external behaviours. Some of the internal behaviours include obsessions and perfectionism.  

However, as has been mentioned earlier these aspects of our behaviour or emotions are rarely looked into and most often result in severe consequences such as aggression, anxiety, depression, agitation, suicidalityand other self-injurious behaviours. The exact opposite, switching from thinking about one thing to thinking about another is cognitive flexibility. 

What is very, very important to understand and remember is that the brain processes and regulates emotions from different areas. There is no particular chemical in charge or responsible for any emotion; there are just a whole load of neurotransmitters and chemical messengers transmitting messages between different cells! 

It’s very important to distinguish between the two so that we can then constructively change or adapt our behaviour. 

Emotional Rigidity	Emotional Agility
It is the inability/difficulty to understand or emphasize with another person’s feelings and/or be influenced by emotions of different situations.	Emotional Agility is an individual’s ability to experience their thoughts, emotions, events and feelings in such a way, which does not drive them in negative manners; but rather encourages them to reveal the best of them.
It is an unhealthy pattern of thinking, behaving, feeling and functioning such that a person will have a lot of difficulties perceiving and relating to people to people and situations.	It is a healthy pattern of thinking, behaving, feeling and functioning and is most often aligned with emotional intelligence; although the TWO ARE NOT the SAME!  Emotional Agility is all about the way we navigate our INNER world – our everyday thoughts, feelings and emotions. For instance – do we let fear, shame, anger, failure or self- doubts hold us back?
Emotional rigidity leads to different health problems such as neuroticism, emotional regulation and experiential avoidance.	Emotional Agility helps us to be healthy and helicopter above it while not ignoring it. It has been said that between the stimulus and the response is a space and it is in that space is our freedom to choose. “Its in that choice comes our growth and freedom.” Victor Frankl.
Emotional rigidity can also lead to having stronger, more frequent, more complex and longer lasting emotional responses than would be considered within the normal range. In addition to this there is also the cognitive rigidity, which is constant changing of mindsets.	Emotional Agility is not about ignoring difficult emotions, but about-facing them boldly, courageously and compassionately which then helps each one of us to move past them to bring about the best about ourselves.

  You have got to train your mind to be stronger than your EMOTIONS or else you”ll lose yourself every-time!

 It’s very important to distinguish between the two so that we can then constructively change or adapt our behaviour. 

Have you ever asked yourselves some questions like, is negative normal or why you are trying to escape from negative emotions when they are apart of you?

The Brain is quite an unusual organ that is the most important and is the center of the nervous system. It is complex and is in charge of every other organ, muscle, thoughts, memory, speech and movements in our body. The brain comprises of the cerebrum, cerebellum and the brain stem. The cerebrum, which is the largest portion of the brain, comprises of two spheres; the right and left sphere and comprises of four lobes each in charge of different behaviours. Some of the main areas for emotional regulation include the prefrontal cortex, in particular the subcortical systems and medial regions, the amygdala, the basal ganglia and the hippocampus.  

Emotional Agility is to be with your thoughts, emotions and stories in ways that are COMPASSIONATE, CURIOUS and COURAGEOUS.

When we learn to own our emotions then they can finally stop owning us 

Morgan Hendrix