It’s important to understand that our feelings (our emotions) are not right or wrong – good or bad. They’re just feelings and they are necessary for us to function. It’s what we do with our feelings – our behavior – that can be either constructive or destructive. We must learn to feel the feeling, but choose the behavior.

By choosing to respond instead of react, I retain my power, enabling me to make healthy decisions and take healthy action. When I respond, I take advantage of the opportunity to integrate my will and my intellect with the feeling I am experiencing. At this point, I am able to feel the feeling and chose my behavior. I can then choose healthy, constructive behaviors. My physical and emotional state is no longer dictated by another. I understand that the other person’s anger, guilt, fear, insecurity, etc., is their “baggage” to carry – not mine. I can help them solve a problem (if I choose to) without being sucked into their misery.

To understand what drives me, what “triggers” me, and what will inspire me, I must (1) be aware of my personal interaction within the workplace, and (2) have an understanding of motivations behind different emotions.

If I understand the motivations behind Fear, Insecurity, Worry, Envy, Jealousy, Resentment, Anger, etc., then I am better able to influence self-defeating behaviors and attitudes which could become potentially poisonous to my department.

Our emotions, or feelings, are necessary and have evolved for very specific reasons – to enable us to survive. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.

When used in a healthy way, they protect us, nurture us, and allow us to persevere. It’s only when we let them run away with us that they become destructive.

Fear alerts me that there is danger present. It motivates me to take appropriate action to protect myself and get out of harm’s way.

Fear unleashed is crippling – it puts me in danger by preventing me from thinking rationally or taking necessary action. When this happens, FEAR itself becomes dangerous and becomes an obsession, feeding on itself as it builds. Most of our fears are unfounded and it’s these unfounded fears that spin in our head like a squirrel cage out of control.