The Primacy of Emotions

We all think we are so logical and methodical in our thinking, and yet the reality is that our emotions have primacy. Think about it: if emotions were not such a big part of our lives, we would all be driving the same color, make, and model of car because logic would dictate what the best vehicle to drive would be. But we don’t because emotions rule over us, contributing to who we are, the selections we make, the house we buy, who we date, love, appreciate as friends, listen to, or long for—in essence, all aspects of our lives.

Emotions are so important to our lives we had to invent emojis to communicate sentiments. And yet, many people still don’t understand them. I remember more than 60 years ago being told by teachers, “Boys don’t cry.” Yet, I did need to cry those times I cried, when I felt scared, alone, or I had let other people down.

For a variety of reasons, we humans, our species, evolved to cry. At a minimum, it's a good way to communicate how we feel nonverbally. I think we are better about it nowadays, but every once in a while, I hear people say crying has no place in business, which is why I am writing this article.

It is useful to remember the evolutionary foundations of human emotions and why they are so relevant, including when we need to cry. Emotions manifest in various ways, and when I refer to emotions, I am talking about those reactions governed by the more ancient parts of the brain, specifically the subcortical regions referred to as the limbic system. These areas are crucial for our survival and the perpetuation of the species. They are highly reactive to both internal and external stimuli and have less involvement with the neocortex, or the thinking part of the brain.

One of my favorite examples that I like to share with audiences goes like this. I will ask, “How many of you have ever been in an argument, and an hour later, after the argument is over and you have calmed down, you remember all the clever lines you should’ve said?” Invariably, everybody raises their hand. We’ve all experienced this because when there is an emotional event, be it with a loved one, or someone is contentious with you and you are negatively emotionally aroused, your brain prepares you physiologically to do a variety of things, including freeze in place, argue, run, or defend yourself—but to do so it shunts high-level thinking or cognition, something I referred to in my book What Every BODY is Saying as “limbic hijacking.” Those priorities, which make us feel nervous, angry, hurt, afraid, weak, etc.— we call emotions—have primacy over the thinking brain and it has given us an evolutionary advantage which remains with us; it is in our DNA.

When it’s late at night, and I am getting money from the ATM, my brain is on heightened alert, emotionally. I may feel insecure or vulnerable, and so I look around to see who's behind me, who’s walking towards me, and at all times I am assessing for any potential threats and evaluating whether or not I feel safe. Think about that: I am assessing a sentiment, an emotion, to see if I should proceed or if I should head back to the hotel and wait till the morning. Those times when I have had those feelings, emotions guide me, and more likely than not, keep me safe, as Gavin De Becker wrote about in his book, The Gift Of Fear.

The limbic area of the brain, also known as the emotional center, which is much faster in processing information than the thinking brain, achieved its primacy precisely because it reacts to, rather than thinking, analyzing, and dissecting, the world around us. If our early ancestors had to stop and think about whether it’s a friendly snake or a venomous one, we would not have survived as a species. The fact that when we hear an unfamiliar noise or we see a large dog (archaic humans would have seen lions and tigers), we tend to freeze in place, that alone gave us an advantage. That gut feeling, that sentiment, that emotion that says don’t move, hold still, allowed us to survive as a species.

At this point, you may be asking what all this has to do with the everyday. The fact is, we communicate our emotions all day long. Someone praised you at work and you have a bounce in your step. Conversely, you are notified you have to work this weekend and your shoulders sink down. When you’re having a good day or you’re having a bad day, those sentiments are displayed through our body language, something I have been studying for the last 50+ years.

One thing I have learned is that when we have experienced something emotionally negative, it is very difficult to do our job. A bad day can range from a flat tire on a rainy day to you are going through a health crisis with one of your children. Those sentiments are real; you feel them, and they are, in fact, hijacking your ability to perform at your best, to think properly, or to respond quickly. It is nothing to laugh about.

There is a common refrain among teachers that says, “When Johnny is mad or sad, he can’t add.” When we’ve been angry, or maybe we still are, or we’ve experienced something terrible, it is very difficult to focus, it is very difficult to concentrate, to remember facts, names, or to access our memory. In those instances, you forget the PIN number for your credit card, the same one you use every day or where you left the keys. And in those instances, the chance of making mistakes, goes way up. Why? Because the emotional part of the brain has priority in those instances. You will not think clearly.

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This is not to suggest that any emotional display is acceptable. It is not. Just last week, I saw a teenager throw a fit when his parents asked him to turn the phone off at dinner. An emotional outburst is not what I am talking about, and I do recognize that emotional instability is a pathology.

What I’m talking about are the natural emotions that we all share, such as when we grieve because we lost a loved one, or we cry because we are hurting inside. In my book, Be Exceptional, I wrote about the time when I had to take myself out of a SWAT operation because I could tell my brain just was not working right. Physically, I was fine, but emotionally, something was affecting me, and so I took myself out of the operation. A colleague had to remind me, if you can imagine, that my grandmother had passed away the week before. I couldn’t even remember that. It’s a reminder to me that this is who we are. We are a species that reacts to the world and experiences through emotions first and they can affect our performance and our ability to work. And yes, we might even cry.

We need to be mindful of others who may be experiencing a hard time, a breakup, a divorce, or financial distress and who are, at that moment, emotionally downtrodden. Or they may be going through a bout of depression, and they don’t know why they are crying. It happened to me. We can see it in their sluggish walk. Maybe we can see it in their faces, with their downcast eyes, that something is not right, that emotionally they are down.

Thank goodness, we also evolved to communicate silently but effectively through our body language. People ask me all the time what the value of studying body language is. It’s a fair question, to which I answer it is the primary means by which we communicate our sentiments. It is also a way for us to recognize that others may be having a tough time. Through body language or deficits in cognition due to emotions, we may be able to identify that person who needs to take an hour's break and then come back. Or, as in my case, that maybe I should just stand down and go home and cry my eyes out because I haven’t had enough time to mourn the loss of a loved one.

Emotions make us human. They reflect what we are experiencing from our environment or from past events. We may not want to be emotionally hijacked, no one does, but when it happens, we can at least recognize that at that moment, emotions need tending, that we humans are not faucets or switches where you can just turn things off. That a good cry, or sitting on the floor and just hugging yourself, may just be what your brain needs the most right now.

Copyright © 2024, Joe Navarro