Have you ever wondered why it is that when you are under stress or highly emotional, you go from being an intelligent, loving, rational, explicit thinking adult to a mindless fool who behaves like a three-year-old who is not getting their own way and is throwing a tantrum?



Ever wondered why other people do it? Ever wondered why you do it?



I have as well, lots of times when I lost it and wondered after, what the hell was going on. Why I had gone from a highly intelligent man to an emotional and mental retard along with being a total bastard to those around me who I care for.



Looking around me I noticed that just about everyone I came into contact with did the same, so it was familiar and normal, and natural for most people to do it.



But, In my world that is no excuse or reason to do the same. Rory Miller a guy I really like says.





"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."



Some exciting things happen when we get stressed, you know when we feel threatened in some way. It can be a real threat or some imaginary threat, something we made up that is not real. We turn on some ancient survival things in our brain, and the early parts of us start to take over. Ancient bits,



David Ike may not be too far from the truth when he thinks the world is run by reptiles. When our reptilian brain takes over under stress, our society is run by dinosaurs with a little mammalian brain attempting to control the show.



It has been proven that when we feel stress our IQ drops and we often lose the ability to think. We tend to become over-emotional, and we lose much of our intelligence. Have you ever been in an argument and told someone you devote your life to, that you don't love them.



Ever lashed out at someone when you felt down. Ever had your life ruined by a total stranger overtaking you and cutting in when you are driving?



In road rage you allow a total stranger who you don't know, to have complete emotional control over your thought, feelings and actions, and they don't even know that you have given your life and total responsibility for how they feel, to them. Cool stuff.



When you feel frightened which is another way of describing stress at some level of mind, consciously or subconsciously you perceive that you are under threat. It may be real, or it could be something that might, or could, or may happen to you.



That old part of your brain begins to shut down your higher brain functions because they are just not fast enough to protect you in a dangerous situation, at the moment. It may also shut down your immune system not good for your health.



Free Tip. When you are feeling stressed or upset, never make an important decision, unless it is to get out of the way you think and turn off the stress. You will find you eat less, drink less, smoke less and have far better relationships and get into less trouble.



When it does this it has to shut down some of your higher brain functions, it also activates other cool things in your brain. You become highly imaginative, your reality checker gets turned off, and you enter an exciting sort of hypnotic trance as you go on an autopilot pattern of behaviour. You do without thinking.



EFT, emotional freedom techniques have some great tools for reversing this in your brain. With practice fast effective and over time they become automatic, as automatic as your old stress response was. They allow you to regain your emotional stability, come out of your trance, turn your reality checker back on and take the action you need to make.



"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."



The ten per cent you will have to deal with, that's life. The other ninety per cent you have control over, or can have power over if you want it.



Learning how to stay rational and able to think under stress real or imaginary is a skill, learning how to turn off negative emotions so that you get your IQ back is a habit. Coming off autopilot so that you have choices in your life gives you personal power.



One of the places where you can really make some significant changes is in the quality of your relationships. The people who we interact with, the quality of your life often comes down to the quality of your contacts.

Relationships with people you work with, friends, family and of course with your self.



Learning how not to be dumb in these interactions, learning how to deal with and handle these strong emotions that can give us the greatest joy or sorrow, may for you be something worth learning to do.