If you are emotionally hijacked, all rational thought stops and your ability to

Question

If you are emotionally hijacked, all rational thought stops and your ability to problem- solve or think creatively is gone. Describe a time when this has happened to you, whether in a negotiation or just a debate. Express how you may have been emotionally hijacked, providing details of how you felt, when you actually lost control, and did you feel it starting to happen or was it instantaneous 4. With all of that in mind, be meticulous in setting up the situation providing as much detail as you can regarding what led to the hijacking and to when you felt like you regained control of your emotions. Also, express how you felt after the incident and whether or not you felt like you could, over time, learn to control your emotions to prevent it from happening again. (Reference Lesson 13)

Explanation / Answer

Emotional hijacking is a state when an individual's cognitions are overpowered by his/her emotions. These emotions can be sudden fear or aggression when a person cannot control his emotions due to some specific reason. This state can become regretful later if one gets overpowered by his/her emotions. One of the incidents I remember in my life regarding this subject was when I almost got overpowered by my emotions. This situation is also termed by the experts by the name of “amygdala hijacking”

There was one situation in my professional career when I was presenting a power-point presentation to our top management, suddenly out of nowhere my managers asked me an irrelevant question which was not related to the topic of presentation. The topic he asked was new for me, as I wasn't asking for the same. I was completely stunned at the question, I realized he was taking a revenge from me as I didn't do one of his personal favours. Instead of letting the matter go, my mind was emotionally hijacked at the exact moment. I couldn't control myself at that moment and shouted at my manager in front of all the top management. My words were not exactly positive and the next day I was called in front of the partner of the firm. I had to write an apology letter to my manager. This was a moment of emotional hijacking in my life. I learned quite a bit after this incident and am doing meditation to calm myself in such cases. As per me, below points should be considered:-

1) Take a deep breath. Before saying a word, shooting a scathing look or worse, immediately take a breath to start the calming process.

2) Change the setting. If at all possible, get up and move around. Do anything possible to change your environment. This serves a few purposes. By changing your environment, it makes your brain reactivate some of the pathways it had shut off to handle the emotional hijack.

3) Turn a negative into a positive. Take negative stress and use it as fuel to achieve your goals.You can lash out at the person who angered you (not good), stay mad and sulk (neither good nor productive) or you can take that energy and use it as fuel to do something positive.

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