Using Stop, Challenge and Choose to Thwart and Emotional Hijack

Imagine you turn in a presentation for your manager to review that you worked hours on to create. Your manager sends it back to you with many revisions, changes, and edits and the only thing her email says is…

My changes are attached. Do it again.

This kind of thing causes all kinds of people to feel a strong and negative emotional reaction. Or an emotional hijacking.

During an emotional hijack, your amygdala tries to take over in a non-emergency situation and shut down your pre-frontal cortex to activate your fight or flight response.

When that happens, our thinking brain gets paralyzed, which means our IQ drops, we lose the ability to make complex decisions, we no longer see other perspectives and our memory becomes compromised. This is not helpful in most social settings and can cause us embarrassment when we calm down.

So, how do you manage these emotions so that you do not take action that may produce unintended and damaging consequences?

You can use a technique called Stop, Challenge, and Choose.

First, you want to stop whatever you are doing. Do not react, do not respond, just sit for a moment, and take a few deep breaths. It is important that you don’t take immediate action on what you are feeling but hit the pause button, so to speak, to calm your mind for a moment so that you can think more clearly.

Next, you need to challenge the emotions you are experiencing. Don’t assume you are responding in an appropriate manner. You do this by asking some questions such as:

• Do I know the whole story here?
• Am I overreacting?
• What information do I need before I act on this?
• What is a more helpful way to think about this?

Finally, you need to choose a healthier and more helpful response to the situation. Think through and choose a response that won’t cause hardship for your or for the relationship.

As you practice the Stop, Challenge, and Choose Technique, you will find it becomes your immediate response when you experience a strong emotional reaction to the events in your life.

What techniques or tips do you have for avoiding an emotional hijack?