I attended a women's retreat a few months ago and because my brain works like that, one comment stood out in my mind and I just had to find out more about it...
One of the presenters happened to throw in a comment about dealing with annoying problems....she said that there was a study somewhere that shows it takes 90 seconds for the feelings to wash over us and then we can take a deep breath and figure things out...
Ah me being me cannot take quite anything at that kind of face value so I had to come home and dig around a little....but you can find almost anything on google if you try hard enough and sure enough I found this quote by Dr Jill Bolte Taylor
“Once triggered, the chemical released by my brain surges through my body and I have a physiological experience. Within 90 seconds from the initial trigger, the chemical component of my anger has completely dissipated from my blood and my automatic response is over. If, however, I remain angry after those 90 seconds have passed, then it is because I have chosen to let that circuit continue to run.”
Hmmm interesting....I actually love this....emotion is emotion and we will all feel it but at some point it becomes our choice whether we dwell on it, or feed it and allow it to grow....WE are in control....If we could give ourselves a 90 second window or time out - allow ourselves that 90 seconds of emotion - then we should be able to choose a more socially intelligent response....maybe I will try it as a 'social experiment' and see how it works:)
