CHAPTER 12Practicing the Other Side of the Emotional Coin … with an Ice Bath
NO BEHAVIOR OPERATES IN A BUBBLE. IN OTHER WORDS, there are always residual effects to any behavior you exhibit, both good and bad. In this case, when you become adept at being emotionally aware and using that awareness to make conscious decisions as opposed to letting your emotions dictate your actions, you will begin to see that awareness in others.
Back a million years ago when I was a Navy SEAL platoon commander, my platoon failed its final exercise to determine our fitness for deployment. We failed because during the operational briefing, I had left out the radio frequency we would be using to communicate with each other. The monitors let us complete the entire two-day operation, only to tell us upon returning from the field that we had already failed the exercise after the briefing.
I was distraught, as well I should have been. It was inexcusable, and I was humiliated. The commanding officer came to my room after we had been notified of my failure. I don't know what he planned to say to me, but I don't think it was what he ended up saying to me.
He took one look at me and very calmly asked, “What happened?”
My response was simple because there was really only one response to give in my mind. “I fucked up. It's my fault. That's it. I have no excuse.”
If he came to reprimand me, which I think he intended to do, he changed gears after taking stock of my emotional state. He saw that the last thing ...
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