Zombie Deer are Coming and Emotions are Contagious

When you're in a business or nonprofit or just in your house, you'll often notice that emotions are kind of like the flu. They can be easy to catch. 

When your friend is angry because someone is being a punk on Facebook, you often get angry, too. When your kid is sad, you can get sad. Emotions from others often seep into us, especially in a workplace.

Let's say everyone is super excited at a writing conference. Are you going to get super excited, too? Probably.

It's all about mirror neurons, emotional intelligence, and biomimicry.

Put simply, emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and control our own emotions and the emotions of other people. 

Matt Hunckler for Forbes

Part of emotional intelligence is understanding that we often adopt or mimic the expressions, behavior and emotion of those we spend a great deal of time with.

Those bonds can help us or hurt us.

Research from University of Oklahoma and University of Texas at Austin shows that when individuals dislike the same people or find a common dislike of something in general, all of a sudden those individuals have a bond that easily turns into a friendship because it’s a connection.



What’s the life lesson in this? Take a minute and reflect, asking yourself:



What types of emotion do I give off and how does that affect others I interact with such as my family, roommates, team mates, colleagues, etc.?



How easily do I let others effect my emotions? Do I even know it is happening? Check out the Emotional Contagion Scale to see how vulnerable you are.



Are the people in my social networks the type of people I really want to surround myself with?



Are there actions or changes I need to make?

Jodi Schulz for Michigan State University

When it comes to writing, figure out how you can use the contagion of emotion to shift your main character's (or other's) world view and actions. Our characters are not static things and just like real people, they should be impacted (and impact) those around them.

WRITING TiP OF THE POD:

When you write, remember that relationships and characters are about connections and those around them impact their growth and emotions.

DOG TIP FOR LIFE

If emotions are contagious, pick your pack wisely. Don't hang around with the growling jerks. Hang around with the dogs who wag their tails and keep you happy.

SHOUT OUT!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.

Bar Harbor Maine - Next to our house, actually
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