Emotional Incontinence

Emotional incontinence happens when we temporarily and effectually loose control of our emotional composure.

I thought I had been healed of that type of tantrum-throwing – the adult kind – where thrashing and foot-stomping are done verbally.  The man on the other end of the phone didn’t know what hit him.  He didn’t even get to say hello.  It was an appliance salesman with whom we had completed a transaction – but the outcome was less-than-desired.  My wife was attempting to work out a misunderstanding that had financial implications.  I was in the middle of making Crème Brulèe for a WiiFit™ tournament with friends the following night.  I was at a critical juncture when my wife summoned me to intercede the call.  The conversation had reached beyond what she was able and willing to negotiate.  Since I was the one who had handled most of the transaction’s misunderstandings up to that point.  I slammed into the man with great emotional and rational force.  I was dually franchised and disenfranchised with myself.  A part of me was proud of my assertiveness.  A part of me was ashamed of it.  After a few minutes of getting nowhere, I let the man know we would not do business with them again and abruptly hung up the phone.

My wife heard the verbal transaction that was more akin to an assault.  My dualism began to bother me.  No matter how justified I was in my position, the manner I handled the salesman  was not.  I waited a few minutes and went to take a temperature check of my wife.  I wanted consolation from her.  I asked her if she still thought of me as noble.  She looked back at me blankly – which matched the words that did not proceed from her mouth.  The blank look and wordless response confirmed my fear that I had not been noble at all.  I already knew what I had to do and I had already decided not to do it.  Then my wife’s the silence spoke too loudly for me to bear.  I reviewed some of the particulars of the transaction’s misunderstandings with my wife.  She poignantly asked me to call the salesman back.  I did.  I apologized to the man for how poorly and inappropriately I had treated him.  Both transactions (appliance purchase and verbal assault) were cleared up.  My wife heard that conversation too.  As I hung up she said to me, “That is a noble man.”

As I rehashed the incident, I was greatly disappointed and frustrated with my dualism.  I really did think I had matured past that type of aggression and temper-tantrumming.  The disappointment and frustration was intensified because I had just completed reading thousands of pages on Emotional Intelligence for this very paper.  Was I really that emotionally fragile – still?  Was I really that intemperate?  How could I let myself get away from myself – and so quickly and resolutely? 

This dualism is part of our human condition.  It has many names in both the religiousand the secular worlds.  In the Judeo-Christian circles, the dualism is described as the battle between holiness and sin or the battle between the flesh and the spirit.  This is the battle between who we know we could be and who we are.  It is the battle between how we could behave as image-bearers of God and imitators of Jesus and how we really behave, especially in the unanticipated moments when something from somewhere springs out of us that is less than we hope for from ourselves and less than we know is residing in us.  That is when we have one of those moments.


Learning to manage this part of us is what Dr Carlyle calls spiritual intelligence. Learn More!