A leader in my future-proofing workshop last year caught me by surprise. In an exercise I do with leaders to familiarise themselves with emotions he did something unique. The exercise was to determine what emotions show up when they think about their current challenge. I use cards that contain distinct emotions and participants read them and select emotions that resonate with their challenge.

This one leader chose not to view the cards and sat in his chair arms crossed. I asked him why he hadn’t walked over to the cards. He said with conviction, “I don’t want to look at any other emotions, I want to be in one emotion only – happiness”. He went on to say that his mission in life was to be happy and didn’t want to experience or review other emotions.

I was intrigued by his stance and acknowledged his resolve but went on to re-explain the difference between moods and emotions. It was okay to cultivate or desire the mood of happiness I explained but emotions are triggered and unless we lived in a ‘blissful’ world, we would experience a myriad of emotions in a day. Even ‘blissful’ worlds would trigger emotions other than happiness. We are emotional beings and distinct emotions show up for distinct reasons.

My explanation helped and we went on to discuss some of the emotions that resonated with him. It turned out that he wanted to be an approachable boss and known as an ‘always happy’ leader. He was aiming for the mood of happiness. I commended him on his mission, but I also told him to be open to moments or days when that may not be possible. We are human and unless we meditate 20 hours (like some monks) every day, we may not be able to live up to our expectations.

But can we be happy, always?

To analyse this, I shall expand on the research from last week’s article. Part of the research behind Quach’s method to rewire her brain out of anhedonia and alexithymia was based on research conducted with the monks at the Dalai Lama’s Daramsala. Visiting neuroscientists measured the brain waves of monks to measure the effectiveness of prolonged meditation. These details are in the book, Train Your Mind Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley. It’s fascinating.

But for this article, I want to focus on how the brain can be rewired to improve our emotional disposition. The brain is ‘plastic’ and we can train it, on-demand and routinely, to change its ‘state’. This is a useful tool for all of us not just people who are experiencing anhedonia and alexithymia.

Simplistically, it is done via the left prefrontal cortex (PFC). The PFC, just behind our forehead, is the home of metacognition, and higher-order thinking and is connected to the limbic system. Though the limbic system is the home of our emotions, the PFC plays an important role in how we experience (or do not) our emotions.

This wasn’t too much of a surprise to me. Because I always ‘knew’ that we could change our emotional state through our thoughts - PFC. Brain anatomy shows that we have a left and right PFC. The left PFC is more optimistic and resilient recovering faster from stress-provoking stimuli. The right PFC is more cautious and reactive and takes longer to recover from stress-provoking stimuli.

This is called our affective style, our emotional disposition, whether we have a sunny outlook or a bleaker one.

The limbic system, specifically the amygdala, is still the home of our emotions, but how we ‘react’ or experience that emotion is dependent upon whether our left or right PFC is more activated.

In the case of Quach, she realised that her amygdala and right PFC were overactivated based on her early life experience. She changed her (daily) behaviour to activate her left PFC. In brief, one of her changes was watching comedies and laughing more (avoiding horror movies and dramas) to help strengthen her left PFC

By working on our left PFC, we can rewire (imbue) more positivity into our affective style. My leader was on the right track with his mission. He was, in his own way, working on his affective style to be happy always.

Nothing wrong with that. But the right PFC has its purpose too. It helps us make realistic assessments, calculate risk, detect problems, create backup plans, and more.

A balance of both left and right PFC may help our affective style. And we know we can rewire both.

As always, you can reach me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com