By Kellys Kaunda
EMOTIONAL HIJACK ON FULL DISPLAY – THE GARY NKOMBO EPISODE
Just about every wrong committed, every person sitting in police cells, and every person serving jail time today experienced emotional hijack. This is when a flood of emotions overwhelm the executive functions of the brain and dictates the course of action. At this point, human beings have stopped reasoning. Instead, their emotions are in charge.
It’s a common phenomenon in the life of every human being. Hence the commonality of mistakes associated with it. It’s so common, it’s easy to accept it as normal and excuse the actions of those who produce them.
Especially that it has its utility values, you don’t want to dismiss it altogether. When it’s saving lives, for example, emotional hijack is a good thing. Take for example a mother who hears the crying voice of her child coming out of a burning house.
Without thinking and without hesitation, she rushes in, oblivious to the obstacles in the way but guided only by her uncompromising love for her child.
This is common to all humanity. It’s emotional hijack. It’s never trained for in any conscious or deliberate way but it’s acquired through deliberate life’s experiences. Individuals who have grown up in social systems that are supportive tend to develop emotional dependence and strong feelings for others.
These individuals are more likely to sacrifice, without thinking, their personal safety for others. Such individuals tend to display more empathy in dealing with the problems of those brought before their attention. They often go out of their way to seek a solution and relief for the suffering soul.
In law, there’s what is called temporary insanity. It’s a mitigatory device employed by defense attorneys to secure lenient sentences for guilty parties. It’s emotional hijack packaged as a mental breakdown experienced for a moment. Sometimes courts have accepted it. Sometimes they haven’t.
The good news is that emotions can be understood and most importantly governed, controlled or managed. Hence the concept: Emotional intelligence – the ability to be consciously aware of your own feelings. How possible is self-control? Very possible.
First, the default settings of the brain come with self-control mechanisms. Internally, before any action plays out in the open, it passes through this process. This happens unconsciously.
Some people display more self-control than others, why? Here is why. While every brain comes with default settings for self-control, there are external factors that can either develop this mechanism or under-develop it. Preferably, you want to develop or improve upon it because it will keep you out of trouble.
Individuals that take to physical or violent encounters display a weakness in their self-control brain centers. This is equally true of rapists or armed robbers. Or indeed anyone who gets involved in anti-social behavior.
The self-control centers of the brain begin their development in tne womb – by the food substances or drinks or drugs injested into the body by the expectant mother and the social environment surrounding her. Furthermore, the upbringing of the child into an adult will have a lot to say about his or her self-control resources. In addition, what you read, what you watch and what you listen to – all have an impact on the brain’s self-control centers.
Most of these habits are fully formed at one’s tender age making it impossible to uproot them in adulthood. Often, there’s very little national leadership can do to stop them. Instead, it’s only hoped that the country’s criminal justice system will be administered fairly and objectively to punish those who slipped through the stages of human development where such defects would have been corrected.