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In this session, we move on to the second stage of The IMPACT Model and the concept of MEANING.
Understand how to make sense of your situation. You'll explore the 'Emotions As Messages' and 'Emotional Self' concepts, and why they are crucial for identifying where your retirement challenges and opportunities lie.
Work through a case study. Follow Laurence's transition from total confusion to total clarity as he uses the above concepts to find the meaning in retirement he needed.
Reflection activity. Answer questions about Laurence's case study to deepen your understanding of these two critical psychological concepts.
Watch this video explanation to understand the concept of the Meaning Map, how it aligns with your past, present and future, and how to use it to assess different areas of your life.
The Emotional Self
A quick recap from the introductory video: all emotions are messages from your Emotional Self, whose role is to guide you towards a state of thriving in your retirement and away from merely surviving.
If your Emotional Self is sending positive emotional messages of calm and inner balance, for example, we know they are reassured by your approach to your retirement and that you should maintain what you are doing.
Conversely, if your Emotional Self is sending negative emotional messages in the form of stress, anxiety, depression or anger, we know they are concerned by your approach and that you should respond appropriately.
psychologyOver to you: next, read through Laurence's case study and then answer the questions in the reflection activity.
When I began working with Laurence, a career fireman, his stress and anxiety levels were seriously undermining his home and working life. In our first appointment, I initially struggled to get a word in edgeways as a highly agitated Laurence launched into a stream of consciousness full of questionable theories about what was wrong with him. Despite contacting me about my retirement services, it became apparent that Laurence was not linking his emotional state to his retirement planning, or lack thereof.
As you now know from the Emotions as Messages concept, difficult emotions such as stress and anxiety can be understood as messages that something is hampering or threatening our ability to thrive and survive.
Rather than asking only, How do I get rid of this feeling?, we can also ask, What is this feeling trying to tell me? The sender of those messages is what I call your Emotional Self. Laurence was receiving the messages loud and clear; he just didn’t yet understand he had an Emotional Self, let alone what they were trying to tell him.
Building up a narrative of his life, I learnt that Laurence had grown up in an unhappy home. His mother was a ‘big drinker’, and his father, loving but largely absent due to work, was someone who was ‘obsessed’ about retirement. Here was a big clue.
‘He talked about it all the time,’ said Laurence. ‘Retirement was his chance for freedom, especially as my mother had passed away by then, but when the day came, he made a pig’s ear of it.’
‘How so?’ I asked.
‘He was bored because he had nothing to do,’ said Laurence. ‘He was miserable until the day he died.’
‘No planning and preparation. I see it a lot,’ I commented.
Laurence, who had been staring at the floor, looked up suddenly. I could see his eyes move as he processed this new information about his father.
‘There can’t have been, can there? Wow.’
It was a good few moments before Laurence spoke next, but when he did, the words came out calmly.
‘I’m scared, Mark.’
‘What about?’
‘That what happened to my father will happen to me.’
Laurence had begun to translate the message. His stress and anxiety were no longer simply unpleasant emotional states to be explained away or eliminated. His Emotional Self was drawing his attention to a future he feared and, importantly, one he was doing very little to prevent. This also illustrates why your past, present, and future can be so important when interpreting emotional messages: Laurence’s past experience of his father’s retirement influenced how he felt about his present and future.
I seized my opportunity.
‘If it didn’t go the same way as your father’s, how would your retirement go, Laurence?’ I asked.
An immediate answer.
‘I’d set up as a landscape gardener, look to buy a place in Greece or Portugal, probably Portugal, and play a lot of golf and tennis. I could afford to retire abroad. My fire service pension is a good one, and I have invested well.’
Laurence noticed I was smiling and stifling a laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.
‘What planning and preparation are you doing?’
Now, it was Laurence’s turn to laugh.
‘F**k all!’
In front of me was someone who knew how to remain calm in the face of horrifying fires but not in the face of his retirement, a disconnect I made use of.
‘Explain to me how you stay composed in the face of the dangers you must face at work,’ I asked.
‘Training and experience?’ Laurence suggested.
‘And?’ I prompted. ‘We’ve just talked about it.’
Laurence was laughing nervously, shaking his head.
‘I don’t know!’
‘The two Ps?’ I said to help him out.
‘Planning and preparation,’ sighed Laurence.
‘That’s why you’re stressed and anxious, Laurence!’ I shouted in a friendly fashion. ‘You have a romantic retirement vision, but you’re not doing anything to make it a reality.’
‘Like my father,’ exhaled Laurence.
Laurence’s Emotional Self had been doing its job. His negative emotions made far more sense once we understood what they were communicating. The next task was to respond to the messages, because receiving and translating an emotional message without responding leaves the underlying concern unresolved. In the language of this course, emotional messages need to be received, made sense of, and responded to.
I worked with Laurence for another ten months, although the more he planned personally and professionally, the less time we spent together, as his coaching sessions were mostly updates on his progress. He was transformed. Sometime after we finished, this landed in my inbox:
‘Hi Mark, hope you are well. I wanted to let you know my news. I am currently in Portugal with my daughters, looking at properties. I am typing this email overlooking the sea :) Moving here is still a while away, but the fact that I am even here is amazing. My business is flourishing, especially since an ex-colleague joined forces with me and I put up my prices as you recommended. So, thank you for your support, especially for helping me to make sense of my emotions and why retirement was such a nightmare for me.’ Laurence
Laurence spent a long time looking in the wrong place. He made GP appointments and had endless conversations with himself, family, friends, and colleagues, none of which clarified anything. His mistake was understandable: he treated his stress and anxiety primarily as problems to get rid of rather than messages to understand.
So, how does someone know where the right place to look is? They let their emotions guide them.
That means developing a relationship with your Emotional Self. Rather than fighting difficult emotions or immediately trying to make them disappear, become interested in what they are drawing your attention towards. Your Emotional Self wants the same thing you do: for you to thrive in retirement. Difficult emotions may deliver that message in deeply uncomfortable ways, but the message is still always helpful.
Sometimes, looking in the right place involves facing uncomfortable truths that we’ve been avoiding. It requires the courage to step back and see how our past influences our present and future, something that can feel daunting, as it was for Laurence, but ultimately is liberating. His stress and anxiety did not disappear because he learnt how to ignore them, but reduced as he understood their messages and began giving his Emotional Self a different future to respond to.
Reread Laurence’s story, this time as an observer. Rather than focusing on what you would have done, focus on what Laurence’s Emotional Self was trying to do for him. Your task is to uncover how his emotions functioned as messages, what they were drawing his attention towards, and what happened when he began to understand and respond to them.
Use the questions below to guide your reflection, using the following slide to record your thoughts.
PurposeBy studying Laurence’s retirement journey, you can begin developing the awareness and curiosity needed to understand your own emotional messages: what they may be telling you about your retirement, what is working well, and what may need your attention.
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