The emotional management quiz

1. When you hear through friends that someone you used to know in high school has been
diagnosed with terminal cancer, you:

A. Feel sad. Think of her how she was in school, so much healthier, then post a nice note on social
media or ask your friend to pass your msg to her wishing her the best.
B. Contact your friend and offer to help in any way you can , visit him or her in the hospital
C. Find yourself crying on and off and depressed for days. You want to visit your friend but its too
depressing for you.
D. You are so depressed and you go all the way out to help him and his family, but they are
surprised that you are doing so much for them that you start wondering if you are doing the
right thing.

2. When someone harshly criticizes you:

A. You have little emotional response. And you quickly assess if the criticism is true and can be
used to help yourself
B. Instantly feel hurt and perhaps angry, but then you walk away frustrated or you talk it with
some one and you come around to accepting the criticism or reject it
C. Feel devastated deny to yourself and anyone else that you were hurt or upset, yet you sit and
think for days about it.
D. Feel very angry and confront the person angrily with evidence that his criticism is completely
unjustified and afterwards feel a whirlwind of shame, anger and sadness.
3. When you find yourself in a large crowd, unable to move as freely as you would like, you:

A. Consider your options, such as finding a less crowded spot where you can get your bearings. You
may feel mildly frustrated with the lack of movement, but you’re not bothered by the situation
and you easily make your way to a quiet area.
B. Feel somewhat anxious and frustrated, find a less crowded spot, or decide to leave the event or
situation. You go home disappointed and little unsettled by the experience, but youre glad you
made the decision to leave an uncomfortable scenario.
C. Feel very anxious and frustrated, even angry or panicked. You find yourself pushing through the
crowd aggressively or hurriedly escaping. Afterward, you realize your breathing shallowly and
your heart is pounding and you want to be completely alone for a long time.
D. Feel over stimulated and unsure of whether you’re fearful irritated or excited. You’re
mesmerized by all that’s going on around you and start talking quickly to strangers around you
trying to get a handle on what’s happening.

4. Two strangers suddenly get into heated argument in front of you. You:

A. Keep your distance, watch quietly, and assess whether this may turn violent and whether
you should take out your cell phone and call the police.
B. Observe the strangers closely to determine whether you should intervene in some way,, and
feel your heart pounding and adrenaline pumping. You know better than to get between
them physically, but you’re carefully eyeing them and trying to decide whether you should
say something try to calm one or both of them.
C. Feel panicked and experience shallow breathing, a quickened heart rate, and a sense that
you’re in danger. You make a fast getaway but feel upset for hours afterwards as you
working about whether you did the right thing.
D. Feel energized and stimulated, even angry, and decide you’d better intervene in this
argument right now before someone gets hurt. You immediately become involved without
stopping to think about whether its safe to do so.

5. You are at a gathering, or some religious event or sermons, and you see several people
becoming teary or are a quietly crying:

A. Observe their emotional response and think it’s appropriate but are slightly embarrassed by
their emotional display. You feel sentimental or sad too, but you don’t cry in public
 B. Become teary too, and feel a sense of connection and intimacy with the strangers around
you. You share a smile, a hug with someone else and even make a small joke about the
strong response you’re having.
C. Feel nervous and choke back any tears of your own. You hate to have others see you cry.
Uncomfortable, you look for the nearest exit.
D. Feel a sense of excitement at sharing such a powerful experience with others and begin to
cry freely. Suddenly, you realize you’ve unleashed a flood of emotions and you begin
sobbing. You’re embarrassed but unable to stop yourself because the feelings are so
powerful.

6. Your friend is telling you about an incident at work where a coworker openly ridiculed him and
others laughed. He’s angry and hurt. You:

A. Tell him that such a response indicates that his coworkers do not have a healthy working
atmosphere. You start a dialogue with him about how to manage their behavior and
whether to approach the supervisor about the chronic problems in the office.
B. Get upset for him but tell him it’s his coworkers who have issues not him. You gently
reassure him that any mistakes he made were understandable and give him a pep talk.
Afterwards you feel glad you were able to help your friend but you’re no longer upset you
trust your friend to work it out.
C. Say nothing as you start to think back to times when you’ve been ridiculed. A sense of
shame overcomes you and you hold on to it for hours. You avoid talking to you friend
because it’s just too painful to hear his stories.
D. Go into action mode, telling him what to do, and spouting off about his horrible coworkers.
Afterward, you go home and can’t stop thinking about it and even turn it over in your mind
in the middle of the night. You wake up determined to talk to him about the incident again.

7. A friend asked you to commit to helping her with an event and you quickly agreed, but now, on
second thought, you’re realizing that it’s too much of an imposition and you want to back out of
your commitment. You:

A. Call her and tell her you spoke too quickly, apologize, and say you’d like to help but need to
make less of a commitment of time, or take a rain check for a time when you haven’t so
many other commitments.
B. Hem and haw about whether to get out of it, and finally make a decision based on your gut
feeling that this just isn’t a good time for you. You call your friend and apologize as you bow
out of the commitment. If you’re pressured to reconsider, you hold firm despite feeling a bit
 anxious. Then, after hanging up the phone you take a deep breath and let any unpleasant
feelings go.
C. Find yourself angry and resentful toward your friend for pressuring you and to yourself for
so quickly agreeing. You can’t find the courage to confront your friend. You don’t show up at
the even when you’re supposed to. You know your friend is angry, you feel guilty, and you
hole up at home, berating yourself for how you handled the matter.
D. Start stressing out because you really don’t have the time to help your friend, but you
wouldn’t dream of backing out after you said yes. You throw your schedule into turmoil as
you scurry to meet your commitment, and feel guilty about the appointments you miss. You
engage in disordered eating because you’re working crazy hours to get everything done.
Even so, you wouldn’t dream of saying anything to your friend about how stressed out you
are.

8. You turn on the tv and see coverage of a terrible earthquake and injured people wailing. You:

A. Feel sad and sympathetic, then follow the instructions on screen to make an instant
donation to disaster relief. You decide to watch the news for a few minutes to get the gist of
the story, then turn it off because you feel you’ve learned what you need to know. After all,
suffering is part of the human condition.
B. Feel deep sadness and even begin to cry. You make a donation to disaster relief and spend a
few minutes thinking about the victims, even praying for them. Then, feeling a sense of
gratitude for your own safety, you turn off the tv and hug your spouse, child, or pet. You
consider getting involved in disaster relief and make a decision based on whether you can
afford to make such a time commitment right now.
C. Become utterly paralyzed with grief and shock. Your eyes become glued to the tv and you
start surfing between the 24 hours news channels, trying to learn as much as possible
because you feel you owe it to the victims to hear about their pain. You don’t sleep well or
function well for days, and even writing a check to disaster relief does a little to help you
return to a state of peace.
D. Become deeply upset, then stop everything to become involved in disaster relief. You
become obsessed with posting about the disaster on your social media accounts every hour
or so, and consider taking a leave of absence from your job to travel there to help, even
though you have clients and family dependent skills for helping, and yet you can’t let go of
the idea that you have to travel to the disaster zone to help out.
9. You are visiting a memorial to a tragic event, and find yourself in the building where people
suffered terribly years ago. You:

A. Soberly reflect on the suffering, perhaps say a prayer, and leave having been moved by the
experience.
B. Feel yourself deeply moved and tearful. You say a prayer, make a deeper commitment to your
own efforts to help the world in your own way, and vow to visit memorials like this more often
in order to connect with the importance of the work you do to serve humanity, however that
work may be.
C. Become nauseated and short of breath, and have to run out of the building. You don’t regain
your equilibrium for a long time, and vow not to go to any more such memorial sites in the
future.
D. Find that tears are streaming down your face. You ask the guide to tell you more about the
suffering of the people involved, and how you can get involved in supporting the memorial and
the causes it promotes. You can’t stop talking about the experience for weeks, and start to
obsess about it.

10. People who know you well would describe you as:

A. Very logical and rational

B. Compassionate and levelheaded
C. Extremely sensitive, moody, and inconsistently intimate with people.
D. Highly emotional and dramatic, always involved in others emotional dramas.

11. When it comes to people and pets who need help, you:

A. Are sympathetic but let people solve their own problems: you write checks to your favourite
charities and perhaps do some volunteer charity work that you find rewarding and fulfilling.
B.
Are sympathetic and even empathetic, truly feeling their distress, their joy, and their anxiety.
However, you have your feelings and moods under control so that you’re able to serve others
without becoming drained. You know how to pace and replenish yourself.
C. You become overwhelmed by the suffering of others and, much as you’d like to help, you’re too
distraught to reach out to people; instead, you tend to reach out to food to ground yourself.
D. You are quickly sucked into the emotional experiences of others and become angry or zealous as
you try to solve the problems of the world. You try to ground yourself with food when you start
becoming overwhelmed, but it’s so hard for you to slow down and rest that you often become
physically or emotionally burned out.