Leading with Your Head

“Words alone are cheap.  Breathing deeply is required also.  Connecting to the heart, not just the eyes. Meditation, mindfulness, contemplation, art and creativity–accessing the right hemisphere of our brain, not just the verbal hemisphere, is needed. 

Incorporating and honoring our bodies, breathing deeply, not just leading with our heads.  The heart after all resides in the body and disperses its blood and values from that center.  And breath is the same word as “spirit” in many languages (including Biblical ones).”

Yes, words are cheap, but they are all we have to express our thoughts and feelings.  That quote is from Matthew Fox in his “Daily Meditations” for today, (January 29).  The phrase that jumps off the page for me is “not just leading with our heads.”  We know with our heads and hearts that we are holistic beings and certainly not the Cartesian model of rational-logical critters who only exist because we think.  We also feel and act.

I first really understood that in graduate school working on my doctorate in rhetoric.  It wasn’t until then that I learned that the traditional three-part sermons I grew up with were originally not just three sections of a sermon linked together more or less successfully.  The three point idea originated clear back in the 4th century BCE with Aristotle.  In his classic “Rhetoric” Aristotle describes a holistic approach to persuasive discourse that appeals to “logos, pathos, and ethos,” terms best translated into English as “reason, emotion, and ethics.”  Effective persuasion needs all three elements because humans are rational, emotional and ethical beings.  The latter term applies to our behavior that is shaped by our reason and emotion.

Western philosophy and education have majored ever since Descartes in developing and teaching that primarily addresses the mind to the detriment of emotional and ethical development.  In other words as in the quote I began with we “lead with our heads.” 

As I was writing this piece I saw a very timely post on Facebook that seems relevant.  I can’t verify the source from a Facebook called “Compass,” but it certainly fits my life experience as one who led with my head through twelve plus years of higher education.  Here are the key points of the post:

“According to Psychologists, there are four types of Intelligence:

1) Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

2) Emotional Quotient (EQ)

3) Social Quotient (SQ)

4) Adversity Quotient (AQ)

1. Intelligence Quotient (IQ): this is the measure of your level of comprehension. You need IQ to solve math, memorize things, and recall lessons.

2. Emotional Quotient (EQ): this is the measure of your ability to maintain peace with others, keep to time, be responsible, be honest, respect boundaries, be humble, genuine and considerate.

3. Social Quotient (SQ): this is the measure of your ability to build a network of friends and maintain it over a long period of time.

People that have higher EQ and SQ tend to go further in life than those with a high IQ but low EQ and SQ. Most schools capitalize on improving IQ levels while EQ and SQ are played down.

A man of high IQ can end up being employed by a man of high EQ and SQ even though he has an average IQ.

Your EQ represents your Character, while your SQ represents your Charisma. Give in to habits that will improve these three Qs, especially your EQ and SQ.

Now there is a 4th one, a new paradigm:

4. The Adversity Quotient (AQ): The measure of your ability to go through a rough patch in life, and come out of it without losing your mind.”

The phrase “leading with your head” reminded me of something I’ve been concerned about as I have watched way too much football in recent weeks.  Last weekend was an especially exciting one for National Football League fans.  There were four playoff games last weekend that were all as closely matched as mathematically possible.  Three ended with winning field goals as time expired and the fourth game went to overtime.  

First a confession and/or disclaimer:  I know the game of American football has become dangerously violent.  Players are bigger, faster and stronger than they used to be, and therefore bodies collide with much greater force.  Padding and helmets are certainly much better than the days of leather helmets, but we still know many former players are suffering from traumatic brain injury, dementia, and Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) because of their years playing football.  Knowing all that makes me uncomfortable watching, but it’s something I’ve been doing for nearly 70 years and is a very hard habit to break.  I also think the way football has replaced our former much more civil national pastime (baseball) is another sign of the toxic masculinity that I wrote about plaguing the American psyche that I wrote about last week.

But I digress a bit.  What I noticed watching so many games last weekend was a troubling difference between college and professional football.  The college game has a rule against “targeting” which is aimed to limit hits to the head and neck area and crashing into an opposing player with the crown of the helmet.  That rule is designed to protect both the player on the receiving end of the targeting and the cranium of the deliverer of the blow.  

Yes, targeting is a judgment call that referees spend much time reviewing replays before enforcing.  They take it very seriously because the penalty for targeting is ejection from the game, and that has and will cut down some on the most dangerous hits in an inherently violent game.  I think the NFL needs to do something similar to prevent more life-threatening injuries from “leading with one’s head.”

I offer that football reflection as a metaphor for the rest of us in real life.  When we lead with our heads, divorced from understanding the emotional, social, and I would add spiritual aspects that are co-partners with the head in human beings we are failing to maximize a healthy comprehension of human behavior.  We are not just rational/thinking beings.  The various components of our humanity need to work in partnership with each other or we are not living up to our potential.  And the huge existential problems facing the human race will not be solved if we are not playing with a full deck.