Emotional Balance: The Primary Benchmark of Emotional Well-being
Abstract
Emotional Well-being is uniquely governed by a single system—the emotional operating system. This system, formed during childhood through experiences of love and belonging, plays a pivotal role in shaping self-perception (identity) and relational dynamics. When balanced, it fosters engagement; when imbalanced, often due to harsh childhood experiences, it leads to entanglement that limits access to potential. This article delves into the profound influence of the emotional operating system on emotional balance, examining the continuum of emotional balance from imbalance to system balance. It lays the groundwork for further exploration of these stages.
Keywords
Emotional Well-being, Emotional Balance, Emotional Presence
Updated September 20, 2024
Table of Contents Show
Introduction
Unlike physical and mental well-being, which are governed by networks of smaller critical systems, emotional well-being (EWB) is solely managed by one smaller system: the emotional operating system. In the EI3.0 System of Emotional Well-being (SEW), the primary benchmark of someone’s EWB is the balance of this system. It is measured using the Emotional State Indicator (ESI) assessment (the name has since been updated). This operating system is molded early in life, shaped by formative childhood emotional experiences that teach about love and belonging. How we love and belong determines the quality of we connect, collaborate, and communicate with the structural elements of self, others, life, and the system.
The emotional operating system is the command center of EWB. It handles operations, monitoring, and decision-making regarding affairs of the heart. If the system is imbalanced, it will seek to guard the closed heart by entangling others to meet unmet love and belonging needs. If the system is balanced, a person engages from an open heart.
Understanding emotional balance starts with recognizing the importance of emotional safety.
Emotional Safety
Emotional safety is rooted in the emotional needs of love and belonging—the same love and belonging identified in Maslow’s (1943) Hierarchy of Needs. See Figure 1. If a person’s safety needs (physical, mental, and emotional) are not met, a person is unable to move up the hierarchy to the next need. In SEW, the focus is on emotional safety.
Figure 1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Many of us misunderstand emotional safety, which explains why we aren’t skilled at it. We think it is something others create for us. It’s not. Emotional safety is derived from within. It’s something we create for ourselves.
It happens when we love ourselves and belong to ourselves as we are: a person respects and values themselves, feeling secure in who they are and how to connect, collaborate, and communicate with others, life, and the system. No facet of a person’s unique self is excluded.
A primary consequence of feeling emotionally unsafe in childhood can be low emotional balance.
Emotional Balance
The balance of the emotional operating system is determined by a person’s self-perceptions of worth and authority. Self-worth is the degree to which a person values themselves, while self-authority is the degree to which they choose from their unique self. To facilitate comprehension, a Glossary of Emotional Intelligence 3.0 terms is available for download at the end of this article.
Negative or distorted perceptions usually result in low balance, and positive perceptions usually result in high balance.
Childhood experiences that teach about love and belonging shape these perceptions. These childhood interactions with caretakers also model how love and belonging unfold in the family system. They are where a child learns to interact with the system elements of self, others, and life. They are also where emotional safety concerns develop.
If needs are met, the child’s heart remains open and undefended, and they connect to and collaborate with themselves and the world through their unique self. They trust their loved ones and extend that trust inward and outward. If needs are unmet, the child closes the heart to protect and keep it safe and disowns the unique self. They don’t trust their loved ones and extend that mistrust outward, always on the lookout for a possible betrayal. Because that is what not being able to love and belong in your family system as you are feels like—a betrayal.
The child could not feel emotionally safe because the unique self was marginalized, so love and belonging were contingent upon showing up in the way the family system demanded. This experience resulted in the belief: “I am not worthy of choosing how I am loved and belong.” Self-worth and self-authority are beaten down by not being able to show up as the unique self.
Harsh Childhood Experiences
When childhood experiences are harsh and painful, self-perceptions are likely negative and result in an imbalanced emotional operating system. In response to these painful experiences, a child is sensitive to patterns threatening emotional safety (love and belonging) and develops emotional tendencies that run underneath the surface. These tendencies always seek to have unmet needs met.
Typically, these childhood experiences were just too painful for the young heart to hold, and at that age, none of us had the skills to process these experiences. To protect the heart from further harm, a child closes it and distrusts the self, others, and life with the unique self. If these early painful experiences are not processed and integrated, the heart remains closed and distrustful throughout adulthood, making balanced love, belonging, and ultimately EWB a pipe dream.
This unresolved energy of the experience must be housed somewhere, and the heart is closed, so it can’t be processed through the body’s energy center designed to do that (the heart). Because our bodies are wise and adept at protecting us, they form the emotional well for those betrayals that are suppressed and held onto instead of processed and integrated. The well is a symbolic heart-adjacent space that houses the remnants of emotional cycles we don’t process to completion and the emotional imprints they form. In short, the emotional well is a holding tank for trapped energy.
The original betrayals were tucked away in the emotional well during childhood. Thus, they became the initial deposits in the well, remaining until processed. These initial deposits can cause emotional distress long into adulthood. Unfortunately, these harsh experiences are also hidden from the conscious mind, making moving toward emotional balance challenging. These emotional imprints (experience, belief, feelings, pain, and other sensations) result in a sensitive stress response and emotional tendencies that entangle to have needs met.
Imbalance happens because the child has been taught that safety is at risk if they show up a certain way, so they don’t trust the system to honor the unique self. It precludes a person from being vulnerable and showing up authentically. Instead of love and belonging occurring through engagement, the child learns to entangle—all intended to keep the heart safe from further betrayal while, paradoxically, attempting to have their love and belonging needs met.
Emotional imbalance leads to a way of doing that entangles through protecting the heart, compulsively seeking or offering love and belonging, or compulsively over-relying on others for it. Entanglement limits the self, others, and possibilities in the present and future because of past experiences.
Protecting occurs when an immediate threat to emotional safety activates the fear of marginalization. It usually involves a feeling of “I am about to be marginalized because I am not worthy enough to choose how I love and belong at this moment,” so alarm bells go off internally, invoking the stress response of the autonomic system that uses fight, flight, fawn, or freeze to defend. Because of that, a person can only focus on meeting their needs rather than dealing with the conflict that triggered emotional safety concerns. This results in a significant drag on performance. The motivation is to remain emotionally safe, even at the cost of love and belonging.
When there is no immediate emotional safety threat, a person still subconsciously seeks the love and belonging they didn’t receive in childhood or offers it in an imbalanced fashion. Alternatively, they may over-rely on others for it. These patterns of compulsively seeking, offering, or over-relying are the emotional tendencies that developed from childhood experiences. It can look like entangling through control and manipulation tactics like using money, sex, people-pleasing, or similar behaviors. They are all forms of interacting that attempt to meet the love and belonging needs in ways that don’t require revealing the unique self (because that has been deemed unacceptable).
Positive Childhood Experiences
When childhood love and belonging experiences comfort and meet the child’s needs, self-perceptions are likely positive and result in a balanced emotional operating system. In response to these positive experiences, children learn to operate from an open heart and trust themselves, others, and life with their unique selves because they are secure in who they are.
Emotional balance leads to a way of being that engages. There is no motivation to meet a need. A person stands in the middle of whatever is taking place, allows it to occur, and decides what is best for them. They then communicate in a way that doesn’t threaten the emotional safety of others. It is a way of being that relies on the patterns of peace, allowing, and open communication. Engagement expands the self, others, and possibilities to create a better future from the present moment. The motivation is to connect and collaborate to create together. The approach that results in engagement is the Timeless Values Approach. You can read about this approach in this article.
Studies conducted on the ESI revealed that entangling and engaging are meaningful structural elements indicative of emotional imbalance and balance. This article from the Journal of Emotional Well-being provides more details on the research.
The Stages of Emotional Balance
Reality is never as simple as just imbalance or balance. Therefore, there are various stages along the balance continuum, including emotional imbalance (considered low EWB), moving towards balance, more balanced than not, emotional balance, divine balance, and system balance (the balance achieved in core well-being). Figure 2 offers the characteristics of the primary stages of emotional imbalance, balance, and system balance. Many of the characteristics will be explained in later journal articles.
Figure 2. The Primary Stages of Balance
The Output of Emotional Balance: The Emotional Presence
Setting the stage for dissecting emotional imbalance and balance requires understanding its output: emotional presence. Emotional presence has an inner and outer quality. Both must be balanced to be in emotional balance. The inner presence is how a person interacts with the self, while the outer presence is how a person interacts with others, life, and the system.
The inner emotional presence of the balanced emotional operating system is called the unique self. It is formed by embracing and living through one's unique individuality, which is a combination of one's core values, top five strengths, three social currency, and purpose (there are EI3.0 Guides included in the SEW Development Matrix that explain how to connect to these things within the self and collaborate from there, which will be explained in later journal articles).
Once the unique self is understood, a person’s inner presence reflects the humble understanding that their mere presence holds significance. This understanding keeps them committed to their purpose and capacity to serve, gracefully resisting temptations to deviate in a manner that could diminish the genuine essence of their character. It often requires resolute determination amidst chaos, with the person firmly believing they possess a vital piece of the larger puzzle unfolding.
Outwardly, executive presence revolves around a person’s capacity to inspire confidence by how they show up. It’s a way of being that instills confidence in others regarding their potential to achieve remarkable things together. Therefore, the outer emotional presence of the balanced emotional operating system is the inspiring self.
In The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate, Jack Zenger, Joseph Folkman, and Scott Edinger (2009) noted that inspiration is the most powerful of all leadership competencies in terms of being
the best predictor of overall ratings of leadership effectiveness by direct reports, peers, and managers;
the quality most valued by employees, and
the factor most correlated with employee commitment and satisfaction (ix).
They observed that the extraordinary leader “inspires others to high levels of effort and performance” and “energizes people to achieve exceptional results.” (Zenger, et al. 5) In SEW, being inspiring is not a leadership capacity but a human quality that arises when a person engages the self, others, and life from their unique individuality. When people embrace their unique individuality and align with it in the world, it inspires, inviting others to find the best within, take risks, innovate, and achieve. The inner emotional presence of the imbalanced emotional operating system is called the adapted identity. This identity is forged in childhood by suppressing parts and pieces of the self deemed unacceptable by others and life when love and belonging needs were not met. The outer presence in an average stress environment is the managed self, and the stressed self shows up when emotional safety is being threatened.
When operating from the managed self, a person effectively deploys their coping mechanisms while having the will to acknowledge and mitigate their tendency toward less productive behaviors. Much lauded (and appreciated) coping mechanisms, such as communication skills or anger management skills, are designed to protect the heart and keep it safe covertly. They also continue to run the patterns of their emotional tendencies.
The stressed self shows up when the managed self has run out of resources. This imbalanced outer emotional presence has one job: to protect at all costs, which it usually does. This presence has a unique element: It can also be turned inward as self-criticism.
Emotional balance requires a balanced inner and outer presence, and it is possible to have one in balance but not the other. For instance, a person can have exceptional communication skills that mask an emotionally imbalanced inner presence. This skill set enables a person to be perceived as having an emotionally intelligent outer presence. That is still the managed self, though, because the underlying negative self-perceptions of the adapted identity haven’t been integrated.
Alternatively, people can have high self-worth and self-authority but have yet to develop meaningful communication skills, so their inner presence can’t shine through with others. While they align internally with the unique self, they cannot do that with others and life.
Conclusion
The emotional operating system is the cornerstone of EWB, shaping how individuals interact with themselves, others, and the world. This system, formed through early childhood experiences of love and belonging, governs whether we approach life with openness and engagement or with entanglement and self-protection. The balance or imbalance of this system determines our emotional presence, influencing our inner sense of self and social interactions. It determines the quality of your relational dynamics.
In SEW, achieving balance within this system is crucial for fostering genuine connections and collaborations. As we have explored, the continuum of emotional balance covers emotional imbalance to system balance, each with distinct characteristics and implications for EWB.
Ultimately, understanding and nurturing the emotional operating system allows individuals to move from a place of entanglement, where past wounds limit present possibilities, to one of engagement, where the unique self can flourish and inspire others. As we delve deeper into the characteristics of emotional balance and imbalance in future articles, the importance of cultivating a balanced emotional presence, both internally and externally, will become increasingly apparent as a pathway to enhanced well-being and a more connected, fulfilling life.
Downloads
Download a PDF of this article.
Download terms used in EI3.0 (revised March 30, 2025).
References
Maslow, A. H. 1943. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50 (4): 370–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346.
Zenger, J. H., Folkman, J., & Edinger, S. K. (2009). The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate. McGraw-Hill.
