Amygdala and the Bears

Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence stressed on the influence of Amygdala in our emotional reactions:

"A small structure in the limbic region of the brain, the amygdala, is the center of your emotional brain. All incoming sensory data—sights, sounds, smells, sensations—pass through the amygdala where they are instantly analyzed for their emotional value before going to the cerebral cortex for processing. Every piece of data is infused by the amygdala with an emotional charge. If powerful enough, that charge can override reasoned thinking and logic.
In an emotional emergency, the amygdala proclaims a crisis, recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda. Goleman calls this an emotional hijacking, because it occurs so fast that the thinking brain has no opportunity to grasp what is occurring and decide on the best coarse of action. Emotional hijackings produce astonishing feats of bravery, hideous acts of violence, and everything in between. Meanwhile the neocortex—in the prefrontal lobes just behind the forehead—is working to control feelings in order to reappraise situations and deal with them more effectively. It functions like a master strategist, planning and organizing actions toward a goal. When an emotion triggers, within moments the prefrontal lobes analyze possible actions and choose the best alternative.When you hear a loud crash in the next room, it's the amygdala that sends a paralyzing jolt of fear through your body. A moment later, the neocortex starts ticking off the possibilities—cat, window, intruder—and what to do about hem. The neocortex is capable of muffling emergency signals, but it is slower, involving more circuitry."

So Max and I are walking today in the state park like we do every weekend am. It's a very isolated mud road covered either side with dense foliage. Out of nowhere, I saw a black bear about 300 yards away crossing the road. All I could think of was Daniel Goleman and how I am going to react (If 300 yards was 30 yards then I am sure Goleman wouldn't be anywhere in my thoughts). Part of me was happy trying to seize this opportunity as a real test for my emotional reaction and other part was to say the least petrified.
I was sure the bear didn't see us but we turned around immediately and I started talking loudly on the phone. After walking back 50 yards, we started running. I have never ran so fast in my life and honestly I surprised myself. Max is an awesome sprinter, years of fitness regime paid both of us off today. Finally after reaching the local road with some traffic, we started to relax and get all the oxygen we could grasp. Now I saw a girl who lives in our community jogging towards us. I stopped her, told her about the bear and asked her not to go in that direction. She was all thankful and decided to walk back with me. The moment we turn back, we saw another bear about 200 yards away coming towards us!! Two bears in one day is too much for amygdala to handle. Luckily few cars drove by and the bear disappeared into the woods. Of course we had a good laugh after few minutes. But the most obvious thing was Max didn't see either bears, he was happily sniffing around and looked at me like a nutcase when I started to run. Today was one lucky day. I am not sure yet on my emotional intelligence, I guess so far so good. If it was really bad, I wouldn't be sitting here typing this post, right?