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Personal Journal - Day 5: Getting what you want (1)
10 years ago
Getting what you want - Controlling emotion through physical change.
First of all, you need to know what you want. If someone asks “What do you want to work towards?” Guess what? Most people respond very generally. “I wish I had more money, I wish I had a better relationship, I wish I was in better health.” Well, okay that’s fair, but just shooting for that doesn’t really get anyone anywhere. I can say for certain that it hasn’t gotten me anywhere in nearly eight years, so obviously I’ve been doing SOMETHING wrong, right?
Well, here’s where the problem was. This is something I figured out Saturday from Tai and was reiterated again today, on day 5. As Tony Robbins puts it: “people don’t want money, people don’t want relationships, people don’t want to be thinner.” And now I’m pretty sure everyone thinks I’m stupid, but try asking WHY three times. So, if I did this myself…I personally wish I had more money. Why? Because then I could provide for friends and family and live more comfortably myself. And again; why would I want to do that? Why would I want to provide for others and why would I want to live more comfortably? Well, because I enjoy having the ability to help overall and the second part is obvious. No one likes to just barely scrape by. Now, I’m going to narrow this down; WHY do I like helping out? Simple answer? It makes me feel good…I like helping others because I get some sort of satisfaction from doing so. As for Why don’t people like just barely scraping by? Well obviously because it’s PAINFUL. No one likes being without resources! We can’t do what we want if we have no money, after all.
Put simply, we all want to change how we feel. Whether that change is reducing pain or gaining in pleasure, it’s a change everyone seeks. Well that’s where today begins to get interesting…
Managing emotions was something I was terrible at when I was younger. So what really controls emotions? Well, it’s not what happens in life, I know that much. Relationships, health, weather, how others treat us. None of that is what CONTROLS emotion. It can and does influence an emotional state, but it doesn’t actually control it. Emotion is controlled by our own personal state. This is something that I have been working with for YEARS now. Anyone who knew me since my FIRST involvement with the fandom (I seriously doubt anyone I met back then reads these or even knows who I am, from back then,) would definitely agree that I was terrible at controlling my emotions. I let the environment and other people dictate how I felt for the longest time, up til about the age of 13 before I finally got the message. There’s two main ways to control emotion, but this touches on the neurological associations with your physical body and how it affects you. Suffice to say, the ability to control ones emotions through physical changes. This is only half of it.
Think of someone who’s depressed…how to they carry themselves? Well, I can tell you what I personally do. I watch my feet when I’m walking, my shoulders are definitely not back and my breathing is generally shallow. I slouch and my facial muscles are generally slack.
Now, think of someone who’s really happy. How do they hold themselves? Well, if I am happy, I stand up. I don’t watch my paws, I breathe much deeper than when I’m depressed. I keep my back straight and shoulders are generally squared off.
So experiment time…IF I were to stand that way, walk around a bit, and TRY to make myself depressed…WITHOUT changing my posture…? Yeah no, I can’t do it. I just hope no one saw that. Anyway, point is that your brain interprets your physical state to mean different things. Something my therapist told me. “If you’re not feeling good, don’t waste your time telling yourself ‘IFeelGoodIFeelGoodIFeelGoodIFeelGoodIFeelGood’ cause your brain’s response is: ‘BULLSHIT!’ That’s not enough. Change how you sit, how you stand, how you walk, how you talk, and you’ll make that change.”
When we’re not feeling good, what do we do? Well, we do something to change our biochemistry. Some people drink, some smoke, some eat. Why is this? Well, let’s say alcohol is the substance of choice for now. Why, exactly? It has an effect on people that causes them to feel differently. It’s an intoxicating substance which lessens pain for some people. What about cigarettes? Many people turn to these when they’re stressed, right? Well, if you’ve ever taken yoga classes or most martial arts classes, you learn one thing very early in, and that’s breathing techniques. Same thing in meditation and the like. Why? Well, if you change your breathing, no matter how stressed you are, it’ll ease it. “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures... There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.” ~Sigmund Freud
Suffice to say, if you want to succeed on some level, you need to manage your state. “Emotion is created by motion.” ~Tony Robbins. How you move will influence your emotion. Think about it. Motivational speakers, we’ve all seen them in school or at work even. How do they move? Well, it’s not slowly I can tell you that much. They are VERY snappy. They are excited, passionate even, about what they are saying, and that comes through in their actions. Now if you actually look at someone who is successful and acts this way, you’ll notice one other thing… They approach their everyday life in the same way.
So, challenge for anyone else out there. Study health! This whole thing is basically a study on mental health, how people work, how it can be applied for other situations and what kind of impact it can have. Of course, there’s also those exercises but that’s just a bonus if you ask me. Hell, if I can make things happen because of this program here, then I’d have totally won the lottery, so to speak.
So for today’s exercise…study yourself. Talk about something you are normally inspired about, but do so in a dispassionate fashion. Talk about this to a friend or a wall even. Now, talk about that same thing but get excited, be passionate. Record the differences.
Hokay, so…I feel incredibly stupid now, having held a one-way conversation with my monitor… Anyway, differences:
Well, for the first, I sound dead. I am boring and I stop really moving around. Now, I’m sitting, so generally I’m tapping a paw, but that stopped when I was talking. I didn’t gesture at all…I just all around sounded and looked bored, I’m pretty sure.
Second…yeah, when I get excited I speak really damn fast. I gesture, but they’re sharp, quick movements. I might snap to emphasize a point. Because I’m sitting, I was tapping a paw the entire time I think…at least, for the majority of it. I spoke in a higher pitched tone of voice.
First of all, you need to know what you want. If someone asks “What do you want to work towards?” Guess what? Most people respond very generally. “I wish I had more money, I wish I had a better relationship, I wish I was in better health.” Well, okay that’s fair, but just shooting for that doesn’t really get anyone anywhere. I can say for certain that it hasn’t gotten me anywhere in nearly eight years, so obviously I’ve been doing SOMETHING wrong, right?
Well, here’s where the problem was. This is something I figured out Saturday from Tai and was reiterated again today, on day 5. As Tony Robbins puts it: “people don’t want money, people don’t want relationships, people don’t want to be thinner.” And now I’m pretty sure everyone thinks I’m stupid, but try asking WHY three times. So, if I did this myself…I personally wish I had more money. Why? Because then I could provide for friends and family and live more comfortably myself. And again; why would I want to do that? Why would I want to provide for others and why would I want to live more comfortably? Well, because I enjoy having the ability to help overall and the second part is obvious. No one likes to just barely scrape by. Now, I’m going to narrow this down; WHY do I like helping out? Simple answer? It makes me feel good…I like helping others because I get some sort of satisfaction from doing so. As for Why don’t people like just barely scraping by? Well obviously because it’s PAINFUL. No one likes being without resources! We can’t do what we want if we have no money, after all.
Put simply, we all want to change how we feel. Whether that change is reducing pain or gaining in pleasure, it’s a change everyone seeks. Well that’s where today begins to get interesting…
Managing emotions was something I was terrible at when I was younger. So what really controls emotions? Well, it’s not what happens in life, I know that much. Relationships, health, weather, how others treat us. None of that is what CONTROLS emotion. It can and does influence an emotional state, but it doesn’t actually control it. Emotion is controlled by our own personal state. This is something that I have been working with for YEARS now. Anyone who knew me since my FIRST involvement with the fandom (I seriously doubt anyone I met back then reads these or even knows who I am, from back then,) would definitely agree that I was terrible at controlling my emotions. I let the environment and other people dictate how I felt for the longest time, up til about the age of 13 before I finally got the message. There’s two main ways to control emotion, but this touches on the neurological associations with your physical body and how it affects you. Suffice to say, the ability to control ones emotions through physical changes. This is only half of it.
Think of someone who’s depressed…how to they carry themselves? Well, I can tell you what I personally do. I watch my feet when I’m walking, my shoulders are definitely not back and my breathing is generally shallow. I slouch and my facial muscles are generally slack.
Now, think of someone who’s really happy. How do they hold themselves? Well, if I am happy, I stand up. I don’t watch my paws, I breathe much deeper than when I’m depressed. I keep my back straight and shoulders are generally squared off.
So experiment time…IF I were to stand that way, walk around a bit, and TRY to make myself depressed…WITHOUT changing my posture…? Yeah no, I can’t do it. I just hope no one saw that. Anyway, point is that your brain interprets your physical state to mean different things. Something my therapist told me. “If you’re not feeling good, don’t waste your time telling yourself ‘IFeelGoodIFeelGoodIFeelGoodIFeelGoodIFeelGood’ cause your brain’s response is: ‘BULLSHIT!’ That’s not enough. Change how you sit, how you stand, how you walk, how you talk, and you’ll make that change.”
When we’re not feeling good, what do we do? Well, we do something to change our biochemistry. Some people drink, some smoke, some eat. Why is this? Well, let’s say alcohol is the substance of choice for now. Why, exactly? It has an effect on people that causes them to feel differently. It’s an intoxicating substance which lessens pain for some people. What about cigarettes? Many people turn to these when they’re stressed, right? Well, if you’ve ever taken yoga classes or most martial arts classes, you learn one thing very early in, and that’s breathing techniques. Same thing in meditation and the like. Why? Well, if you change your breathing, no matter how stressed you are, it’ll ease it. “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures... There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.” ~Sigmund Freud
Suffice to say, if you want to succeed on some level, you need to manage your state. “Emotion is created by motion.” ~Tony Robbins. How you move will influence your emotion. Think about it. Motivational speakers, we’ve all seen them in school or at work even. How do they move? Well, it’s not slowly I can tell you that much. They are VERY snappy. They are excited, passionate even, about what they are saying, and that comes through in their actions. Now if you actually look at someone who is successful and acts this way, you’ll notice one other thing… They approach their everyday life in the same way.
So, challenge for anyone else out there. Study health! This whole thing is basically a study on mental health, how people work, how it can be applied for other situations and what kind of impact it can have. Of course, there’s also those exercises but that’s just a bonus if you ask me. Hell, if I can make things happen because of this program here, then I’d have totally won the lottery, so to speak.
So for today’s exercise…study yourself. Talk about something you are normally inspired about, but do so in a dispassionate fashion. Talk about this to a friend or a wall even. Now, talk about that same thing but get excited, be passionate. Record the differences.
Hokay, so…I feel incredibly stupid now, having held a one-way conversation with my monitor… Anyway, differences:
Well, for the first, I sound dead. I am boring and I stop really moving around. Now, I’m sitting, so generally I’m tapping a paw, but that stopped when I was talking. I didn’t gesture at all…I just all around sounded and looked bored, I’m pretty sure.
Second…yeah, when I get excited I speak really damn fast. I gesture, but they’re sharp, quick movements. I might snap to emphasize a point. Because I’m sitting, I was tapping a paw the entire time I think…at least, for the majority of it. I spoke in a higher pitched tone of voice.
