The Power of Emotions
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
In my latest newsletter I talk about Trust. Trust is an emotional state, made up of thoughts, feelings and beliefs that translate into actions and experiences.
In this 10 minute long video clip, Greg Braden talks about the power of emotions and the latest research that shows how they affect our world. What we choose to feel changes our chemistry in our body and affects our reality. A pertinent message is that we can use emotions to transform our experience of life.
As a colleague who directed me to this video put it: Emotions are a "cutting edge human technology that is accessible to everyone for personal development. We all have emotions and they are not there to taunt us, but to be a tool (just like the mind) for our growth. The best things in life are free.
"Based on discoveries made through neural mapping of the limbic system, the neurobiological explanation of human emotion is that emotion is a pleasant or unpleasant mental state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain. If distinguished from reactive responses of reptiles, emotions would then be mammalian elaborations of general vertebrate arousal patterns, in which neurochemicals (e.g. dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin) step-up or step-down the brain's activity level, as visible in body movements, gestures, and postures. In mammals, primates, and human beings, feelings are displayed as emotion cues." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion"
Enjoy the clip:
Labels: emotion, greg braden, trust
posted by Telana @ 12:22 pm,
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7 Truths about Emotions
Friday, December 05, 2008
By Telana Simpson
Meaning doesn't exist. You can't see a chunk of meaning in the fridge. Or trip over a piece of it on the floor.
We as humans though have the cognitive ability to give things meaning. A question that follows is: how do we register meaning then? Or expressed another way: does meaning have a feel to it? How do we know what meaning we have given to some thing or some event? We do so by feeling meaning through our emotions.
If that is the case, then emotions are very useful. They are our body's way of telling us about the meanings we are experiencing or not experiencing. How else would we know if something is an experience we want to repeat or not, if not through the emotions of happiness or sadness etc?
Dr Hall explains emotions as "an action tendency generated by the information in our cortex that activates our motor cortex and other brain structures (amaygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, adrenal gland, etc)". We experience them as inner urges that propel us to move or change. They are energy in motion: e-motion. Dr Hall further talks of seven key truths about emotions. These are:
1. Emotions measure the difference between our map and territory.
When there is a difference between what we expect (our perceptions, or mental maps) and what we actually got (reality), we experience an emotion that shows us there is a difference. (Read more about this in our previous issue on 'Elusive Happiness')
2. Emotions are processes
Like meaning, you cannot put a chunk of emotion in the fridge. The word 'emotion' describes a process, not a thing. Emotions are activities that go on within our mind and body. Thus they can be produced at any moment, and can change quickly.
3. Emotions are always right
A certain mental map and experience of the world will produce an emotion that is right for that map and experience- it is correct in that it is showing a difference between that map and that experience. Thus no emotion can be wrong (it is more how that emotion is expressed or dealt with that can be considered "wrong" to certain maps)
4. Emotions are just emotions
Emotions are just signals. Thus they are not commands on what to do. Nor are they actual indicators of external reality. All they can be are signals, and thus are completely fallible and not perfect.
5. Emotions are always relative, conditional and liable to error
When dealing with emotions, we need to keep in mind the map and experiences they relate to. They are references to information about how we have mapped things mentally about an experience, and how we sense that experience. Thus to the outside world the emotion can appear to be wrong, and may even show erroneous thinking or reasoning (maps), (yet to that person they are right).
6. Emotions are somatic registering of our meanings
We experience an emotion internally- in our body and can usually indicate where in our body we are experiencing this energy. The more uncomfortable the emotion, the more we try to avoid experiencing that emotion and thus we can see it as a signal to look at our meanings in that situation, to see if they need to be adjusted.
7. Emotions can be responded to in a variety of ways.
We can 'do' a lot with our emotions. We can act on them, or not. We can listen to them, even question them. We can express them, release them, hold onto them, ignore them. The choice is ours, as they are just our signals.
To you using your emotions as signals to navigate through life!
Telana
Reference: Dr Michael Hall. The Ultimate Self-Actualisation Workshop. 2007
We as humans though have the cognitive ability to give things meaning. A question that follows is: how do we register meaning then? Or expressed another way: does meaning have a feel to it? How do we know what meaning we have given to some thing or some event? We do so by feeling meaning through our emotions.
If that is the case, then emotions are very useful. They are our body's way of telling us about the meanings we are experiencing or not experiencing. How else would we know if something is an experience we want to repeat or not, if not through the emotions of happiness or sadness etc?
Dr Hall explains emotions as "an action tendency generated by the information in our cortex that activates our motor cortex and other brain structures (amaygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, adrenal gland, etc)". We experience them as inner urges that propel us to move or change. They are energy in motion: e-motion. Dr Hall further talks of seven key truths about emotions. These are:
1. Emotions measure the difference between our map and territory.
When there is a difference between what we expect (our perceptions, or mental maps) and what we actually got (reality), we experience an emotion that shows us there is a difference. (Read more about this in our previous issue on 'Elusive Happiness')
2. Emotions are processes
Like meaning, you cannot put a chunk of emotion in the fridge. The word 'emotion' describes a process, not a thing. Emotions are activities that go on within our mind and body. Thus they can be produced at any moment, and can change quickly.
3. Emotions are always right
A certain mental map and experience of the world will produce an emotion that is right for that map and experience- it is correct in that it is showing a difference between that map and that experience. Thus no emotion can be wrong (it is more how that emotion is expressed or dealt with that can be considered "wrong" to certain maps)
4. Emotions are just emotions
Emotions are just signals. Thus they are not commands on what to do. Nor are they actual indicators of external reality. All they can be are signals, and thus are completely fallible and not perfect.
5. Emotions are always relative, conditional and liable to error
When dealing with emotions, we need to keep in mind the map and experiences they relate to. They are references to information about how we have mapped things mentally about an experience, and how we sense that experience. Thus to the outside world the emotion can appear to be wrong, and may even show erroneous thinking or reasoning (maps), (yet to that person they are right).
6. Emotions are somatic registering of our meanings
We experience an emotion internally- in our body and can usually indicate where in our body we are experiencing this energy. The more uncomfortable the emotion, the more we try to avoid experiencing that emotion and thus we can see it as a signal to look at our meanings in that situation, to see if they need to be adjusted.
7. Emotions can be responded to in a variety of ways.
We can 'do' a lot with our emotions. We can act on them, or not. We can listen to them, even question them. We can express them, release them, hold onto them, ignore them. The choice is ours, as they are just our signals.
To you using your emotions as signals to navigate through life!
Telana
Reference: Dr Michael Hall. The Ultimate Self-Actualisation Workshop. 2007
posted by Telana @ 11:57 am,
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Elusive Happiness- A Perspective
Monday, July 16, 2007
Happiness is that "feeling good" feeling, that lightness and joy that we feel when things are going the way we want and would like them to go. Yet why do so many people always say they want to experience more happiness? That they are un-happy now? That they wonder if they will ever be happy all the time? It seems as if happiness is elusive- out of our reach, transient and short-lived. And so it should be... Let me clarify:
I think that a lot of people perceive happiness to be in the external "stuff" of their worlds - like in the new car they just bought, or the job promotion, or the cute guy who just called.
What's actually happening is their body is registering a frame of mind that is being reinforced by an external event. Let me explain this a bit more.
We have a view of reality, and that view is very much our perception. Each of us has a very different perception of the world - of reality - based on how we were brought up, the people we learnt from in life, the experiences life sent our way, the type of school we went to, historical events we lived through etc. So we each end up with a very different way of perceiving.
Thus our perception of the world influences how we then see it, and how we then react to it.
Taking this the next step, we could compare our perception of the world to a map of the world, where the world is the territory. If you think about it, the map is not the territory- it is just a representation of the territory. The piece of paper with the drawing of the roads is not the actual roads. So our perception of reality is not reality itself.
Now to navigate through life, the more accurate our map is, the easier we find it to get around, and get to destinations. If our maps are inaccurate, missing information, misrepresenting the territory, dirty etc. then we will find it much harder to get to a destination, or to find our way around.
Where emotions come in, is they are our body's way of registering how accurate our map is. The more accurate our map is, the closer it is to the actual territory, the more "positive" our emotions are that we experience. However, the more inaccurate our maps, the more "negative" the emotions that we feel.
You see, our mind-body-emotion system is just that: a system. We have been very good at talking about them as different aspects of ourselves, yet they are a system and are inter-related. It's hard to think about something, and not have a corresponding feeling, which we experience in our body. And likewise, if you are experiencing an emotion in our body, it's hard to not have a thought about it.
Thus emotions are signals to us that there is a difference between our map and our territory- a difference between what we are expecting, i.e. our expectations, and what we actually experience, i.e. how things turn out.
Happiness is a feeling- it's an emotion. Thus it is one of those signals that tell us that our expectations are being met, that our experience of reality is close to our perception of it. When there is a big difference, in that what we experience is no where near what we expected, we can feel disappointment, sadness, un-happiness.
People's perception of happiness is often professed as an external event or thing. Yet what is actually happening is the person had an expectation or desire for the new car, promotion or liked the cute guy- so when that expectation or desire is met, the body registers this match in map and territory as the energy of happiness. It's not actually the car or job or guy that causes the experience of happiness- it is the momentary match of expectation and experience.
That is why happiness can be fleeting- you feel it for a bit and then it goes, the car no longer is the source of happiness. That's because it never was the source - it was the event of getting the car that was the source.
So if this were to become your new map of happiness, how would you feel about happiness and the frequency with which you feel this emotion?
To your happiness!
Telana
Labels: emotion, happiness, map, territory
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posted by Telana @ 3:16 am,
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The Author
Telana Simpson
Telana Simpson is a Professional Personal and Communication Coach. She is a caring and focused facilitator who has a passion for expression. She helps executives, individuals and entrepreneurs find authentic ways of communicating their inner potentials.
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