The Emotional Me

A lot of people seem to be under the incorrect assumption that I am against emotions. What I am against is having emotion dictate action unchecked.

People don't like the idea of controlling their emotions as emotions are a natural process and it seems unnatural to restrict natural functions but this I think is based on a limited view of the situation.  The problem I see with emotions is that they are too prone to giving false positives and too influential in dictating action.

The emotional response is more often than not a psychological response to  current circumstance or more precisely, the perception of the current circumstance. Even if the brain does not interpret the situation well, it will still trigger an emotional reaction and with free reign, the emotional me will act unfiltered with close to zero rationality or recognition if the response is warranted. Often, only in hindsight is an overreaction observed.

This lack of sensitivity toward the emotional system means that actions are made based on thir response and will often create an action that is not appropriate to the situation. Very rarely do people underreact to situations, it is nearly always an overreaction where even the slightest issues create a knee-jerk movement. A lot of damage can be done and many bridges burned very quickly when emotions control response.

Because most 'emotional' responses are actually instigated by the brain, it is common to conflate the two and believe that psychological discomfort is actually emotional discomfort because it feels bad. We have been sold a lie that we must be happy, enjoy, love and laugh all of the time. This position is impossible as to even have that some of the time requires investment (work) and that means learning (psychological discomfort) and to avoid this means to limit the possibility of deep enjoyment.

It takes work to enjoy life but how we understand that work is whether it is seen as a negative or a positive. Negatives and positives are often left up to the emotions to decide and since the emotions favour positive feelings, the feelings created by psychological discomfort are classed negative. People will then continually avoid doing what may be beneficial because it doesn't feel good to do so, like eating healthily or learning about unfamiliar financial systems.

The emotional responses when left unchecked also feel correct and justified in that moment and will therefore heavily influence the belief of what is correct to do. We are trained to fight for what we believe in but rarely do we ever adequately question our beliefs. This is of course a poor position for large topics like the environment or religion when we have the chance to think slowly yet don't but, in the immediate moment our emotions make us think fast. 

Our current belief based on our feelings is that we have read and understood the requirements of the now well and therefore our actions born from those feeling will be good. If we paused for even the briefest moment and raised a few more questions, we would likely adjust the response. We may not even need to raise the question, just taking a deep breath may be enough to bring objectivity back into the equation.

Emotions for me are one part of a tool kit but many are increasingly relying on them as the only tool in their box. A solely emotional mind is a habitual mind that creates actions based on past experience and without environmental awareness, it is unlikely to treat each experience as unique. That means that the emotional response is a heuristic that without deep self-reflection, never gets inspected and recalibrated. It jumps to conclusions.

It jumps without looking, without testing  the waters as it is all it can do, like an instinctual animal but, it does it when there is no requirement to do so. It bounds into action in circumstances where there is the time and space to slow down, ask question, think a little more, discuss, learn and discover. The emotional response takes away the discovery as it is a mind on automatic.

I myself am an overly emotional person with moods that can swing wildly from moment to moment but recognising this and controlling it does not mean to ignore and repress my emotions. The emotional me is my subjective experience of the world and is therefore unique and private, it is mine. It is therefore my responsibility to understand and control it and not emotionally vomit on all I see and do. 

Emotions are vital in learning much of what is important in experience as they help connect information to the individual. When I write, I don't want to give information alone as that is unlikely to have any affect on action as action is largely dictated by the emotions. I want them to feel the information and somewhat become a part of the story itself. This is a creative learning process that puts real learning above memory skill.

If we do not learn to control our emotions, this new information that can fundamentally improve our experience of life through new action, largely goes unlearned as it feels bad to have to consider differently and think about what we have not thought about before. Again, it is psychological discomfort manifesting in the chemical reactions of the body.

The control of emotions is a recognition of them but not being forced to physically react to them, especially in situations where clarity of movement and thought is required. An out of control mind has very little possibility to act on anything other than habit and that can be very costly. An emotionally ontrolled mind however can take note of the emotion but still have the sensitivity to be creatively free, which means an increase in the possibility to find solutions.

There are times however where one wants to take the mind out ofthe equation altogether and let emotions run free. These tmes are the inspired moments of beauty where the body can act idependently of the mind and can be completely lost in the experience. Perhaps this can best be immagined as being completely present and out of ones mind and be beautiful in the right setting, like a bedroom where two people can connect passionately. 

This is not appropriate however in the boardroom where there area range of considerations and many people affected by our actions. To be completely emotional and act solely on emotion here is not passion, it is tyranny that attempts to impose one's willon others without understanding of the situation for, there position ispart of the situation. 

The emotional self that acts with childish abandon also acts with childish tantrums and the expectation that all of our tantrums and demands are going to be accepted is going to be met with very strong resistance. Emotional control is about a maturing of understanding to realise that there all parts of us are connected and the overinvestment in one system is going to leave others weak.

In my opinion, we need to stop buying into the consumer based oncept that everything must feel good to be good and return balance and harmony to ourselves. Demanding that we can blurt out and act as we wish is an untenable situation that will lead to violence, harm and suffering for all involved. We can all feel however we want but we must also take responsibility for our actions and the consequences of them.

At least, think about it.

Taraz
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