[Neurons] 2013 Meta Reflections #26

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2012  #26

June 4, 2013

Emotional Mastery Series #1

 

 

GETTING CLEAR ON

WHAT AN EMOTION IS

 

Just this past week I presented the Seven Truths that we Speak to Emotions.
In Neuro-Semantics, we present this when we work with the Crucible Change
Model, the Meta-Stating Troubling Emotions pattern, the Emotional Mastery
training, and various other trainings.  These ideas are also in numerous
books, Unleashed, The Crucible, and Meta-States.  Several suggested that I
present the material here on Neurons, hence this series.

 

Today talking about emotions and working with them have become much more
acceptable and welcomed especially given that a new field has arisen in the
past two decades- Emotional Intelligence or E.Q.  Today we recognize that
leadership is emotional and requires emotional intelligence.  Today we know
that business is emotional and that managers, customer service, even
research and design requires emotional intelligence if a company is to
produce products, services, and information that fit for customers.

 

Today also we know that there is a feel of a semantic meaning within the
human mind-body system.  What is the feel of meaning?  It is an emotion.
When you have an emotion, you are experiencing what a meaning feels like.
And that's because of what an emotion is and how it works.

 

Emotions- The Feel of Meaning 

If we ask where and how does a person register the feel of his or her
meanings, what is the answer?  The answer is that you and I feel "meaning"
in our emotions.  That's due to the first truth about emotions. 

 

1) Emotions measure the map / territory difference; they are felt meanings.

To have an emotion you have to have an internal map of understanding
something, expecting something, believing something to be the case, and so
on and then an experience in the world where you use your skills to act on
your inner mental map.  What then happens results in an emotion.  If the
balance between what you think (map) and what you experience (territory) is
an emotion.  If the scale tips downward so that you are not getting what you
want, expect, understand, you experience negative emotions: upset, stress,
frustration, irritation, annoyance, fear, anger, loss, disappointment, etc.
If the scale tips upward so that you are getting what you want, expect, and
understand, you experience positive emotions: delight, joy, surprise,
contentment, excitement, passion, love, empathy, compassion, etc.

 

If the scale tips down, your experience feels like it is violating your map.
Your primary tool for navigating reality (your inner mental models of
understanding, knowledge, belief, etc.) is called into question and so that
is what "hurts."  When we say that emotion or feeling hurts me, the feeling
doesn't hurt.  What's been hurt is one's sense of reality- due to one's map
being made wrong or inadequate.  Hence the negative emotions.  Something is
wrong with our sense of the world.  And that's why we don't like it.  That's
why a negative emotion registers that inside us something is wrong with the
world.  So like the brakes in a car, the negative emotions inhibit our
neurological responses and moves us to "stop, look, and listen!"  Something
is not right.

 

What's not right could be our map.  What's not right could be our skills in
the experience.  So we can change our emotion by updating our map or
up-skilling our skills.  And in this way we can change the emotion.

 

So the Neuro-Semantic definition of an emotion is this- an emotion is the
difference between one's mental map of the world and one's experiences of
the world or territory.  

 

2)  Emotions are important as information signals.

Given that emotions indicate how our map is operating in the territory,
emotions provide "signals" or "information" about how we are doing.  Are
things going well according to our ideas, understandings, beliefs,
intentions, etc.?  Or are things not going so well?  Positive emotions
indicate the first, negative emotions the second.  But this system is a
relative one.  It is relative to the accuracy and adequacy of our mental
maps.  If our mental map of understanding and believing is off, our emotions
will not register that.  It will only register whether our actions in the
world are actualizing our hopes and dreams. 

 

This explains why and how emotions can be false, wrong, and completely
off-base.  If you expect that you will never make a mistake, fail, or be
embarrassed and then you do make a mistake.  The emotions you experience
will only tell you that you are not fulfilling your mental map, they will
not tell that you have an erroneous map in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

                Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

                Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

                1 970-523-7877 

                Dr. Hall's email:
<mailto:meta at acsol.net\hich\af31506\dbch\af31505\loch\f31506> meta at acsol.net


     

    

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Self-Actualization: Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential
Movement in 2007, for information about this, see
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org  

 

NSP --- Neuro-Semantic Publications: Order books from Neuro-Semantic
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Products and Services and then the Catalogue of books.  Order via paypal.  

 

 

 

 

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