[Neurons] 2013 Meta Reflections --- "Neurons" #27

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2012  #27

June 10, 2013

Emotional Mastery Series #2

 

 

OPERATIONALIZING OUR UNDERSTANDING

OF WHAT AN EMOTION IS

 

Last week I began this series on "Getting Clear on what an Emotion is."  I
started by beginning with the "7 Truths about Emotions" that we present in a
good many of the Neuro-Semantic Trainings.  Here are two more for this week.
These "truths" about emotions pick up on the theme to continue grounding
this subject so that we know what we're talking about and in that way we can
create a good operational definition of an emotion.  Once this is complete,
then I'll present some skills for handling emotions from an
NLP/Neuro-Semantic perspective for emotional mastery.

 

3) Emotions are functions of the body as well as the mind.

When we talk about "emotions" in NLP, we distinguish between a feeling and
an emotion.  When I first learned this in NLP, I found this distinction and
insight very useful.  Later when I check numerous books on anatomy or books
in psychology, I saw this distinction again and again.  An emotion is a
combination of a feeling and a cognition.

 

First is the neurology which is the "feeling."  More technically, this is a
kinesthetic distinction.  It could be inside kinesthetic (a proprioceptive
sensation) or an outside kinesthetic.  

 

            Inside
Outside

            Relaxing- tense, tight
Rough - smooth (texture)

            Cold- warm - hot
Cold - warm - hot (temperature)

            Rate of heart beating
Slimy - dry 

            Skin sweating - shivering
Hard - soft 

            Eyes dilating - degree of
Thick - thin

            Rhythm of movement
Wet - dry

            Pulsating ... quiet


            

Then, once you have a "feeling," add a cognition to it (which gives it some
meaning) and then you have an "emotion."  This explain why four of the most
basic emotions are the same in terms of the neurological sensations and
differ not in terms of what's occurring in our body, but from the
differences that we compute in the mind.   The neurological state is called
the "General Arousal Syndrome."  It is what you may more commonly recognize
as the Fight- Flight- Freeze Pattern.

 

At the level of neurologically and physiology, the four emotions begin with
an arousal that causes the heart to beat faster, the lungs to pump oxygen
harder, the glands to release adrenalin, the sweat glands to be activates,
eyes to dilate, and so we are in general arousal sydrome.  But what
"emotion" is this?  If the trigger is undesired and unwelcomed- then it
could be fear or anger.  If you think you can handle it, anger; if not,
fear.   If the trigger is desired, then excitement, and if sexually desired,
then lust.  So four emotions- fear, anger, excitement, and lust all involve
the same "feelings" in the body.  The distinguishing variable is that of the
cognitive understand and meaning.  Hence again, number one definition: a
relationship between mental map in one's head and one's experience in the
territory of the world.

 

"Emotions" are somatic responses of the mind-body system which also explains
why our emotions are susceptible to so many of the physical factors in our
lives such as sleep, eating, exercising, health, illness, etc.  What and how
you have been eating influences emotions as a contributing factor, so does
your sleep habits, your exercise patterns, etc.

 

The "motion" part of an e-motion is the action of the motor cortex sending a
message when we experience an emotion to move-out from where we are to some
other place. Hence the original word, "ex (out) motion."  Emotions move us
to move out from where we are.  They give us the somatic boast of energy to
move.

 

Where do emotions come from and what are they?  As e(x)motions, they are
inner urges, activated by the motor cortex, moving us out from where we are.
Neurologically, an emotion is "an action tendency" generated by the
information in our context that activates our motor cortex and other brain
structures (amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, adrenal gland, etc.).
Understanding emotions in this way enables us to hold the tension between
several realizations that are all simultaneously true.

 

As a neurological process, an emotions is not a thing, it is not solid and
static.  It is an activity going on within our mind-body system and so
produces it each moment as energies move us from where we are at to another
place.

 

4) Emotions are just emotions, not commands from heaven or our destiny.

In the end, however, emotions are just emotions.   As the difference that we
register in our body (soma, hence somatically) between our map of the world
and our experience of the world, the emotion is just the motion generated in
the body by the feeling of our meanings.  As such emotions are secondary and
derivative of- mind-and-body.  This makes them symptoms of the functioning
of our mind-and-body.  And that leads to the next understanding.

 

If "emotions" move us out from where we are because of the cognitive meaning
within them so that they give us information about what fits or does not fit
our sense of reality, then they are information, movement, energy,
somatizing of meaning, but they are not commands from heaven.  They are not
orders about what to do.  They do not set our destiny.  They are just
emotions- the symptoms of our mind-body in action.  Emotions are just
emotions and so if we treat them as mind-body symptoms then we can
effectively discover how we create them in our mind-body system.   Until the
next Meta Reflection - to your highest and best! 

 

 

 

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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