[Neurons] 2013 Meta Reflections #30 --- "Neurons" from Neuro-Semantics

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2012  #30

July 1, 2013

Emotional Mastery Series #4

 

 

 

WHEN AN EMOTION

IS NOT A REAL EMOTION

 

 

Masquerading around our lives are pseudo-emotions.  Seducing us to call them
"emotions," to think of them as real emotions, and to respond to them as if
they were actually "emotions," these masquerading false-emotions plague our
lives and those of our loved ones.  And what makes them so tricky and so
difficult to catch is that you and I can create them in a moment, in a
nanosecond. 

 

Now it is true that with most of these pseudo-emotions, there is an actual
emotion lurking somewhere within.  Yet that's the problem, while there is a
real emotion present, it is covered-up and ignored, and the pseudo-emotion
is given prominence.   Now we have two problems.  First, we don't know or
are unaware of the real emotion and we are over-invested and confused by the
presence of the pseudo-emotion, mistakenly thinking that it is the actual
emotion.

 

Now to create one of these pseudo-emotions in a mere moment of time, all you
have to do is to start a sentence with the words, "I feel . . ."   Then to
complete the deception, just add a judgment.

"I feel put off by her."                        

            "I feel offended by his foul mouth."

"I feel low self-esteem."                     

            "I feel mediocre."

"I feel defeated by all this talk of what we cannot do."

"I feel stupid when he takes-over in the meeting when I am talking."

            "I feel that you don't listen to me."

 

And the list goes on and on and on.  I feel defeated, like a failure, ugly,
beautiful, stupid, like a winner, triumphant, inadequate, dominated,
cheated, silly, like a kid, etc.  Yes these are pseudo-emotions and, as
pseudo-emotions, they deceive you into thinking you are experiencing or
working with an actual emotion when you are not.  In this format, you have
made a judgment or evaluation and framed it with the words "I feel . . ."
but you have not identified an emotion or a feeling.  You have only shared a
judgment.

 

Now there probably is a real "emotion" down underneath the judgment.  When
you say something like: "I feel judged."  "I feel mediocre."  "I feel put
down." my guess is that you are feeling the emotion of frustration or anger.
Or it could be fear or stress.  There will be some negative emotion that
reflects something about your world that isn't working well.  But instead of
identifying the emotion and getting in touch with the feeling, you have
judged the experience and then deceived yourself thinking that it is an
emotion when it is not.

 

In a video-tape that we made of expert coaching, Graham Richardson, coaching
in Sydney at the ACMC training in 2011, he commented "So now you're getting
real."  And then he asked, "How does that feel?"  His client said, "Real." 

 

Graham immediately recognized that was a pseudo-emotion and so commented:
"Yeah.  But how does it feel?"  His client then said, "Pretty good."  So
Graham explored, "And how does that feel?  I need a feeling."  The client
then said, "I feel very centered."

 

At those words, Graham confronted him directly, "That's not a feeling."
Real- Pretty good- Centered - three attempts at identifying a real emotion
and still the client had expressed no actual emotion!   That elicited a long
ten second pause ...   At which time, the client said, "It's the feeling in
my chest.... (holding hand on chest)."  To that Graham said, "Yes!  What is
that feeling?"

 

Another pause, this time for three seconds, "... It's the feeling of being
unstoppable if I choose to."  Another pseudo-emotion.   Graham commented;
"Yeah, not a feeling."  ... and then asked,   "Are you connected to your
feelings?"  At which point the client acknowledge, "I push them down."

 

Consider that coaching interchange: the client used four words in a row,
quickly, at first and then more and more slowly as he tried to identify his
emotions, but in the final analysis, he was not able to identify his actual
emotions, just his judgments: real- pretty good- centered -unstoppable.  For
some people, maybe for the majority, identifying, detecting, and being aware
of what we actually feel is a tremendous challenge.

 

So many, many years before "Emotional Intelligence" was popular, NLP dealt
with this as we talked about emotional states.  What state are you in?
Basic NLP introduced the idea of intelligently handling our emotions by
talking about eliciting states, detecting states, anchoring states, shifting
states, working with our states, and transforming our states.  And this
became even more developed with the discovery of the Meta-States Model
because to understand a meta-state, you have to understand states.

 

When is an emotion not a real emotion?  When we present abstract ideas and
evaluations about ourselves and our world and do so using the linguistic
template, "I feel ..."  Don't be fooled, just because someone starts a
sentence with, "I feel..." does not mean that they are talking about their
emotions.  Keep asking, check to see where they feel that in their body. If
they cannot point to where they feel that in their body, it is probably not
a real emotion.

 

 




 

 

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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