Well folks, over the years we have repeated ourselves like a broken record telling you about the importance of a neutral, balanced emotional state free of negative emotions. In our Time Line Therapy® trainings this is exactly what we teach you how to do. It seems that even traditional psychology begins to catch up in a positive way with our theory.
Here we have this story courtesy of Jay Efran, Ph.D.:
Why We Cry: The Fascinating Psychology of Emotional Release
All this raises some profound questions (and answers) about what is really going on. It should be pretty obvious by now, and especially for those of you who have been trained in Time Line Therapy®, that a well-balanced and neutral emotional state is far more beneficial for clear thinking than a highly emotional state, particularly a negative one.
Negative emotions of any kind cloud your ability to think clearly. When you’re “fuming” about some issue, how much control do you exert over your behavior and how much clearness of thought do you have?
Almost none. You’re simply “overwhelmed” by emotions.
Manage Your Emotions, Manage Your Mind, Manage Your , Life?
The truth is that everybody experiences emotions whether they’re aware of them or not. It is part of being human. But what is not immediately obvious is that mental “overwhelm” can be a result of either negative emotions or positive ones. Over the top positive emotions can cloud your thinking as much as negative emotions.
What???
Yes. Even if everybody yearns to feel good,any over the top emotions reduce your ability for clear expression of your thoughts. Moreover your thoughts themselves are “tainted” by the emotional load, and you don’t have a clear head, free from confusion or ambiguity any longer.
To paraphrase Patanjali, a great sage who around 1700 years ago said in his by now famous Yoga Sutras, that the ideal state of mind is to have “equanimity in loss and gain”.
What do most people do when they have some sort of a gain in life? They’re “overjoyed”! The emotions take over, and the person behaves in ways which they would not normally do. You can look only at sports fans, when their favorite team wins!
But even worse, negative emotions experienced as a result of a “loss” are fully acknowledged as a significant factor in the development of incorrect and many times detrimental thinking.
Throughout the last two decades studies published in reputable medical journals have shown the connection between highly negative states (or emotions) like anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, what have you) and the formation of disease. These negative emotions are literally “toxic” effects in the physical body. The stress experienced psychologically, is also translated into the biological functioning of the brain and body. If the negative emotions are of a longer duration, the result could be a physiological disease.
Negative emotions have a lot of power. They have a lot of impact on our conscious reasoning, and also on our overall physiological health – that is your physical body!
I hope you did not miss the importance of this paragraph from the abovementioned article. which I reproduce here:
In our ordinary language, we talk as if we have emotions only once in a while, such as when we’re experiencing great passion, overwhelming hopelessness, abject terror, or all-consuming anger; however, in our lexicon, all our tasks have an emotional underpinning, including when we cook dinner, read a novel, or take out the trash. Even calm, deliberate, problem-solving requires a rather specific set of bodily calibrations: if you’re too aroused, you can’t think straight; if you’re too relaxed, you’re apt to lose track of the problem. Thus, as biologist Humberto Maturana notes, “understanding” should be considered a legitimate and important emotional state. He uses the term “emotional contradiction” to describe the temporary mismatches between our biochemistry and our circumstances. For example, we arrive home after an argument with a co-worker. Our spouse is waiting at the door, expecting a tender kiss. However, because we’re still fuming over what happened at the office, we can’t switch gears fast enough to be affectionate. Fighting and affiliating require different body postures and hormonal settings, and the biochemistry needs a bit of time to catch up. So, for the moment, the best we can do is offer our spouse a perfunctory peck, perhaps accompanied by a mumbled explanation about why we aren’t “in the mood.”
For a long time, (just remember the Victorian era) it was – and in many cultures still is – unacceptable to express emotions. In a way, if the intention was to maintain a balanced and healthy and strong functioning of the conscious mind, this was a good thing.
But a big concern here is that denial and avoidance of feeling anything (which in NLPCoaching Trainings is called chronic dissociation.) Avoidance of feeling your emotions does not serve you well, and it involves a great degree of energy. In fact chronic avoidance and denial of negative emotions could lead to the creation of chronic pain.
Fortunately we don’t live in the Victorian era any longer and we’re beginning to see a lot of effort in assisting people with “emotional intelligence”.
The majority of negative emotions are easy to overcome. We witness this regularly in our Time Line Therapy® trainings and all our NLP Coaches use it successfully with their coaching clients, even in a business setting.
Until next time, be well!