Emotions are a very important aspect of our being and what it means to be human. We live for the positive emotions of joy, ecstasy, and excitement but dread the feelings of fear, anger and sadness. All of these emotions are meaningful and important. Emotions are a form of communication that we must learn to translate into words. In CBT, the main thesis is that our distorted thoughts cause our negative emotions and if we can learn to rationally understand the meaning of our emotions, they will lead us to a greater life.
If we engage in distorted thinking, we create more emotional turmoil based on unrealistic thoughts. We may of had an initial disturbed sense of anxiety or sadness that was difficult to interpret, however if our mind or habit of thought creates distorted thinking, we layer more negative emotion on top of the issue the initial emotion was directing us toward.
Steps to Understand the Ambiguity of Emotions
1. Identify and Understand the 'Object of Emotion'
If emotions are a form of communication from oneself to oneself or from one person to another person, what is the thing being communicated. If we can understand the Object of Emotion, we can learn what our mind/brain is communicating to us and others.
2. Begin with the CBT Methods
When understanding what we feel, Burns discusses we look at the automatic thoughts that are creating those upsets of our mood. We can take the unrealistic cognitive distortions and create a more accurate, meaningful representation of what we actually mean. If we are creating unrealistic, distorted thoughts, the object of our emotions cannot actually be something in reality. If the thoughts are unrealistic, they are imaginary and hence the object of the emotion is actually the thought itself, which is the basic thesis of CBT. If we reconstruct the distorted thought into a realistic, representational thought, then we have removed an unnecessary layer in the ambiguity of our emotional communication.
3. Chipping Away at the Iceberg of Anxiety
General anxiety can be a difficult emotion to understand. If we accept the premise that emotions are a form of communication, what do we say about ambiguous emotions like anxiety that have no direct emotional object? I find it useful to think of the situation this way: throughout the day, we may have small emotional triggers from things in our environment that are a minor upset to us, but nothing that is particularly noticeable. These upsets are a result of certain expectations we have of life then the actuality of life being contrary to our foresight causing cognitive dissonance.
As this dissonance accumulates, we begin to develop 'anxiety,' the feeling of uneasiness and a sense of not knowing what to do or having no choice available. Typically, this could be caused from problems from employees or an employer at work, difficulties throughout school life, and or issues with one's family. In the moment we may tell ourselves to 'be tough' or 'don't let it bother you,' however the emotional content or dissonance is not so easily removed. We may think that we can trick our brains into believing that these things don't matter but if they didn't we wouldn't feel anything. The fact that we did feel something means that they do matter at some level and our inability to respond to those feelings creates the ambiguous sense of anxiety most people live with.
Back to the Object of Emotion. So this emotion has been accumulating from many different kinds of little tremors throughout the day and being lumped into a pile. This is where i use the iceberg analogy: We can only be aware of the tip of the entirety of our emotional state so we must begin the process of chipping away at the tip of the iceberg of emotion, or responding to what we are currently aware of. Once we respond to what is present to us, we can use the Reflective Meditation technique, described in the Meditation post, to uncover other things in our mind that have been bothering us. Once we uncover those parts of our mind that are not immediately in our awareness, we can rule out cognitive distortions and determine an appropriate action plan to reduce any future dissonance being created and make sense of past traumas or problems.
As we go through this chipping of the iceberg of emotions, the iceberg or overall emotional energy slowly begins to shrink or get smaller. The iceberg still exists in the sense that, there is only a tip of emotion present but our overall anxiety, the whole iceberg, still exists. If we go through the Reflective Meditation method as a means to determine what is troubling our mind, we are able to resolve is problems which accumulate to our anxious or irritable state.
4. Habituation
As discussed in the Training and Learning post, habituation is form of learning where after repeated exposure to a stimulus a diminished physiological or emotional response occurs. We may become 'used to' or 'accustomed to' the feelings we have about a thing. It can become more difficult for us to detect how we feel about some things or contribute to not responding to things that bother us as we become more habituated to them. This contributes to being unaware of what is actually bothering us and enlarges the submerged part of our emotional iceberg.
Creating meaning and satisfaction in our lives is important and we can accomplish this by reducing any emotional turmoil or cognitive dissonance that has been accumulating within our minds.
Oops! It's one of those situations again. Apparently, this chapter is still being researched and written. Achilles has been busy coordinating the Community Housing Program and designing the Flow Optimization consulting program. Check back soon for the completion of the first draft of this chapter!
Achilles Justice 11.2.18, 27.3.20
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