Emotions versus Culture

In my first post I said this blog was called ‘emo blog’ because it’s going to be about the emotional side of things. I just realized that there’s another reason: I’m writing about the topics I feel strongly about. Makes sense, doesn’t it? After all feelings are our guidelines no matter what we do and often times we have no clue whatsoever that this is happening. I’ll tell you what I mean.

A few days ago I had a thought-provoking encounter with culture. I’m not talking about museums or classical concerts, but the part of culture that we don’t think about so much – our belief system, the way we think and do things, see and even express ourselves. All this is influenced by the cultural climate we live in. I talked to a friend of mine who goes to Afghanistan regularly as part of her Ph.D. research project. It consists of training locals in offering psychosocial counselling to their fellow-countrymen to help them cope with the trauma of war and political instability. Of course you can’t just transplant Western psychology to Afghanistan. People there usually don’t talk about feelings let alone their unconscious. However this doesn’t mean that they don’t have them, quite the contrary. People react to traumatic experiences in pretty much the same way, no matter in which part of the world. (Or any other experience for that matter.) At least emotionally. But then the conscious mind comes in – and with it culture in the form of norms, rules of behaviour, beliefs and so on – and decides what to do with these feelings. As showing or talking about them isn’t part of Afghan culture they either find a different way to “get out” (i.e. as a headache) or they are banished to a dark corner of the mind where they fester and grow until they can be vented. Unfortunately this often leads to violence and aggression towards others.

At first glance this might seem far from our reality here in the Western world, but is it really? Not being capable of handling one’s emotional responses is a widespread phenomenon. This inability comes in a variety of forms such as eating disorders, obsessions and the most common of all: maladaptive social behaviour. There has been a lot of liberation and opening up in the past 100 years – the amply filled self-help/spiritual guidance shelves in bookstores and libraries are one of the more visible signs – but for a lot of people their emotions remain uncharted territory. They pull them out of the drawer when it’s convenient for them, but deftly avoid them otherwise. On so they are left alone on their journey (still talking about emotions) through the mind. And as they like to hold on to something tangible, they take what they can find. A chocolate bar for example. Or cleaning. Anything that restores control even if it doesn’t look like it.

It made me think: What if children were already taught at school how to make sense of their own emotional reactions? How to express and channel them in a healthy, useful way? For example through art? I strongly believe that this is one of the main functions of music, painting, storytelling and dancing: get out or even simply feel and acknowledge your emotions. Instead of stacking them under the bed. Governments would probably save quite a bit of money. Because these children wouldn’t end up on the couches of Freud’s successors as adults or stop working at the age of 45 due to burn-out or some mysterious physical ailment. At least most of them. Wouldn’t that be worth a try?

Ideas become reality when you accept them

In hypnosis you can observe the so-called ideomotor effect: an idea is turned into movement. For example the hypnotist suggests to the trance subject that one of her hands suddenly feels very light, as if a balloon was tied to the wrist whereupon it actually starts to rise – hand levitation. But this phenomenon doesn’t only occur in hypnotic states, it happens all the time. Think of your favourite food, really visualize, smell, taste it in your mouth. Are you salivating? For the more advanced among you I’ve got something a bit more difficult (and very useful in this skin-melting heat!): Imagine it’s really cold outside, freezing cold, the streets are covered in snow, you almost slipped on the icy ground this morning. Can you give yourself goose bumps just by thinking of what it feels like to be cold? Congratulations – you’ve mastered the first step on your way to independence. Independence of what? The dictate of the physical.

I feel cold very easily (in German we say “she’s a real frost bite”), but I am determined to change that. No, I’m  not going to carry a sweater whenever I leave the house or stay inside all through winter (wrong country for that, missy!) – I will use the power of my imagination. Learning how to harness mental capacities for making physical changes is like having a lock pick: It can open a lot of doors. Whether it is losing weight or alleviating pain or becoming a better pianist, you can enhance the effect of physical interventions like diets, pain killers and practising the piano by getting your unconscious involved. Unfortunately they don’t teach us at school how to get in touch with it. (Wouldn’t it be great if you could just dial a number on your cell to talk to it? “Hi, your unconscious is currently working on gathering compelling reasons for breaking up with your boyfriend who your conscious thinks you’re still in love with. Please leave a message after the beep.”) So a lot of people think it doesn’t exist or at least never really think about it, although you can see it doing its job 24/7. Or do you consciously tell yourself to breathe in and out? To digest? To come up with some awesome topics for dreams? No? Thought so.

So, the unconscious exists, we don’t need to talk about that any more. If you want to call it something else, go ahead. The question is: How can you use it for solving your problems? Well, the easiest way would be to shoot me an email to nilima@raffini.ca and book an appointment with me so that I can show you how. (Do you see how I planted an idea right there? You know what’s going to come next...) For starters you can try the following: Pick a problem that really bothers you – those 10 pounds you haven’t been able to get rid of since last Christmas maybe or always forgetting your friends’ birthdays – and simply ask your unconscious to help you solve it. Maybe in the form of a dream or a sudden insight (one of these “Eureka!” moments, though you might want to refrain from running into the streets naked as Archimedes allegedly did – it happened to him in the bath tub, poor guy) or a “this is the right thing to do” feeling that accompanies one of your approaches.

If you think this ‘dear unconscious’ exercise “isn’t your thing” because it’s too esoteric, get creative. Make it your thing. There are no hard and fast rules about how to connect with your unconscious. You can write letters to it or use Freud’s free association method, you can copy the surrealist painter Salvador Dali and try to fall asleep with a fork in your hand (he did that in order to wake himself up during hypnagogia, the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep; apparently the unconscious comes up with pretty amazing hypnagogic images) or just talk to yourself like you always do (and don’t tell me you don’t because everybody does!) only this time with a specific purpose in mind.

And if you think “Just because the thought of eating a mango makes my mouth water doesn’t mean that I can get my body to not feel pain”, you’re absolutely right. You first have to accept the idea that you can before it becomes reality.

Are you in the flow?

Did I mention that I’m currently reading “Flow” by Mihaly Cyikszentmihalyi? What is it about? The subheading will tell you: The psychology of optimal experience. The way to happiness and all that jazz. I think I started writing songs because songwriting put me in a flow state, only I didn’t know that back then. It just made me feel good. Thanks to Czikszentmihalyi I now know why: Songwriting helps me forget myself. Now why would forgetting myself make me feel good? Because “preoccupation with the self consumes psychic energy”. Whenever we feel insecure or are in doubt about our goals and beliefs the self is threatened. (Clinical side note: People who suffer from a psychological condition called borderline personality disorder have a very unstable sense of self, their identity is in a permanent state of fluctuation. That’s why they often recourse to quite drastic means such as having multiple sexual partners in one day, drugs or even self-mutilating behaviour to re-establish order in consciousness. That might seem illogical, but self-inflicting pain actually gives them a sense of control and thereby reduces tension just like kneading your fingers when you’re nervous does.  It also brings them in touch with themselves or more specifically their bodies which again reinforces their identity. ) When the self is threatened we have to invest energy in order to evaluate if our identity is still intact. For example if your boss tells you off you might question your abilities for a moment and might have to reassure yourself by visualizing past successes. That costs time and uses up your attention that could otherwise be directed towards completing a task.

Have you ever asked yourself why you have more energy after working out or doing something creative like painting or playing the piano than after activities such as watching TV or a chit-chat with a friend? While doing the former you enjoy yourself, while engaged in the latter you experience pleasure. Most people come home from work feeling tired and longing for rest so they turn on the TV or have a glass of wine while checking what’s new on Facebook. There’s nothing wrong with that, the only trouble is – it doesn’t actually restore their energy levels. On the contrary. These activities (if you can even call them that – activity implies being active after all) tend to lull the brain to sleep with the result of feeling more tired afterwards instead of refreshed. Flow activities on the other hand – the ones that make you feel enjoyment – leave you feeling energized and balanced. Why is that?

In years and years of studying optimal experience Czikszentmihalyi has found eight characteristics of flow activities. They tend to be activities that 1) match perceived difficulty and present skill level, 2) require focus, 3) have clear goals and 4) provide constant feedback, 5) allow deep involvement that remove everyday life worries from awareness, 6) give you a sense of control, 7) make you forget your self, but have it emerge from it stronger and more complex than before and  8) distort your perception of time. Now for the non-artists and non-athletes among you, don’t worry: Every activity can be shaped into flow so to speak. You just have to find the challenge. When you wash dishes for example you could try to be especially fast or plan your day while doing it. When you interact with others, try to stay clear of small talk and dive into a discussion about politics or whatever else is of interest to you in order to stretch your intellectual muscles  by coming up with convincing arguments for your point of view. When you cook dinner, improvise. Surprise yourself.

Many people fall into a hole when they retire or even just go on vacation because for them their jobs are the main source of flow experiences. You can prevent that from happening by a) building up your repertoire of flow activities and b) honing your ability to turn everything into an optimal experience. People in extreme situations such as being a prisoner of war or being bed-ridden for months or even years can be great role models. Frida Kahlo, the Mexican surrealist painter, was confined to her bed after a severe accident. So she had her parents mount a mirror above her and place her easel next to the bed. Instead of painting landscapes or other people she produced countless self-portraits and thereby turned her limitation into an artistic vision.

Sci-Fi in your head

So what are your plans for next summer? Where do you want to be in ten years? Ever thought about what life’s going to be like when you retire? What about breakfast this morning – did you enjoy it? Did you savour it? Or were you so busy planning your day that you hardly noticed eating at all? Don’t worry, you are not alone – living in the future is a wide-spread disease. Maybe it has to do with how fast-paced everything is nowadays, how many appointments and to do’s we have to fit into our schedules (I believe the word “schedule” is a product of our times), how specialized and at the same time DIY/an-expert-in-everything the world expects you to be. So we seek refuge in thinking about a less busy/wealthier/healthier/in some way better future. Good old escapism.

It might also be a variation of “There’s always tomorrow”: Why deal with problems now if we can just as well deal with them later? They won’t run away, will they? (And if they do – all the better!) Half of the self-help books out there propagate the “Live in the Now” principle, only they don’t tell you how. It’s hard to live in the now when you motivate yourself for working in the now by imagining all the great things you’ll be able to do or buy when your work finally pays off. Some time in the future. I do that, too, all the time: “If only I already had the money to move to Italy I’d be so much happier and more balanced breathing in the flavourful Tuscan air, steeped in  history, surrounded by beautiful sights and sounds...” Of course that’s an illusion. Researchers have found that money doesn’t make you happier once you hit the $50.000 mark. The Mercedes instead of the Volkswagen won’t do the trick. And I’m convinced that even with less money you can be perfectly happy. Look at all the college students – they’re poor, but don’t they have fun? And even in the midst of the most heart-wrenching poverty you can find happy faces. Usually it’s the children. So how do they do it? They haven’t been introduced to our friend Worry yet. They’re scared by snakes and bears, but not by a piece of paper – your bank statement for example.

As psychologists and evolution scientists point out: Our brains still live in the year 40.000 BC. Mortgage? Is that a predator? Our ability to remember the past and plan for the future has developed to give us an evolutionary advantage. We build houses and store food, we are able to work for years on end for a distant goal like discovering a cure for AIDS without any instant gratification (at least none directly related to survival) – that’s pretty amazing, don’t you think? Unfortunately planning ahead goes hand in hand with worrying ahead for most people. Only that this doesn’t fulfill any positive purpose whatsoever. Or can you see the evolutionary benefit from fretting about your last cell phone bill for a week? No? Neither could the tiger that would take advantage of your worry fog and pounce on you from behind. If you didn’t live in the manmade safety zone “city” that is.

The way I see it (and that’s how I handle everything from religions to chocolate boxes) we can pick out the good stuff and discard the rest – after all it’s our brains, right? For example it’s great that a brain structure called amygdala is activated when there’s a threat in our immediate environment. It makes the blood flow to our legs, halts digestion and pumps adrenalin through our bodies. Ideal conditions for survival. Awesome. The problem is that exactly the same mechanism kicks in when you’re afraid of an exam or job interview. If it was about running fast you’d show them. Most of the times it isn’t, though.

So why don’t you just get rid of that stuff? It might feel like an automatic chain reaction that you can’t stop, but it’s not. Because you are the creator of your reality.

Humankind always had the dream of flying, but gravity put a spoke in our wheel. Or so it thought. (What do you think would gravity look like if it was a person? Grave?) Then the plane was invented and reality forever changed. We’re not stuck to the ground any more! We decide what’s real and what’s not. How do you know that the feelings you have for your boyfriend or girlfriend are love? Because you decide that they are. When and where you want. Listen to Bobby McFerrin, he knew what he was talking about.