May 22, '06 -- Medicate Me
What if the ebb and flow of mood is arbitrary? What if depression and motivation are governed by invisible chemical reactions we can't control except by pill--badly?
Is it better to accept periods of immobility and wait patiently to drift out the other side, or should we be struggling to find a galvinizing force we can harness and employ at will?
I woke up happy this morning and I don't know why.
posted by Eben at 10:01 AM
2 Comments:
There is a lot of evidence to support that thought and emotion are closely linked. But upon looking deeper into the issue you'll see that thought always preceeds the experience of emotions. It's just that many people don't know how to monitor their thoughts therefore their unconscious thoughts end up governing their emotions, and they mistakingly think that their emotions are in control.
The questions you ask yourself (consciously or unconsciously) govern what your mind focuses on. And what you focus on determines the emotional state you experience.
Look up something called "Neuro-associative conditioning" for a deeper explanation of the above.
6:01 PM
An experience only triggers an emotion if it has already become conditioned/associated.
For example, smelling a particular perfume, making you feel depressed since it reminds you of a bad breakup with a prior girlfriend.
The perfume above is called an "anchor", which explains the above and other things such as phobias.
Absolutely anything you do/experience consistently when you are feeling an intense emotion will become anchored without you realising it. This is how all phobias are born.
This is the only instance you'll find of experiencing an emotion without prior thought.
It's just a conditioned response. Nothing more than Pavlov's dogs salivating when the bell was rung.
There are specific ways in which anchors can be collapsed.
You should listen through the Tony Robbins "Personal Power 2" course I mentioned to you guys some months ago. All of the above is covered when he talks about Neuro-Associative Conditioning.
So, yes, you are correct in saying that sometimes you can experience emotions without prior thought, but you'll find that this happens as an consequence of some conditioned response to an anchor that has been triggered without you realizing it.
Other than that, I think you'll be hard pressed to find an example of being able to experience an emotion which has not been preceeded by thought.
7:01 PM
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