When Do Emotions Occur?

[Ryan_047]

I'm currently suffering from emotional flattening(or anhedonia) and I'm trying different techniques in order to recover.My answer is simple:When do emotions occur?

I am asking this because I want to know when I have recovered properly.So,I want a big and detailed  list of activities that cause emotions..for example:eating..When I eat ice cream I feel blank..or when I read I feel blank..anything from social activities to hobbies,eating etc.It can be negative stuff too.

I would appreciate if I get many answers..This might sound like a stupid request,but I swear that I don't feel anything and I forgot how it is like to have emotions.For me,eating ice cream and eating eggs is the same thing.

[Ayla]

56 minutes ago, Ryan_047 said:

eating ice cream and eating eggs is the same thing

Of course it is. Now search for what it is that makes "you" chose one or another. 

Look carefully. Can you find any YOU there choosing? Or is it just a thought that pops up? Validated or contradicted by other thoughts? 

What emotion is there to feel behind eating an icecream? Or eggs? Is that emotion universal - therefore it is "supposed" to feel a certain way? 

Instead of asking for lists and many answers, work on releasing the pressure to fell whatever you're thinking you're supposed to feel, then ask if there is someone there in any way shape or form that is feeling/not feeling that

Only use now as a reference. Not when you were 5 or 85. NOW. 

 

[Ryan_047]

@Ayla Well,I get your point and to be honest I can relate to it,but I don't think you understand what emotional numbness is and what I am trying to say...I am like a zombie,I'm not experiencing emotions at all.I'm not stupid,I know that I should feel emotions every now now and then,and I do not refer only to insignificant things like eating..I'm also refering to connections between people..I guess that at least that the feeling of connection and love for my mother ins't an "universal emotion",and I'm not experiencing even that..

No,nobody is shaping my emotions...You can google anhedonia if you really want to understand what I'm going through..I appreciate your answer,but please I beg you..tell me when do you feel emotions..You aren't a zombie like me,aren't you?

[Ayla]

2 hours ago, Ryan_047 said:

I don't think you understand what emotional numbness is and what I am trying to say...

I do. But I am trying to point to you a way - a DIRECT way to see that this is just another story, an identity you attach yourself to. When you let that go, you're free. There aren't 10 steps, or healing or therapy, or understanding... there is just one step: Understanding that you are none of that. 

Does it serve you to understand where it all comes from? And why? 

We have all adopted numbness in certain areas of life. ALL of us! It is learnt behavior for self-protection. Does this help you? 

Maybe for now, or maybe for one aspect. 

STOP judging yourself. You are not a zombie, and you suffer from nothing at all. This is just where you are right now. Start from NOW and from where you are as being the perfect time and place. 

Can you somehow accept that pushing something away will only reinforce it? Think about lifting weights at the gym  

[Salaam]

On 5/30/2016 at 2:15 PM, Ryan_047 said:

I'm currently suffering from emotional flattening(or anhedonia) and I'm trying different techniques in order to recover.My answer is simple:When do emotions occur?

I am asking this because I want to know when I have recovered properly.So,I want a big and detailed  list of activities that cause emotions..for example:eating..When I eat ice cream I feel blank..or when I read I feel blank..anything from social activities to hobbies,eating etc.It can be negative stuff too.

I would appreciate if I get many answers..This might sound like a stupid request,but I swear that I don't feel anything and I forgot how it is like to have emotions.For me,eating ice cream and eating eggs is the same thing.

I've dealt with stuff like this before in my own life. In my view, it's a severance of the natural inter-relations that occur with our stimulus-response mechanisms. Something, whether medications or in my case an over-analyticism interrupts the natural chemical cascade that occurs during an emotionally stimulating experience, "contaminating" it's composition and shifting which parts of our body activate in relation to the experience. Over time, this chronic imbalance erodes and disconnects these delicate systems from it's "normal" roles and begins to automatically follow this new "unhealthy" heuristic, creating a blunting of our usual emotional response. 

You can get yourself back on track with time though. I did purely through self-development and emotional processing.

One of the best ways to feel, is to risk yourself and be vulnerable. I don't mean risking your life, but risking validation, social censure, COMFORT. Risk your comfort zones by involving yourself, your whole body, not just your mind. Go out and dance, go to a club by yourself, tell a girl she's beautiful. Go box or spar at a dojo. Your body has a shit load of emotional connections that haven't been screwed up yet, multiple pathways for it to renew itself.

Risk being off balance and not knowing what's going to happen next. Risk the change of losing something or being wrong. Savor things, slowly smell a flower or sip on a tea, noticing the nuance of flavors, texture, the rise and fall and shift of different ingredients expressing.

The more passive the endeavor (like eating), the less the emotional response. Novelty, rich contexts, details, these things aid emotion. Also be very aware of how you're relating to things. Don't look at them with an organizational or intellectual rapport, treat things as alive, with all the considerations that entails.

These are the things that helped me with my emotions and I feel shit on the daily now, stronger and more richly than most people will ever experience.

I don't suffer from numbness anymore. In fact, I can make myself more sensitive to things on command.

I know it's a little bit different of a response, than what you were asking, but I hope it helps.

[Ryan_047]

@Ayla I don't see how I can understand that I'm not any of that or just let go of it...I barely feel emotions in extreme situations and even then they last for a second and they are not intense at all.I know the source of my numbness and I know that it is not helping me anymore(yes,it was helpful in a way in a certain period of time),I believe that I know everything about my current state,but I just don't know how to break free of it.

So,you're telling me that I should not try to resist it?(your answer it's a little vague to me to be hones).I tried this approach but it's only making my state worse..I even started to have suicidal thoughts because of it.

[Ayla]

@Ryan_047 , yes, fully accept the fact that...as you say, you feel nothing. "If you can't avoid it, you might as well enjoy it".

try it for one day. See how that feels. 

[Epiphany_Inspired]

In support, I will post an emotional example... but it seems to me that you are at least feeling frustrated about not feeling... and that's an emotion too... trust Ayala's words:

When I see a hummingbird, I feel entranced, like I've travelled to another dimension... this emotion is "AWE" (see fireworks, acrobatics, etc.)

 

[Ryan_047]

@Salaam I find you answer very helpful,thank you.