Listening versus not listening to your emotions

[StarStruck]

There are two schools really. One says that one should listen to the emotions, do subconscious work, listen to your emotions. This is the only way to heal and I agree but at the same time this approach makes you weak.

Second approach says to not listen to your emotions and just do what you need to do. Emotions make you weak and you want to be strong which give get you success in all aspects of your life. This is the approach that masculinity teachers teach to their student. That is basically their main message. All other messages are sub.

I think it is not either or. One should should both schools. The whole thing is the know when to use which school. Emotions are important feedback but you also don't want to be a slave of your emotions, otherwise you will be stuck in a vicious cycle of low LOC thoughts and emotions that feed each other.

[sholomar]

Pop culture wants you to treat your emotions like gospel and that you should "do what you feel like" and that "your feelings are always right" which is a huge mistake and trap. Feelings are the domain of many animal species and most mammals have basic emotions that drive them to act in the absence of self awareness and rational thought. Feelings can be a double edged sword. They can sabotage and betray you, get you chasing the wrong things in life. It's why most spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle emphasize being "the observer" ... being able to observe the rising waves of emotion (and cravings, impulses) without identifying with them and allowing them to totally take over one's reactions.

I really like his book "A New Earth" in this regard. Talks all about it. It's far superior to "The Power of Now."  Then again so do many self help authors like David Hawkins who also took their work from past sources like The Master Key System.  Being able to sit with any impulse mindfully and let it's energy burn out... Leo's videos on addiction, subtle addiction, the happiness spectrum, his principles for living the good life, burning through karma, and related videos... they all bark up the same tree of finding a level of emotional/impulse mastery and developing more productive habits, but without the use of emotional suppression. The book "Atomic Habits" is also important for any person who wants to grow in life because a good life requires good habits. You want your most important personal development goals on autopilot, so they are done on a schedule without thinking and more importantly, done while powering through the emotional resistance to do them.

Edited September 29, 2023 by sholomar

[StarStruck]

9 minutes ago, sholomar said:

Pop culture wants you to treat your emotions like gospel and that you should "do what you feel like" and that "your feelings are always right" which is a huge mistake and trap. Feelings are the domain of many animal species and most mammals have basic emotions that drive them to act in the absence of self awareness and rational thought. Feelings can be a double edged sword. They can sabotage and betray you, get you chasing the wrong things in life. It's why most spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle emphasize being "the observer" ... being able to observe the rising waves of emotion without identifying with them and allowing them to totally take over one's reactions.

I really like his book "A New Earth" in this regard. Talks all about it. Then again so do many self help authors like David Hawkins who also took their work from past sources like The Master Key System.  Being able to sit with any impulse mindfully and let it's energy burn out... Leo's videos on addiction, burning through karma, and related videos... those are the most powerful tools I've found for mastery and developing more productive habits with use of material like the book "Atomic Habits"

I like the phone analogy when it comes to emotions. Emotions are just notifications, like notifications on your phone. Just observe them and open them if you want but don't be an addict and open all notifications all the time because that will make you an addict.

The whole point is that have a phone that doesn't give you nonsense notifications all the time. If there is a virus, remove it. If there is an useless app that spams with your notification centre, uninstall it.

I don't like Leo's view on addiction. There are people who are burning through their karma all of their life. A life can be spend burning karma and you still won't be able to burn through it. It is just acting out which David Hawkins talks about. A better approach is to releasing it.

Pleasure principle is a bottomless hole. One should understand that seeking pleasure is not the end all be all of life. So good luck with filling that hole. It can't be done.

Edited September 29, 2023 by StarStruck

[sholomar]

 

Quote

I don't like Leo's view on addiction. There are people who are burning through their karma all of their life. A life can be spend burning karma and you still won't be able to burn through it. It is just acting out which David Hawkins talks about. A better approach is to releasing it.I don't like Leo's view on addiction. There are people who are burning through their karma all of their life. A life can be spend burning karma and you still won't be able to burn through it. It is just acting out which David Hawkins talks about. A better approach is to releasing it.

How do you release it? By engaging in it? The problem with engaging in addictions is that it reinforces the synaptic connections in the brain that give the activity pleasure. The more you do something pleasurable, the more you are going to want to do it. "Just one more cigarette" ... I logically know that one cigarette is going to make me want to crave another, and another, so I'm not going to even have the one. I think most of us give up bad habits, emotions, or addictions because at some point they bring us more pain than they do pleasure, and it's at that point people finally decide to change, like when a woman leaves an abusive man that she loves because he's dominant but at some point  he just brings more pain to her life than pleasure and at that point she finally leaves.

That or the guy who gives up his pot and video games... he does it not because he doesn't enjoy pot and video games, but because he knows he's creating an opportunity cost in himself to greater levels of pleasure and satisfaction. Would he rather chase his short term pleasure and emotional state or build towards long term goals and accomplishments? It's the hedonistic vs eudomonic argument made in Leo's "happiness spectrum" video.

Really emotions and impulses are the same thing... they are both a drive to "act" in a certain way created by our brain chemistry and evolutionary makeup. The trick would seem to be to allow the emotion or impulse but without engaging in the associated activity that brought on the emotion, to allow it to "burn out" over time.

Edited September 29, 2023 by sholomar

[Larry Kaul]

The confusion is over the difference between emotions and feelings. Here's a way to think about it. Hope this helps.

1) Emotion: a signal that feels good or bad triggered automatically by the thought stream (cognition)

2) Feeling: inner being experience inside the body that can be thought of as unmanifested joy, not pain

The emotion reflects your comment about the "suck it up" crowd. This is true. When you have a bad feeling, you need to examine your thought and change it immediately. The thought contains a belief that is holding you back. Get to the heart of the belief, do what's necessary, and feel better.

Feelings are different. When you feel something deep, you are being given an opportunity to evolve. This is how to shift your state of consciousness. The enlightenment pathway must include this sort of work. When you get deep enough, your Karma patterns begin to emerge. This is a big win.

You must fully experience the feeling. When you know that pain always turns into joy, doing this will no longer be hard or painful. Your inner gift opens when you enter the joyful side of the pain experience. 

Examples from writers like Jack Kornfield, David Hawkins, and Michael Singer include many examples of how this works and how to manage it. My approach is a daily 30-minute check-in. I've been doing it for 3 years, and it always works!

 

[Larry Kaul]

@sholomar I'll share a few thoughts on your comment. 

Feelings are key to inner spiritual development. They must be fully experienced. The observer (True Self, part of you) manages the feeling exploration process when you develop a strong relationship. Joy comes on the other side of the feeling experience, as does the consciousness shift. 

Giving in to feelings means fully feeling them. This is the pathway to truth. Pushing them down gives them power. The goal is to let go of control. In spirituality, this is called surrender (part of it at least). Emotion that feels bad is the problem. This means that your thought is not true. 

[StarStruck]

@sholomar  Larry explains how to release it. @Larry Kaul

So when you have the urge to smoke, just feel the bodily sensations and let go of cognition of the emotion.

Emotion is a bodily feeling + value judgement from the mind. So the bodily sensation is closer to the source code which is in your body aka subconscious aka primitive+emotional brain.

Burning through karma by chain smoking is not the way through get rid of the addiction of smoking. I don't believe in this approach. That is not how you should deal with karma through acting out. The best way is to feel the urge of smoking in the body and just stick with it which is an emotionally demanding task and the whole point of emotional mastery.

 

9 minutes ago, Larry Kaul said:

 

The emotion reflects your comment about the "suck it up" crowd. This is true. When you have a bad feeling, you need to examine your thought and change it immediately. The thought contains a belief that is holding you back. Get to the heart of the belief, do what's necessary, and feel better.

 

Usually and almost always, the suck it up crowd don't know anything about psychology but they just talk about what worked for them to get a certain material results.

They have a point that one should do the important things in life but where I don't agree is that one should suppress their feelings when doing it. One should do the important but emotionally difficult thing while feeling every fiber in their body.

Doing the difficult thing in life is comparable with taking a cold shower Wim Hof style. Your body says no to the cold but you do it, and just keep breathing and trying to relax while your body screams to jump away from the cold. The cold is discomfort zone while warmth is your comfort zone.

[sholomar]

5 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

@sholomar  Larry explains how to release it. @Larry Kaul

So when you have the urge to smoke, just feel the bodily sensations and let go of cognition of the emotion.

Emotion is a bodily feeling + value judgement from the mind. So the bodily sensation is closer to the source code which is in your body aka subconscious aka primitive+emotional brain.

Burning through karma by chain smoking is not the way through get rid of the addiction of smoking. I don't believe in this approach. That is not how you should deal with karma through acting out. The best way is to feel the urge of smoking in the body and just stick with it which is an emotionally demanding task and the whole point of emotional mastery.

 

Usually and almost always, the suck it up crowd don't know anything about psychology but they just talk about what worked for them to get a certain material results.

They have a point that one should do the important things in life but where I don't agree is that one should suppress their feelings when doing it. One should do the important but emotionally difficult thing while feeling every fiber in their body.

Doing the difficult thing in life is comparable with taking a cold shower Wim Hof style. Your body says no to the cold but you do it, and just keep breathing and trying to relax while your body screams to jump away from the cold. The cold is discomfort zone while warmth is your comfort zone.

Good insights. I agree. Sometimes it seems like the cravings and impulses will last forever, LOL. Then they come back in waves. It's difficult work, for sure, but it's what makes a man out of a person. All strong men have mastered their emotions and impulses to some degree or another, in my opinion. This gives them a level of inherit wisdom from having suffered through the experience that makes them better leaders that people look up too, something relatively rare in modern society today that pushes heavy hedonism on us where addictions are ever present elements that permeate our culture and seek to make us mediocre consumers of content instead of producers.

Edited September 29, 2023 by sholomar

[StarStruck]

Key skill to develop for letting go is concentration. When you are facing your inner or outer demons, the last thing your conscouisness will want to focus on bodily sensations and let go cognitions and emotions.

[Salvijus]

"Let love guide your way" is a good school of thought. Because love is truth and truth is inteligence that knows how to take care of you

[Larry Kaul]

@sholomar I'm struggling to use the comment feature in this system. It's clunky as hell for me.

Yes on the urge to smoke. You have to experience the urge. What I'd suggest is to add an inner dialogue. Ask yourself why you feel the urge. What is there for? How are you creating this urge? Then ask for the urge to be removed. You will get answers. You may not like it but follow them. 

Maybe this is helpful. There is no value in cognition in relation to this work. All that matters is the inner experience. Describe the inner experience. That's what I'm doing. My inner experience comes through in everything that I say and do anywhere that I go in life. 

You wrote "Emotion is a bodily feeling + value judgement from the mind. So the bodily sensation is closer to the source code which is in your body aka subconscious aka primitive+emotional brain."

Is that an inner experience or a bunch of words running through your mind as cognitive thoughts? Release all that crap and this gets a lot easier!

This sounds like an inner experience. Is it?

"Doing the difficult thing in life is comparable with taking a cold shower Wim Hof style. Your body says no to the cold but you do it, and just keep breathing and trying to relax while your body screams to jump away from the cold. The cold is discomfort zone while warmth is your comfort zone.

Did you experience this or is it a belief system that you learned?

[Reignforest]

In "the myth of normal" by gabor mate, he describes how your emotions are a direct reflection of your immune system. So they cannot be ignored forever,  but neither should we give into them fully. He writes that we're all full of explosives from past trauma,  and that the goal is to become triggerless. Meaning if you can identify the source of your emotions with genuine compassion and inquiry, your much less likely to become triggered from an external source.

[Larry Kaul]

@Reignforest I'm careful to discern the difference between emotions (feels bad or good) and feelings (unmanifested joy). We all use different words!

This sounds like in my version of it feelings. Suppose you are talking about feelings. We need to give ourselves over to them completely. The decision about when and where matters. As part of my daily practice (doing it for 3 years now), I've included feeling experience as part 2 in the 30 minutes.

My goal is not to become triggerless. It's to turn my pain into joy through the experience of it in my conscious awareness, not in thought but in the mind-body (sub-conscious) and Karmic mind (spinal essence). Not being triggered comes as you experience your full inner storyline without effort. 

[Carl-Richard]

True rationality is when you're in dialogue with your emotions: not a slave to them, but also not completely above them.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Anna Nomas]

I've experienced two extreme ends of the spectrum.

For first few decades of life, emotionally suppressed to the max. Rarely listened to my emotions and feelings and was often unaware of them. I lived determined to always use my logical mind. Meanwhile, I was hypersensitive to other people's emotions and gifted at handling them because of my ability to shut down my own. Great for business, terrible for inner peace. 

When I started doing personal development, I went the other way with it, and began to feel power and freedom to express my emotions and feelings. It felt like my "emotional circuit board" turned on - and I caught up on feeling decades worth of stuff. This was an intense, liberating and terrifying phase, because to @StarStruck's point, yes I did feel weak in a lot of ways, mainly because this emotional flood compromised my ability to be pragmatic and action-oriented. Terrible for business, great for self-love. 

Now I'm in the process of balancing both skills 1) the ability to compartmentalize emotions in order to take the best action, and 2) the gift of allowing yourself permission to listen to how you feel and let that educate your choices in life when needed. 

The result (so far) - The more in touch with my emotions and feelings I become, the more reality aligns with my needs and desires.

But this isn't just a result of feeling things. For me, it's from balancing stoicism and logic with sensitivity and self-compassion. Love this topic. Super important. 

[Leo Gura]

That is tricky.

But also, how do you know when to listen to your thoughts and when not to listen? That's just as tricky.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Reignforest]

@Larry Kaul Not all emotions have obvious feelings attached to them. Sometimes it takes work to identify the source.  For example to go back to gabor, he says often times depression is similar to holding a beach ball underwater.  You don't realize how much energy you put into it until you let it go.

[Yimpa]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That is tricky.

But also, how do you know when to listen to your thoughts and when not to listen? That's just as tricky.

Go dress up as Jiminy Cricket for Halloween… that should help more of your students wake up to their intuition! 

[StarStruck]

36 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

Go dress up as Jiminy Cricket for Halloween… that should help more of your students wake up to their intuition! 

Somebody read Jordan Peterson

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

That is tricky.

But also, how do you know when to listen to your thoughts and when not to listen? That's just as tricky.

Emotions are feminine and from the body. Thoughts/logic are masculine and from the spirit. According to Buddhists your body and spirit have to marry each other but like a real marriage it is difficult to set up a good marriage. Feeling heals; thinking amplifies.
 

  

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by StarStruck

[Yimpa]

5 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

Emotions are feminine and from the body. Thoughts are masculine and from the spirit. According to Buddhists your body and spirit have to marry each other. Feeling heals; thinking amplifies.

Makes you wonder about people who identify as they/them, then.

(I can hear Proud Boys banging on my door… more like, Gay Boys Game Boys ) 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Yimpa