(Chapter from the book “Open subconscious. How to influence yourself and others”)
We live in a world of emotions
Most of us live our lives in the company of emotions. Now we rejoice, now we are distressed, now we experience irritation or guilt, and so on. This is our reality.
We may openly display our emotions, using them for the expression of our feelings. Or, if our upbringing does not allow us to pour out emotions onto people around us, we heroically keep them locked away inside us. There is no pleasure in this, but who said that life is all pleasure?
In general, emotions pursue us throughout life, they are given us at birth and make our lives full and rich. On the other hand, they sometimes turn them into a nightmare if we can’t cope with them.
If they are negative and constantly recurring emotions, that is, they take place in identical (or similar) scenarios, then obviously some sort of idealization is present in your mind. That is, there is an idea, which is very important to you and whose violation elicits roughly identical recurring negative emotions.
Nevertheless , by no means all feelings are recurring in nature. In our life something keeps happening , but we don’t always react in the same way, including emotionally. And these one-off reactions can also to a large extent poison our lives, especially if one is very emotional by nature and if, amongst one’s emotions, the negative ones predominate. Is it possible to do anything about these?
Of course, it’s possible. But before we start changing anything, let’s assess the pluses and minuses of intense emotionality.
The Pluses of Emotionality
What pluses do strong emotions confer? Quite a few, the most important being – they make the life of a person richer, they allow us to experience life in all its colours. In most people, almost any thought or situation instantaneously elicits an emotional reaction. That is, the person feels that he is living a valuable life. Energy courses through your body and you are consumed by the desire to act, achieve and win.
Of course, emotions can be divided into joyful (positive) and joyless (negative) ones. For the appearance of either, certain conditions or changes in situation are necessary.
For example, you are a young and healthy young woman. You have woken up on holiday, you’ve had a good sleep, you don’t have to rush anywhere, the weather outside is beautiful. You feel good, you experience a positive emotion, which might be called joy. Joy because the world is beautiful and you feel good to be in it.
You get up and approach the mirror. And in it you see that a pimple has appeared on your cheek during the night. How ghastly!!! Where can you go to with a face like that? Only to the nearest refuse bin, and only as late as possible at night!
So what has happened? You had a non-intense positive emotion (joy) because of the beautiful circumstances (holiday, no rush, etc.). And suddenly the situation has totally changed – you’ve seen a pimple. Instantly,a strong, but already negative, emotion has arisen, which we call “horror”. Although it might be rage (at oneself, obviously). Or terror at the thought that you will have to spend the rest of your life with this pimple. Or something else equally unpleasant.
But in general, it’s possible that no emotion will arise. For example, if you don’t have to go anywhere over the next ten days. Or if in general you don’t attach importance to your appearance. Or for some other reason – you can think of your own variants.
From this, in general, one thing is clear: the external circumstances have changed and you have reacted with emotion. You are alive and you have reacted to these changes by means of emotion.
So the pluses of intense emotionality, although the latter is not always positive, are obvious – you react optimally to all events taking place and experience the “fullness” of your life (leaving on one side the effect on people around you…). Your sexuality is at its height, because sex is a powerful emotion, and it harmonizes well with your life, which is filled with powerful feelings.
Apart from that, intense emotionality gives you some advantages over other people in certain spheres of activity. There are some types of activity where intense emotionality is simply essential. For example, it is difficult to imagine oneself being a successful artiste, musician or public figure without intense emotionality. Also in business it is more often than not emotional people who succeed (one has in mind the owner of the business, not their employees).
If these people have achieved success by their own efforts, intense emotionality could have helped them – it attracts people because they unconsciously associate intense emotionality with great inner strength. And as we know, strong people can be trusted. Especially when you don’t have much confidence in yourself.
What else does intense emotionality give you? The possibility of manipulating people around you by means of vehement displays of offense, disappointment, rage and so on. If anyone has said or done something to you, you start crying or simply take offense. The person feels uncomfortable that he has caused you distress. And he tries to assuage his guilt, at times going against his own self-interest or common sense.
This manipulative device is easily acquired in childhood, and certain adults (predominantly women) then use it throughout their lives. Such manipulations do a lot of harm in relationships between people in personal life and at work. For this reason, in some present-day companies, “emotional manipulation is forbidden” is simply one of the Regulations of corporate culture.
In general, intense emotionality clearly has advantages, and is sometimes simply essential.
Now we’ll talk about the minuses of intense emotionality.
The minuses of intense emotionality
Let’s suppose that you are a highly emotional person and react very sensitively to everything happening around you. On television you have heard that the latest cyclone has cost the lives of three thousand people and your heart beats faster in sympathy with the victims. Your child has not come back from school at the expected time and your heart is pounding with fear – has something bad happened to him? A girl-friend has rung to tell you that she’s seen you husband in a restaurant with another woman, and you’re overwhelmed with jealousy, and so on.
In general, life is in full flow and you experience every one of its vagaries, however insignificant. What can be bad about that? As it turns out, quite a lot.
To start with, powerful feelings are extremely detrimental to your health. Every strong emotion elicits an involuntary contraction of certain muscles of your body, they affect internal organs, which also begin to produce intense reactions (heart palpitations, trembling of hands, catching your breath). Naturally, this leads to the premature wearing out of organs of the body and shortening of life-span.
Highly emotional people usually die younger than those who deal more calmly with events happening in their lives. Their lives are bright but short.
Secondly, under the influence of strong emotion you may completely lose control of situations (switch off your Reason) and carry out actions which you will regret long after (that is, once again experience negative emotions).
If your emotional reaction is negative, you may insult your nearest and dearest, argue with authorities or friends, and so on. Sometimes, in general, it is impossible to rectify such actions (for example, if the person insulted by you dies).
Thirdly, the majority of strong, negative feelings create energy-blocks in the body and interfere with the normal flow of life-forces. As a result, the second half of life will take place in conditions where the organism will not be able to provide you in the natural way with the necessary amount of energy, which you will then extort from people around you by provoking in them outbursts of rage and irritation (Energy vampirism).
Fourthly, your emotions are emanations of energy. Strong emotions are strong emanations, which affect people around you. In the end, your fears or your irritation will be conveyed to them, which can then easily put them all into a distressed state, which, by the way, will promptly confirm you view that life is crap.
In general, a not inconsiderable price is paid for a life “rich” in emotions. For this reason, many people would like to learn how to manage their emotions – hence the need for appropriate strategies.
Lack of Emotional Restraint
Below we will examine in more detail why people differ with respect to their level of emotionality. Here suffice it to say that one’s degree of emotionality is determined by actions in childhood or the influence of behaviour stereotypes observed during adulthood. That is, by those beliefs about what sort of behaviour is acceptable, which we have in one way or another registered in our Subconscious (the Department of prepared decisions).
Children construct their first attitudes themselves when they see what a big fuss their parents make (likewise girls with grandmothers) when they cry. The child quickly draws the conclusion : “The more often and the more loudly I cry, the quicker these ridiculous adults will bring me what I want. My emotions are the instrument I use to control them”.
This attitude is registered in the Subconscious, and the person “carries” it with him into adulthood.
Most people, in the process of growing up, replace this attitude by another, more adequate model of adult behaviour. But some people remain at the emotional level of a child. That is, the uncontrolled and unmanaged emotionality stays with them. If something is not as they wish, immediately there are tears, hysterics, endless insults and other rudiments of the emotionally unrestrained grown-up child.
It is understandable that more “adult” people feel uncomfortable being the cause of such strong emotions and they do everything they can to stop the “grown-up child” crying. Do you need a car, darling? Here’s a Mercedes Elite-class, just don’t cry, sweetie. And so on.
Such highly emotional behaviour is called a lack of emotional restraint and those exhibiting it cause a lot of discomfort to people around them. Especially if such an emotionally unrestrained person is an authority for those people – manager, family-head, public speaker, trainer, teacher, and so on.
But do children really think about the interests of other people? If by chance they grow up, then maybe they will start to understand that they are not the only people in the world.
But if only they grow up….
Thus we can draw the provisional conclusion that our emotionality is a consequence of inner attitudes about permissible forms of behaviour. And it is possible to manage it. But this is the subject of the following chapters.
But what will happen if in general there are no emotions?
Are there people who do not respond with strong emotion to any thoughts or changes in situation? Of course there are. Who might they be?
First of all they are people who engage in various religious practices – yoga or some other religious training. It has been explained to them that if you have negative emotions , you damage your karma. Or you attract beings of a lower astral plane. Or you inflict damage on your descendants. Or you harm your soul. And so on. As a result people make the hard decision not to pass judgement on anyone or anything. And once there no judgements, there are no inner expectations, no emotional reaction to any situation. Emotions simply do not arise. More precisely, they arise, but only positive ones, and then only strictly controlled.
What about religious practices? Theoretically, they should also bring people to such a tranquil state, but it appears that something within them goes wrong. So we see religious conflict, religious fanaticism and other very intense manifestations of religion-based negative emotions. Usually only “professionals” of religious cults possess full inner control. That is, those who have devoted their lives to the service of God within the framework of their faith or spiritual training. But as is shown by reality, by no means all these people are able to “not judge” or not experience strong negative emotions.
Who else is able to avoid strong emotions? People whose mental orientation tells them that emotions merely interfere with thinking and who have therefore unconsciously repressed them (that is, they have stored in their Subconscious predispositions to behave calmly in any situation).
Usually these are people who only display a low level of instinctive behaviour (their rationality attenuates the primitive side of their nature). They usually live in countries with a high level of security, where the instincts are not called into play, for example, the native inhabitants of countries in Western Europe. There are such rational and calm people in other countries, but they are met with much more rarely.
Who succeeds in life?
An interesting question to ask is: on the whole, who are more successful – emotional or rational people?
The answer depends on which sphere of life the person is acting in.
In love, sex and relationships emotional people always more successful. They are intimate, easily understood, open and predictable. Hence they win in situations where their success depends on the opinion of several people, or even of a crowd. That is, people such as artistes, teachers, trainers, public figures and politicians in civilized countries which have genuine elections. There the politician has to be “one of us”, if he wants the crowd to elect him. It is for precisely this reason that former artistes sometimes get into power.
With regard to business, crime, power or politics in very primitive countries, where the masses unthinkingly choose and only listen to a strong leader: in these areas high emotionality is inadvisable. Even if privately one may hate or love someone, on the outside one has to show, at the very least, total impassivity. The ability to take blows and not react to any attacks shows immense inner strength. But if a person’s immediate reaction to external attacks is emotional, that means that his energy is being continuously wasted on inner emotion, and nothing remains of it for the exercise of his duties. He is weak, he is not a leader.
So people who have got their emotions completely under control are more often than not to be found in their magnificent offices or detached houses, whereas nervous and emotional people usually get together after a hard day’s work in pubs or council flats, where they loudly and emotionally exchange opinions about the vileness of human existence.
Of course, it’s not quite as straightforward as that, but, on the whole, it takes away from us a lot of strength which could be channelled into the achievement of real success.
Here it is possible to add a few words about the eternal problem of choosing a partner to make a family, of particular relevance for single women.
What man is it possible to dream about?
Following on from the above, one might mention that girls who dream about a “strong, powerful (he has to be a real Man!), successful, tender and loving man” are demanding the impossible from the Universe. One can imagine the Universe scratching his head and racking his brains how to satisfy these logically impossible demands. Any man can be loving, but “strong, powerful, successful” and “tender” are just nonsensical, mutually exclusive demands. In most cases, naturally. There are exceptions.
The instinct to preserve the family line attracts women to men who are successful in their career or in business, true Alpha Males, but they experience bitter disappointment when they meet big obstacles to their desire for tenderness and sensitivity. And the men are perplexed – it seems they have provided her with everything she could dream of, and yet she dissatisfied. What does she need? Evidently, to be spoilt.
Anecdote from men on the theme*
A new Russian very rich man has caught a Golden fish*. The fish has begged:
– Let me go and I will fulfil any of your desires.
– I myself will satisfy any of your desires, if I want to. But I don’t want to let you go.
– Have mercy on me, let me go, please. I’ll do anything you want.
– Well, OK, so be it. Build me a straight asphalt road from your house on Rublyovka to your villa on the Canary Islands.
– Listen, how much cement, asphalt and other building materials will that take? Can you ask me for something simpler?
– I see, you are weak, Golden fish. Well, OK, today I am kind, I’ll give you one more chance. Explain to me the following fact: I’ve been married three times and every time the same thing happens. I find a beautiful girl, marry her, give her everything she desires. And to begin with she is happy, but then she begins to get on my nerves – you don’t love me, you don’t understand me , you don’t appreciate me, and so on. How is it I don’t value her if she’s walking round replete with diamonds? And then it gets to the point where we have to divorce. Explain to me why they all behave like that?
– You know what, give me the addresses of your house on the Rublyovka and your villa in the Canaries.
But she needs emotional warmth, sensitivity, tenderness, for which there is no room in a successful man immersed in his endless duties. All these qualities can be found in abundance in weak and unsuccessful men, for whom it is not necessary to economize on energy or steal themselves against attacks, because they are not focused on a career or business.
But female instinct does not consider them worthy of love, insofar as it considers that they will not be able to feed the female’s offspring. It would appear that this is a form of a atavism, a vestige of a distant and hungry past, from whose influence we cannot escape in real life.
Of course, to every rule there is an exception. For example, a successful artiste can more than sensitive and tender, but in that case obviously there will be serious problems with loyalty – again the influence of instinct will play a part. Or a successful businessman might be warm-hearted – when his business has achieved success and he no longer has to strive after new goals. Of course, he’ll only be like that until the next crisis, and , then, there’s no room for sentimentality, you just have to survive.
As matter of fact, he continues to remain emotional, but all of the energy produced by his organism is devoted solely to the achievement of success, instead of being wasted on different forms of sentimentality. Until the circumstances are again favourable. And then the Subconscious will once again be able to direct part of organism’s life forces towards emotional manifestations.
Thus it is possible to draw the conclusion that uncontrolled emotionality helps to achieve success only in limited spheres of life, where personal relations are important.
Managed emotionality, where energy is channeled exclusively towards a single goal which is vital for the person, allows one to achieve success in all other spheres of life.
Who has the best life?
So who in the end has the best life – emotional or rational people? There is no simple answer to this question.
In their lives, emotional people continually experience the whole spectrum of emotions. If their emotions are taken away, maybe there’s absolutely nothing left. Their lives become so empty and insipid, they may as well lie down and die, especially if, apart from their emotions, they have no goals or achievements in their lives.
Rational people live more calmly. For them emotional confusion and loss of control over situations are quite unnecessary. They look with easy contempt at those lively two-legged creatures who are carried hither and thither by their emotions and are unable to do anything about them.
Probably a more correct variant is when there is emotionality, but it’s managed. You experience emotions, but when they begin to take control and overwhelm you, you easily suppress them using will-power or some other means. In that case life seems to be bright and rich, and powerful emotions do not lead to undesirable negative consequences.
Is it possible to achieve this state? To understand this, we first of all have to understand what emotion is in itself, how it arises and how it is possible to influence it.
A calm state is natural.
But to begin with , we need to agree on what state is the most natural, primary* and normal for any human being. In later discussions we will conclude that for most people “normal”, “optimal” or “natural” means a calm or balanced state. So to enhance its viability, the organism continually strives to achieve this state of calmness. But very often people who have adopted certain highly emotional models of behaviour no longer give their organism time to relax. For them it seems boring, uninteresting and ineffective. They are dependent on the drug of emotion and seek it over and over again.
But, whatever emotions you might have experienced, after a certain time, you will be forced to calm down and recover your strength. And then once again you can throw yourself into the world of emotions. Remember: however strong your emotion might be, sooner or later it will exhaust itself and you will enter a state of calmness, if only to get a good night’s sleep and get your strength back. And then the next morning you can once again hurl yourself into the battle to change humanity* – or yourself, if you are struggling with yourself.
Now, having agreed on a more precise idea of “primary”, we can proceed to a discussion of emotions.
What is emotion?
From the arguments adduced above it follows that emotion is the reaction of the organism in response to the comparison of reality with its expectations. What sort of reaction is it? Evidently, energetic insofar as the emotion can give us a charge of energy – think of your states of joy or rage. But it can put us in a low-energy, demoralized state, to which guilt or fear can lead.
So it is possible define emotion more precisely.
Emotion is the energetic reaction of an organism in response to the comparison of reality with its expectations.
All the discussions below will be based on this definition.
In fact, there is nothing new in this definition. In the Wikipedia article about emotions the definition is roughly the same: “Emotion is a mental process of impulsive regulation of behaviour, based on a perceptible reflection of the need-related significance of external influences, their favourableness or harmfulness for the vital activity of the individual”.
Complicated, but in science that’s how you are supposed to explain things, such are the rules of the game.
What do emotions do?
What does the phenomenon of emotion lead to? To a change in our energy-state. We were calm, then rage arose as a result of the failure of reality to coincide with our expectations, and we crossed over into a high-energy, aggressive state, in which we are prepared to give someone a punch in the mouth. If Reason fails to control your behaviour (as is normal with very primitive people), then, without thinking much about the consequences, that’s precisely what you do. And then you spend a long time suffering the consequences of your uncontrolled behaviour, usually accompanied by other emotions.
That is, emotion leads a person from one energy-state to another.
Hence we can define emotion more precisely: Emotion is the reaction of the organism in response to the comparison of reality with its expectations, changing the energy-state of the person.
You were joyful and cheerful, and suddenly you receive news of the death of someone close – you instantaneously cross over into low-energy, dispirited state. And vice versa. You are living in a low-energy-state in the expectation of bad diagnosis of your illness. The diagnosis arrives explaining that you are nearly back to full health. As a result you instantaneously cross over into an excited, joyful state. And so on.
Positive and negative emotions
People divide emotions into positive and negative. How are they distinguished, given that we consider emotion as a process of energetic reaction by the organism to a comparison of reality with its expectations of it?
The answer here is obvious.
If as a result of the comparison it has turned out that reality coincides with our expectations, or even exceeds them, then we will have a positive emotion, which will induce in us an excited state, that is, will elicit joy, pleasure, rapture or something equally pleasant.
In the just cited example, you were waiting for the results of a diagnostic, in your heart hoping that you haven’t got an untreated illness. The diagnosis has coincided with your expectations and it only remains for you to rejoice at the fact.
If as a result of the comparison it appears that reality is not at all as we want it to be, we will experience a negative emotion, which also induces another energy-level, of which there will be several possible variants.
We switch to different energy-levels
For example, if the comparison of our expectations has revealed divergences from reality, but we assume that we can do something to influence the situation, the organism switches to a heightened energy-state. That is, we feel irritation, rage, malice or something similar. And when do we think that we can change the situation? When we can gain access to the “offending” subject with our hands (feet, voice) and do something to him i.e. swear, beat, force him to change – so that he will conform to our expectations.
But who in our immediate circle can we easily gain access to? That is, which people are most likely to elicit in us a high-energy state? Obviously, our children, husbands (or wives), parents, friends, fellow-workers.
In general, we are not so different from cavemen. They would probably also act like that – if they didn’t like something, they’d just lash out.
If reality does not coincide with our expectations, but we understand that we can’t do anything about it, then we choose an emotion which induces a low-energy state. That is, we lapse into despondency, guilt, depression and so on.
Evidently, we unconsciously choose such a low-energy solution in order to avoid useless expenditure of our strength – since we can’t change anything anyway. That is, our life-energy conservation system, for which, if you still remember, the Unconscious is responsible, is immediately switched on.
It switches to low-energy mode, when we encounter what is for us a virtual reality – we see calamities on television or read about something bad in the newspapers, over which we have absolutely no control.
Or when something bad happens to people in our immediate circle, and again we can’t do anything about it – for example, a close relative is seriously ill or even dies – since we can’t change the situation, we unconsciously choose a defensive low-energy state.
Since low-energy states never bring joy or delight, we classify them as negative. But, evidently, they are not negative, but defensive. In these states, the person’s energy is restored, that is, the capacity for strong emotion is removed. What’s the point of wasting energy to no purpose if we can’t change anything? Better to conserve energy for the future, when you will be distracted from the present situations, which you assess as tragic, and will begin to base your life on other interests. A very sound logic, which ensures the survival of people with strong emotions.
Let’s look at a pretty picture
Insofar as this book is called a training, we are fully entitled to clog it up with various graphs, tables and other subtleties, which send most people straight to sleep.
But once you’ve started reading, put up with them. Or leave them out. Or, even better, watch and use.
So then, the whole process of the emergence of emotions can be represented in the kind of schema introduced below.
By means of it everything becomes clear. You start out with your unrealized expectations. And suddenly something momentous happens. A pimple appears on your nose. Or a car overtakes you. Or by chance your favourite man does not take hold of your waist. Or it occurs to you that in forty years you’ll be approaching old age and then you’ll have to die. And so on.
In general, something has taken place. We have denoted this with the scientific word “fact” (please don’t confuse it with a similar-sounding American word).
Your Subconscious has instantly compared it with your expectations regarding this event.
Further on, the diagram bifurcates.
For example, if after the comparison it has been revealed that you really do have a pimple, but it has also confirmed that you don’t have AIDS, but just a cold, then your expectations to remain healthy are thereby confirmed. Hurrah!
When this is the result of the comparison, we move along the top line of the schema labeled “Yes”. Our energy level has shot up, our emotion is one of extreme joy, so we laugh loudly. Let’s have more of these wonderful pimples!
Now let’s consider another variant. You haven’t had any suspicions about having AIDS, but you are anticipating your first date this evening – for which you have to arrive looking perfect, otherwise your favourite man will run off with someone more beautiful.
Have your expectations to be dazzlingly beautiful this evening and the FACT of the appearance of the pimple coincided? Of course not, so we go down to the arrow labeled “NO”.
Perhaps salvation is still possible? The circle labelled “Can I correct this?” indicates precisely this.
Your Subconscious instantly looks for an exit from this situation.
If it finds an exit, then, evidently, you will move along the middle row labeled “Yes”. In the sense that there is still something which could improve the situation.
Insofar as your Subconscious has concluded that it can correct the situation, it switches on a high-energy state for you. As quickly as possible this will become not rage, but irritation – at Life, fate, climate, the three cakes you ate in the evening and at yourself because you could have made do with two. In other words, as life always is. There’s no one to vent your anger on, so the high-energy state will just help you to chuck out the cosmetics in an attempts to salvage the situation.
If as a result of a second comparison your Subconscious comes to the conclusion that nothing can save you from humiliation , then it will humanely take away your energy so that you don’t damage yourself. You will lapse into a feeling of hopelessness and doom that you will live the rest of your life alone, covered in pimples and hiding from people in a dense forest. But what else can be done when faced with such a dreadful physical defect?
This will be movement along the third, lowest branch of the schema.
Commentary on the topic
In historical chronicles about various commanders, the same story is always told: when selecting warriors, they insulted them and watched how the colour of the candidate’s face changed. If it went red, he was accepted ; if it went pale, he was rejected. Why?
If we go back to the schema for the origin of emotion, everything becomes clear. Present in every person is a collection of attitudes to behaviour in a given situation.
If on being insulted, the candidate became enraged, that is, the process of the reaction went along the middle branch – in his striving for revenge, his energy level was raised, and he was accepted.
If the insult caused him to go pale, that means that his Subconscious has selected the bottom branch* and the lowered energy-state. That means that in a difficult situation, he will hold back, which is undesirable in war.
This is a roughly simplified model of the origin of emotion. We’ll be returning to it more than once, but in the meantime we’ll continue with our discussion.
Why these transitions?
Why has Nature (the Almighty, Evolution or whoever) invented these very emotional transitions to different energy-states. It turns out that they have many advantages.
Firstly, they are a means of relating to other people, of communication and feedback. When you are praised, you are overjoyed and show it. When you are sworn at, you are frightened and it is immediately visible. And so on.
But imagine the life of people without emotion. Swearing at them has no effect whatsoever. They are unaffected by praise. A world of perfect Schwarzeneggers. You can never guess what they’re going to do in the next second, because it’s impossible to read from their body-language what they are feeling; or, more precisely, what conclusion their inner calculator is coming to, given that they really don’t feel anything. Or even more precisely, they do actually experience something, but it is a permanent state which does not depend on external circumstances.
Secondly, it is a means of mobilizing energy resources in response to a change in situation. You were relaxed (low-energy state). Now something has happened and you have to mobilize yourself to make the appropriate response to what has happened.
This is already more similar to the acting out of our survival instinct. You are walking down the street late in the evening, you hear some sort of strange sound. Your body contracts (focuses) from fright, and you become ready for actions appropriate to the new circumstances.
Thirdly, it is a means of mobilizing energy resources to transform the situation into a variant desired by you.
What does this mean?
Recall that earlier we defined emotion as the energetic reaction of the organism in response to the comparison of reality with one’s expectations.
Here, on the other hand, emotion can be considered as a mechanism for the concentration of energy to enable you to change reality so that it corresponds to your expectations.
For example, you have got up in the morning and made breakfast for your child. He also should have got up long since, but continues to lounge about in bed. Reality: the child is in bed, which obviously diverges from your expectations that he gets up, washes, gets dressed and sits down at the table.
What do you do: irritation wells up inside you and you make a transition to another energy-level, with the result that you bellow “How much longer do I have to wait for you?” The child, sensing that you are on the war-path and that cruel sanctions might ensue, instantly jumps out of bed and within three minutes is seated at the table.
What if emotion (irritation) had not taken you to a new energy-level and you had asked: “How much longer do I have to wait for you?” in a calmer voice? The immediate effect would be that you’d have to wait a long time.
This means that the emerging emotion enabled you to restore “justice” and make reality conform to your expectations.
Unfortunately, it by no means always happens like that. A child doesn’t always do well at school when his parents tell him off. Perhaps he gets scared when his parents immediately fly into a rage on seeing his diary, but it’s not true that fear will help him to study effectively – fear can act as a powerful brake on effort (lower branch of schema) and problems with his studies can be made worse.
The boss will not stop finding fault with you, even if in a rage you tell him to go to hell. And your drunken husband will not stop drinking, even if you fly into a rage over it. Although rage can be really frightening, he might just go drinking somewhere else. He drinks because you are trying to change him, but he hasn’t got enough strength to change as you want him to.
Energy accumulates
Above we examined examples where emotion brought about a higher energy-level from which one tried to “restore justice” in one’s variant. But, as we’ve already shown, this by no means always happens.
In addition to external resistances, there exists a mechanism of internal inhibition of manifestations of emotions – not of the emergence, but of the display of emotions.
In childhood we’ve all received some sort of upbringing, that is, it’s been explained to us how it’s possible to behave in certain situations. For example, it’s been explained to all of us in childhood that you have to respect “old people”. That is, under no circumstances should you open your mouth and pour out onto old people those thoughts and emotions that arise in you when older people do things which you wouldn’t expect of them.
A certain number of young people acquire this rule of behaviour in their social circle. So when old people interfere unceremoniously in their lives, they remain silent. But as a result, they experience negative emotions and switch to a high energy level, from which they would be able to defend their interests. But insofar as their upbringing does not allow them to do this, the energy of irritation and rage remains trapped in their body – they have consciously refrained from using the mechanism which discharges “surplus” energy from the body.
This is only one example, and indeed there exists a multitude of variants where we do not allow ourselves to carry out an action affecting another person. We suppress the manifestation of negative emotions which might affect people who are dear to us, children, parents, friends, bosses, people in authority. Not always, of course, but as a rule we do. The better a person has been brought up, the more attitudes he has in his Subconscious which limit his ability to carry out actions which display his real emotions. Although the organism has already been stimulated and has provided you with the possibility of “responding in kind” or “restoring justice” as judged from your perspective, you do not use this energy.
As a result it is trapped in the body, where it accumulates.
By the way, from this it becomes clear why negative emotions are more harmful than positive ones.
In our society it is considered unpleasant to suppress positive emotions. If you find something funny, you laugh, and this is permissible almost anywhere, apart from certain very solemn places. That is, having appeared in your body, the energy is quickly discharged through action. Even you don’t laugh aloud, the suppressed fits of laughter will shake your body – this is also an action, which releases the energy.
But what about negative emotions? There are a huge number of restrictions placed on the manifestation of negative emotions, so these energies are “trapped” in the body for a significantly longer period of time. And, correspondingly, this creates significantly more problems in the body.
How do energy blocks arise?
By the way, this model shows that energy (or emotional) blocks are created in our bodies.
Suppose that you have frequently* felt a surge of irritation over someone – husband, wife, parents, child or boss.
By means of a program working independently of your consciousness, your organism has entered into a high-energy state – in order to change reality so that it conforms to your expectations. That is, to shout or swear at the person concerned and thereby call him to order.
Possibly you did not shout or swear forcefully enough. Or you are filled with indignation – you are after all well-brought up person. So you haven’t discharged the energy into the outside world; instead it’s churning around in your body. Your hands are trembling, you can’t speak, your thoughts are confused.
People around you advise you: “Stop worrying, it’s all nonsense. Calm down!” You agree with them and also persuade yourself “I’m calming down”.
Your Subconscious registers this command and urgently starts to remove superfluous energy from the body. However, it’s impossible to throw out the energy – it’s not like expelling water. You don’t succeed in expending the energy on some activity; in fact you don’t do anything. It only remains for you to gather it (energy) into a “bundle” and shove it somewhere else – into your stomach, for example, or into the liver, or into the small of the back,or wherever there’s still some free space.
As a result, the aroused energy forms itself into a kind of energy clot which is deposited somewhere in the body.
Moreover, it is not simply a neutral energy clot which can be used for any purpose. No, it is an energy clot purposively loaded (more precisely, not unloaded) onto a concrete person or situation. It is simply hidden and waiting for the “enemy” to appear again, and in the end it (the clot) will find its proper use.
That is, it would appear that the energy blocks deposited in our bodies are merely ready and waiting for the situation to repeat. And they are always ready for action, and very quickly provoke us to outbursts of aggression corresponding to their function. That is, you exhibit an inappropriately rapid reaction to a person (situation, object), with whom you have previously been in emotionally strained situations where you have not released the energy block.
Here your organism does not have to exert itself to take you to a high energy level. The Subconscious simply activates the necessary clot, which is then deployed, and you’re fully prepared for battle. This is very economical – no new resources are needed to deal with the old enemy, are they? Everything necessary is ready at hand.
It is necessary to note that for the automatic transition to readiness for battle, the organism does not always require the presence of the enemy itself, but only one or two signs of it. For example, you can feel irritation or fear merely as a result of seeing someone similar to your enemy, or hearing a similar voice, or seeing clothes similar to those worn by him, and so on.
In the very distant past, when people solved problems by using force, a mere fleeting glimpse of a grey patch in the middle of foliage would be enough for a man to know that a wolf was hiding behind it, as a result of which he would pass into a state of complete readiness to repel an attack.
This ability to react, not to the whole image of the enemy, but merely to a sign of it, has remained with us to the present day. But there’s no point getting worked up about it, because so far no one has so far changed the program of the “inner computer” for the storing of energy for use in case of outside aggression.
Against whom is energy stored?
In the preceding sections, we’ve talked constantly about people who provoke strong negative emotions in us. But, in fact, it’s not just people who can irritate us!
We can get irritated because the buses or trains don’t run on time. What’s happening here? Inside us an energy-block is created, which is directed against buses or trains.
You’re forced to fill out a lot of silly forms in the tax inspectorate or some other office, which usually gets you extremely irritated, doesn’t it?
Congratulations, there’s a substantial energy-block in your body, which is directed against that office.
Your neighbour’s dog, which barks at awkward times and disturbs your sleep. won’t let up? It’s easy to find an “energy-clot” in your body which is ready to help you deal with this malicious creature.
You’ve been stung by mosquitoes, you’ve already killed a couple of million, but the remaining five billion are poisoning your life? Rest assured that there’s a sizeable energy-block in your body , which is directed against these aggressors.
And, finally, your car has been getting to you for a long time because it keeps on stalling or failing to start? And you feel irritation or fear whenever you go near it? It’s not you, but your energy block which is triggering new emotions in you.
And then there are lousy drivers, nasty employees at the traffic inspectorate, ghastly politicians or authority figures, faceless managers in your company, and many others, who, whether often or not, arouse your displeasure. And create the next energy-block in your body.
We’re crammed up to the ears
A vivid way of representing this is to say that each energy-block is a stone which we have thrown into our body. The more things we are anxious about, the more stones there are in the body. If we have an idealization and we are anxious about recurring issues, then there will be less stones, but they’ll be bigger. In fact, they won’t be stones anymore, but real boulders. Or even whole rocks.
Sometimes women come to psychologists complaining that their husbands irritate them dreadfully. To the question: “What precisely irritates you about your husband?” quite often the answer is: “EVERYTHING!”
What does this tell us? That an energy-block has accumulated in the woman’s body which puts her into a state of battle readiness at the merest hint of her husband appearing. That is our reality.
Moreover these blocks live an independent life inside us and do not diminish with time. And new blocks simply pile up on them, earlier blocks persisting beneath them.
All this is accomplished by the “anxiety accumulator” discussed in books [1 -10]. The more emotional pollution we have inside us, the less effectively we can pursue our goals.
Because the flows of our life-forces carrying energy to the cells of the body leak out through the energy blocks inside us.
When there are too many of these “energy-stones”, the flows of our life-forces completely dry up in certain places. As a result, our hands and feet get cold and we lose strength. The heart is overloaded and blood-pressure is increased – to enable the flows of life-energy to break through the obstructions formed by the energy-blocks, which are alien to the body.
We don’t have the energy to move towards goals.
The latest research has established that the majority of allergies and dermatological conditions are emotional in origin. If a huge emotional block, linked to some situation, has formed in the body, then it manifests itself as an allergy. Remove the block, and the allergy disappears without any medication. A new term has even been invented to denote this phenomenon – Emoallergy.
A pretty picture, isn’t it?
And it’s all our doing. Homo Sapiens, rational man.
And what about positive emotions?
Incidentally, what’s the situation with crushed positive emotions? Do they also create blocks in us or not?
If you remember, we showed earlier that positive emotions arise when reality coincides with or exceeds our expectations. In that case we enter an excited state characterized by joy, bliss, ecstasy and so on. More precisely, it can’t get better.
And what happens when we watch a comedy? We have the expectation that it will be funny. If we really find the film funny, we laugh with joy. If we evaluate it as boring and moronic, we react negatively.
But what happens if someone who is not a clown or a comic behaves comically and in relation to whom we do not have similar expectations? For example, you’ve arrived for a lecture at your college, but your old professor has fastened his jacket onto one of his fly buttons and hasn’t noticed. How will you react?
That will depend on the level of your upbringing, kind-heartedness and other mental qualities. That is, on a set of inner attitudes.
If you are a person with a delicate, spiritual nature, then you will suffer from the impossibility of doing anything to rectify the absurd situation. That is, you will lapse into a dispirited, low-energy state.
Most of the others, heartless, unfeeling students, will laugh, whether surreptiously or aloud. That is, they’ll be glad.
Why? Clearly, they had no expectation that the professor would do anything amusing. Or did they?
Probably, it can be assumed that most people, especially the young, will presuppose by default that the other people are half-wits and moral degenerates, but just hiding their peculiarities.
And here, suddenly, these expectations have been confirmed! Great, at last we can laugh out loud to our hearts’ content.
That is, from the laughter in such an awkward situation one can diagnose what the people who are laughing and enjoying themselves the most think about the people around them.
This means that the presupposition that positive emotions arise when expectations coincide with reality can be considered correct.
But what happens if a strong desire to laugh has arisen, but it’s out of the question to give into it ? Because the same professor with the trouser flies is touchy and vindictive, or is also academic vice-chancellor of your college. You will understand that in general such a person can leave his flies undone without anyone even smiling.
But where does the positive energy which has arisen in your body go to? You’re obviously not going to laugh out loud and get yourself thrown out of college? You’ll keep your mouth closed, put on a serious face and suppress your laughter. That is, you will “condense” your “surplus” energy and deposit it in your body in the form of the next energy-block – a “stone” directed at the unfortunate professor – now everything will make you laugh at him – his hairstyle, his voice, his walk and everything else about him.
Of course, it’ll be possible to discharge these emotions (energy of the “stone”) after the lecture in a safe place. That is, in the company of students on the same course, recall the situation and guffaw loudly, before the “charge” runs out. Most people behave like this.
If there is no possibility of laughter, the unused joyful energy will create in your body the next block, which it is vital to get rid of, insofar as it will create problems as serious those caused by blocks from unvented rage or irritation.. For example, it can cause you to laugh in the most inappropriate places.
We will examine various methods for getting rid of accumulated energy-blocks in the seventh chapter.
Let’s talk about women
A bit earlier on in this chapter I cited a typical male anecdote about women, whose behaviour is beyond men’s comprehension. Many theories have been put forward to explain these differences between men and women, including the theory that men come from Mars and women from Venus.
Is it actually so in reality? And can we have any influence on these differences? Let’s explore the reasons for these differences from the point of view of the energy approach proposed above.
As usual, let’s look for the roots of these differences in the distant past . Let’s go back 500 or even 1000 years. What was the situation then as regards the emotionality of men and women?
Most peasants and workers were poor and barely surviving. Families were big, men had to labour hard to maintain the family. Women were equally burdened – the running of the household fell mainly on their shoulders.
Could these people afford to experience intense emotions, for which a lot of strength required? Hardly. fell mainly on their shoulders.
Could these people afford to experience intense emotions, for which a lot of strength required? Hardly. Perhaps in their youth, before they were overwhelmed by the burden of caring for children.
Men were focused and to a large extent self-sufficient, it was not done to rely on external help. It was not the custom to be strongly emotional – that would reduce one’s capacity for survival.
Who in those times could give themselves to intense emotions? Of course, rich people, who didn’t have to worry about where their next meal was coming from.
More precisely, men remained reserved and austere, with no inclination to sentimentality, whereas women, not having any sphere of application for their strengths apart from procreation and the subsequent nurturing of the children, had a large store of inner energy , which they could channel into emotions. They had to fill their rather aimless lives with something. And men actually welcomed female emotionality – they unconsciously sensed that emotional creatures were weak and needed protection.
In addition, highly emotional women were (and are) very sexual, insofar as they allowed themselves to experience very intense feelings in the amorous and sexual phase of a relationship. So emotionally reserved men were always attracted to the possibility of “warming” themselves by the flame of the passionate love of a woman.
That is, women from well-to-do families could allow themselves to be emotional – which was an additional attraction for the men. The complex of their inner attitudes can be formulated roughly as follows: sensitive, emotional, reacting easily and with intensity to situations, sexual (in youth naturally), demanding protection and support.
Men could not allow themselves to have a similar set of behavioural attitudes in society, because being emotionally reserved was a symbol of masculinity. The set of inner male attitudes defining their mode of behaviour can be expressed using the following phrases: emotionally reserved, strong, courageous, energetic, sexual, ready to provide help in the form physical protection.
Women, naturally, wanted more feelings from men, but this, understandably, brought with it complications.
Insofar as the conditions of life did not allow women to break off unsatisfactory relationships, they were susceptible to additional sufferings. Mental, of course, since questions about what they should eat or where they should sleep were by default the responsibility of the men.
Many of the art works of the past have had as their subject the misunderstood (by men of course) subtle, emotional sufferings of women.
The centuries passed and the 19th century with its mass production started. The standard of living rose sharply and it now became possible for women to take care of themselves or their children on their own. Especially as, thanks to the invention of contraception, they were no longer condemned to endless procreation.
The external situation has changed radically, but inner attitudes, defining a model of behaviour, have remained largely unchanged. Not everywhere, of course, but only in countries with a high standard of living.
The position of men has not changed at all – the strong man has to be reserved and always ready to defend his interests. The strong man cannot waste his strength on empty emotions. What’s our situation now after another century has passed?
The standard of living is such that any educated men or women can provide themselves with an income, which enable them to live without any particular problems.
In this situation, women have held on to the inner program which allows them to be highly emotional; that is, allow themselves intense , emotional overloads on any issue. That is, experience strong emotions. Or, in other words, be emotionally unrestrained. For example, be a bitch – rational and reserved men are unconsciously attracted to such women.
Where do we get the energy for feelings?
Any feeling, whether expressed or suppressed and maintained in the form of the next emotional block, uses up a fairly large amount of life-energy, which the organism usually extracts from food and air, as well as from media in its environment.
At a time of strong emotion the organism gathers together all of its resources in order to reach a higher energy-level – for the “restoration of justice”, it goes without saying. But it’s not done to economise on energy when dealing with such a sacred matter.
If something has been brutally seized from you, what is left? An emptiness which you want to fill as quickly as possible, so that you can once again experience strong emotions.
Where do we get our energy from after experiencing a strong emotion? Through sleep? Or beginning to breathe deeply (have you noticed that many people do this unconsciously at a time of conflict?)? It’s a long drawn out affair, but an organism awash with emotion is hardly going to fall asleep.
This means that one has to look for energy near at hand. For example, with your husband, who has not yet squandered his life energy (Hurrah, there’s still someone you can turn to!).
To start with, the woman approaches him amicably. Show some sympathy, she says, put yourself in my position. Show a bit of sensitivity, dear, it’s tough for me.
Such are the reasonings of women about the importance of support, mutual understanding, sharing of feelings and other matters, all of which validate the view that voluntary energy donation is essential. Nevertheless, dim-witted men usually fail to see any real difficulties which might require their assistance. So they are often not ready to “put themselves in her position” or volunteer as energy-donors to women who have been debilitated by emotion.
Thus the woman, confronted with the fact that the man next to her does not share her expectations of voluntary support at a “difficult time” enters into a highly excited state (using the remnants of her energy!!!), in which she can attempt to “restore justice”.
You don’t want to show sensitivity and understanding in a friendly manner, so it will be necessary to adopt harsher measures. Because the organism demands urgent restorative justice.
The provoked woman starts telling the man what she thinks of him, whilst treading on his sensitive areas (idealizations). Sooner or later he’ll explode and divest himself of his “surplus” energy.
Part of which will be transferred to the woman, who is now calming down.
Of course, this is a very simplified model of the mechanism of the energy interaction between some men and women.
Why is this only typical of some men and women? Because these interactions only take place in a milieu where women are guided in their behaviour by attitudes which approve of women being emotional and men being obliged to support them in difficult moments.
Are there such attitudes amongst women living in countries of the East with a strong model of male domination? In the poor and uneducated strata of the population, naturally not.. A woman might be unhappy about the emotional reserve of the man, but she’s hardly going to allow herself to make a scene on the matter of his “insensitivity”.
Are there similar attitudes amongst women living in completely emancipated , developed countries where they have won equal rights with men?
Hardly, because along with men’s rights they have accepted the masculine ideal of emotionally reserved behaviour.
And only in countries where the standard of living is already high and women have enough freedom, but have not yet adopted the “equal rights” model of behaviour, does the division of men and women into Martians and Venusians take place.
It’s precisely in these countries that women , unconsciously influenced by attitudes from the past (more precisely, the instinct to continue the family line), continue to seek the “strong male”. From whom they can then allow themselves to shamelessly demand non-masculine behaviour.
As a matter of fact, in one and the same country there can be men and women who live their lives according to different models of behaviour. In the poor strata of the population women are more reliant on masculine strength and do not allow themselves expressions of intense emotion.
In the more well-to-do strata, men and women interact as if they were Martians and Venusians respectively.
And in the even more affluent strata, women begin to dominate and it doesn’t occur to them to demand support and attention from the man. They’re in a position to support anyone in whatever way is needed.
It turns out that these are different sets of inner attitudes which are to be found inside us, change under the action of external circumstances and can be consciously modified.
But this is a topic of later chapters.
But now it’s time to summarise the results of our deliberations so far :
Results
- If the result of the comparison is that it doesn’t, then we experience negative emotion.
- If the result of the comparison is that reality coincides with our expectations or even exceeds them, then we experience positive emotion.
- Analyzing those processes which accompany manifestations of emotion, one can come to the conclusion that any emotion is an energetic reaction of the organism in response to the comparison of reality with its expectations, changing the energy-state of the person.
- For most people “normal”, “optimal” or natural means a calm or balanced state.
- People can be more or less emotional. High emotionality allows you to succeed in such walks of life as show business, art, education, politics, public works, business management. People with low emotionality succeed when their work involves science, analysis, finance, manufacturing.
- Most people experience emotions, which make their lives richer and more exciting.
- In the lives of people, emotions have three functions, namely, that of:
- interaction, communication and feed-back
- mobilizing energy-resources in response to a change in the situation.
- mobilizing energy-resources to transform a situation into a desirable variant.
- The energy-impulse arising as a result of the emotion should be removed from the person’s body by carrying out actions requiring real exertions.
- If such an action is not carried out, then surplus energy is built up and deposited in the person’s body in a kind of “energy-clot”, impeding natural energy-flows.
- Every energy-block remains directed [literally:”charged on”] at that situation, as a result of which it has appeared. Correspondingly, it will continually provoke the recurrence of that situation.
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