Damping down emotions. How?

[lorry]

Say your punished for expressing emotions. So you adapt by damping down your emotions. How do you do this?

 

Emotions are outside of our immediate volitional control. They are experienced as primary, as arising from nowhere, eh? But they arise as a function of environment information filtered through our values. You see a wolf (or an abuser), you experience fear as a function of the information: this thing is a danger. A danger to what? To my life (that which I value).

So you dampen down your emotions..... by working on your values? So as to not experience emotions, say because you are punished for it, as the emotional response is outside of your immediate volition, you work on your values? Negate or invert them?

Like, if you are punished for exhibiting fear when seeing an abuser, you can't stop the fear (outside of volition), but you can corrupt, invert, and destroy your values (that through which your environmental information is filtered to produce emotion).

Ex: I see an abuser, who is a danger to my life, so I experience fear (and other appropiate emotions) because I value my life. So if I work on my values, so that I do not value my life, then when I see an abuser, irregardless of the fact that the abuser is still a danger to my life, I will not experience fear because I no longer value my life.

Does that make sense to anyone else?

 

I think that is why therapy can, supposedly, be replaced with a supreme moral effort (Jung). Or that therapy mainly involves mainly involves the identification of an objective ethic (Peterson).

 

If this has all been said before, which it probably has, drop me the podcast number pls.

[Worlok]

I think it has more to do with rationalizations or lack thereof. After all, reasoning and emotion are handled quite differently in completely different areas of the brain. Certainly there will be an onset of emotions based on a subconscious level. You will experience fear in the immediate face of something and your either capability to rationalize the situation, or more specifically the fear itself or rather a separate subconscious understanding will determine how or even if that fear will persist. Like, you may experience and "oh, shit" situation that elicits fear, and you might be able to stop and think/ rationalize the situation or may possibly have an immediate and subconscious understanding that the fear doesn't even make sense.

If you see a wolf, you might be in a situation that justifies an overt sense of fear, but how can you handle that? You might run screaming like women seem prone to doing. You might figure that there is one wolf and it's a pack hunter. You may also stare it down while reaching for some sort of weapon. If you can rationalize that there is nothing to fear or how you should handle the situation, like shooting it in the face, you may still feel a much lesser fear, but the control keeps you from running away like a girl.

An abuser isn't an abuser because they are necessarily a danger to your life. They are simply a danger of causing some form of abuse. Yes, you could rationalize that that abuse is irrelevant, such as your feelings of physical/psychological pain or if you would actually be killed, concluding no value to your life. You could also rationalize, and many people do, that you deserve it or that it's not that bad. Most people would do one or both of the latter two. People often joke about getting beat by their parents or facing other violence, but it doesn't change the fact that they felt fear in the face of it or that it was wrong.

There are both rational and irrational fears. The greater your understanding and ability to reason with those fears, the more control you have. Ultimately, the most rational mind will feel fear onset, but will rationalize all fear down the only rational levels of fear and the personal actions required to handle the situation. This may show that there is nothing to fear or that you have a control and there is enough random chance that the fear itself isn't that important.

I would say that any emotion can be turned off by simply applying enough rationality to overcome the subconscious control. You can rationalize, but unless you actually believe that your emotional response is wrong on that same subconscious level, then the emotion can only be forgotten if you can focus on something else. Emotional disorders like panic attacks can often be overcome by removing your focus from the cause of the reactions. You won't be conscious of what causes it or you probably wouldn't have that disorder.

From what I can tell of talk therapy, it is based on getting the patient to themselves find and understand what is causing their problem so that they can rationalize and overcome it. Many psychological disorders occur because of an inability to rationalize or believe either that something is true or to complete an incomplete set of information.

[barn]

Hi @lorry

 

A few things to consider :

0 argument. = If I don't force you and you are free to choose... Is it possible to make you do something you don't want to choose?

1. Are you looking for short/long term answer?

2. Would you prefer to manage or deal with the issue?

3. Why do people lash out?

4. Can you work around grasping a meaning by acting as if you did? (i. e. working around acquiring self confidence by practising to look self assured)

5. Do you think it's possible to live emotions and not manifest negatives? If so - How's that possible? If not - Why not?

Hope this helps,

Barnsley

[shirgall]

You cannot control how you feel but you should control how you behave. In your example, Gavin De Becker has a book called "The Gift of Fear" that helps you deal with that particular emotion. That fear usually manifests before abuse is an important warning. The basic idea is to channel that feeling (and the energy that an adrenal response will generate) into plans you have made in advance to deal with whatever has triggered your anxiety.

Yes, it's important to work on your values, but it's also important to deal with your plans. Plans give us the ability to be rational in the face of an expected, or at least nearly expected, situation. The confidence to comes with having an appropriate response ready makes for a completely different situation.

[villagewisdom]

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your question but "damping down emotions" is akin to regulating your breathing. It is done by watching the emotion as it occurs and then altering it according to a choice. If you don't watch and just react, then you are bound to a past image you hold of who you are.

Again, I may be misunderstanding the written word as most of communication is through nonverbal means, but you seem to be separating who you are from the world around you. The way that you state changing your values, it is as if you are not changing who you are and what you value but simply moving a piece on a chess board. The piece moves but you do not. 

The idea of changing what you value encompasses who you imagine yourself to be. What kind of person will you be? What will YOU value? What choices will YOU make? All require conscious awareness of how you currently identify yourself and are coupled with who you desire to be. It is firmly holding the idea of who you want to be that gives you the strength of character to make the hard choices that make a reality. 

I'm not making an argument. I'm simply responding to what I see in the words written on the page, comparing them to my experience of this crazy life and giving an alternate perspective. 

[lorry]

1 hour ago, villagewisdom said:

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your question but "damping down emotions" is akin to regulating your breathing. It is done by watching the emotion as it occurs and then altering it according to a choice. If you don't watch and just react, then you are bound to a past image you hold of who you are.

Again, I may be misunderstanding the written word as most of communication is through nonverbal means, but you seem to be separating who you are from the world around you. The way that you state changing your values, it is as if you are not changing who you are and what you value but simply moving a piece on a chess board. The piece moves but you do not. 

The idea of changing what you value encompasses who you imagine yourself to be. What kind of person will you be? What will YOU value? What choices will YOU make? All require conscious awareness of how you currently identify yourself and are coupled with who you desire to be. It is firmly holding the idea of who you want to be that gives you the strength of character to make the hard choices that make a reality. 

I'm not making an argument. I'm simply responding to what I see in the words written on the page, comparing them to my experience of this crazy life and giving an alternate perspective. 

 

See, I don't think you can alter an emotion according to choice. I think they are outside of your control. If I feel cold, because it is very cold outside, I can't choose to not feel cold. If you value something, and it is taken or destroyed, you can't choose to not to feel lose. Well, unless you re-evaluated the thing that is lost.

 

Say....

I lost something I really care about.

I experience an emotion.

I re-evaluate the thing I lost such that I don't care about it.

I do not experience the same emotion.

But I haven't chosen to feel differently, not directly, I have re-framed the context of the lose. I now have different value hierarchy and feel what I feel in accordance with this new hierarchy.

 

I was thinking more about how it is done. I think I should define values, it might make more sense. By values I mean: that which one seeks to gain or keep. I want to keep living, thus my life is a value (to me). So the emotional blunting of people follows from destroying what it is that they value, destroying ones values as such (or replacing them). So I guess the relationship that would exist in ones life is that emotional blunting goes with the negation of values, and the (re)discovery of values goes with emotional (i don't know the right word, i want to say something like) flourishing? Two sides of the same coin?

[lorry]

2 hours ago, shirgall said:

You cannot control how you feel but you should control how you behave. In your example, Gavin De Becker has a book called "The Gift of Fear" that helps you deal with that particular emotion. That fear usually manifests before abuse is an important warning. The basic idea is to channel that feeling (and the energy that an adrenal response will generate) into plans you have made in advance to deal with whatever has triggered your anxiety.

Yes, it's important to work on your values, but it's also important to deal with your plans. Plans give us the ability to be rational in the face of an expected, or at least nearly expected, situation. The confidence to comes with having an appropriate response ready makes for a completely different situation.

 

No doubt, and that you for the book reference. I don't have this issue myself, though I did (high ACE). I was wondering more specifically how it is done. How do you turn off feelings and how do you turn them back on? Or, if you will, how is it that my feelings were damped down, how did I turn them back up (all the way up to 11), and what is generally turn about it?

 

So in my context, my feelings were damped down by casting down that which I valued (what I sought to gain and keep). You might call this the development of Me+. (In my case, Me+ was sports)

They were turned back up by the rediscovery of my values (not sports to say the least).

So, I might generalize that emotions follow values.

Then, in the context or the on goings in society, the issue of societal apathy in the face of demographic collapse is a function of the values held by society. So I think to work on the societal situation, one needs to work on the values of society (people).

And do you do that with arguments, or do you do that with art?

 

 

[lorry]

4 hours ago, barn said:

Hi @lorry

 

A few things to consider :

0 argument. = If I don't force you and you are free to choose... Is it possible to make you do something you don't want to choose?

1. Are you looking for short/long term answer?

2. Would you prefer to manage or deal with the issue?

3. Why do people lash out?

4. Can you work around grasping a meaning by acting as if you did? (i. e. working around acquiring self confidence by practising to look self assured)

5. Do you think it's possible to live emotions and not manifest negatives? If so - How's that possible? If not - Why not?

Hope this helps,

Barnsley

 

Hey, barn.

 

0. Well, sort of. Because what I chose is a function of both available choice, and my values. If my values are corrupted, say I have been indoctrinated with altruism, I would chose something which would be, objectively, not in my interest. But I would (incorrectly) think that it is.

Ethically, I make no distinction between force, and lies. They are both characterized by someone benefiting by me being worse off, and acting to make it so. That is the essential characteristic.

 

1+. Not looking for an answer, as such. I am trying to figure out the chain of causality (but I think the correct identification will make a difference to what I choose to do in life).

 

Thank you for the response, helped a lot.

 

[shirgall]

1 hour ago, lorry said:

How do you turn off feelings and how do you turn them back on? Or, if you will, how is it that my feelings were damped down, how did I turn them back up (all the way up to 11), and what is generally turn about it?

So in my context, my feelings were damped down by casting down that which I valued (what I sought to gain and keep). You might call this the development of Me+. (In my case, Me+ was sports)

They were turned back up by the rediscovery of my values (not sports to say the least).

So, I might generalize that emotions follow values.

Then, in the context or the on goings in society, the issue of societal apathy in the face of demographic collapse is a function of the values held by society. So I think to work on the societal situation, one needs to work on the values of society (people).

And do you do that with arguments, or do you do that with art?

You don't turn off feelings, you make use of what they are telling you to map your way through a situation. Mindfulness of your emotions is part of it. Self-knowledge as to the drivers of those feelings is the next (corresponding to your rediscovery of your values). Learning to understand and navigate the situation is the final part. I used fear as an easy example.

Emotions are an unconscious reaction to a situation. It's better to use them than attempt to control them. People are not very good at controlling the unconscious... that's why it's called unconscious.

Mindfulness and self-knowledge are used in arguments, art, personal interactions, and more.

[barn]

3 hours ago, lorry said:

Ethically, I make no distinction between force, and lies. They are both characterized by someone benefiting by me being worse off, and acting to make it so. That is the essential characteristic.

I think there ought to be. Even Ethically. Lies compell, forces don't. Forces leave no other option but deterministic outcomes.

Lies furthermore can be diminished with truth. Force doesn't do the same trick. It does however escalation which is why it's better to do what the 'man in the uniform says without thinking twice about it'. (within realistic realms, I might add - i.e. can't be ordered to do something unlawful)

@lorry

have another think if you are up to it...

 

3 hours ago, lorry said:

0 argument. = If I don't force you and you are free to choose... Is it possible to make you do something you don't want to choose?

As in maximum responsibility for starters... That's why I chose it as the achillees heel of my whole argument.

3 hours ago, lorry said:

0. Well, sort of.(a) Because what I chose is a function of both available choice, and my values.(b)

a.  "Sort of." - I recommend against using relativistic answers to a binary question.

I strive for clarifying. Did it make you feel cornered? If so - is it cornering if I propose no negatives?

b. You didn't answer my question. Don't know why and at this point I rather not conclude anything, other than it's indicative of avoiding a simple conclusion.

Perhaps if I ask the same with different words...

'You are in an empty room with a bowl of food. If you eat the food, can you blame anyone else but yourself for eating it?' (respectfully, only trying to be 'clear as a whistle' )

I would also add, this time as a gentle reminder that I am not putting forward any morals or even currently interested to involve underlying motives as to why it happens, what happens. I only want to establish if you take responsibility for things you do or not.

Say you cause an accident...

Let's distance things a bit...

Say Bob ran over a bunch of school kids. Afterwards, upon interviewing him it is established he's been drunk as a skunk the whole time. Was or wasn't he who committed the act?

I'm asking this because it seems according to your proposed world-view, in fact simil; such people'd get a leeway...

3 hours ago, lorry said:

If my values are corrupted, say I have been indoctrinated with altruism, I would chose something which would be, objectively, not in my interest. But I would (incorrectly) think that it is.

2 hours ago, shirgall said:

 

 

3 hours ago, lorry said:

1+. Not looking for an answer, as such. I am trying to figure out the chain of causality (but I think the correct identification will make a difference to what I choose to do in life).

Contradictory. No probs. Just letting you know I don't buy it... feel free to ignore my silly reasoning. (in any case if you cared/wanted to see how I added things up: you not looking for answers   + but realisations gained = influence life decisions = hmm... oookaey?! )

Have a good one!

B.

[barn]

Something I thought I'd add regarding people with dampened emotions to you, @lorry. (no particular intent, other than 'whisper of a thrill' - perhaps I'm at amiss... I am certainly happy to make mistakes :-)

A close friend (we aren't in contact anymore) who I 'sort of' (giggles) grew up with was seemingly practising the ability of being able to scale up&down his emotional responses as a result of not wanting to deal with the challenges of saying people things like :

' I hate when you do that, while I also know you at least suspect that it minimum makes me uncomfortable '

or

' I wish to tell you what I really think but at the same time I am also terrified, you would stay clear of me if I had done so. '

or

' I wanted to say it many times but somehow you always made me feel I shouldn't. '

He's into pickup artistry, NLP(neuro-lingustic-programming), past lives travelling to discover why he is destined for greatness and many other things that 'promise results without going through the motions'.

His parents got divorced (4kids,mother left for a rich guy who later left her, due to... duh, craaaazie)

Now she lives down the road in a shack, out of the charity of the scorned ex-husband and practices yoga,looking for the truth in visions...

My ex-friend has processed all of this, with what I only see as no allocation of responsibilities, his father cucked, him grabbing at anything to explain things away, rather than face the truth.

Don't get me wrong, I strive to aid the explorer. He however made up his mind, he had all he wished to see.

He says he's happy.

_shrugs_

Barnsley

[RichardY]

Rambo: NOTHING IS OVER! NOTHING! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me I didn't ask you, and I did what I had to do to win, but somebody wouldn't let us win! Then I come back to the world, and I see all those maggots at the airport, protestin' me and spittin', callin' me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me?! Huh?! Who are they?! Unless they been me and been there and know what the hell they yellin' about!

[barn]

... sorry man, I'm honestly. The chip has been replaced in the midst of the fog of war. Things are different now, we thought we could win big. It's all over maaan, tough luck I get it! Hey, do you need change for a ride or somethin'...

<whipping out a box of cigarettes, thinking this sorry soul won't make it to fortnight, or perhaps he might... the ultimate survivor...shite, what if he does. Better put some distance in between. I mean he's been nourished to GET THE JOB DONE... I ain't no seeing How's the target gets repainted... I better get out, quick.>

- So you think the Dame's still around? Sish.,why not check up on things? Take 'ya mind off for a' while

... , you know what I mean.

Rambo: Are you gonna be around?

- Sure, bud. No problems. I'll just have to straighten some things out while you get some 'legs up time'.

- See 'ya' round, take it easy! No glock under the pillow 'n shiite, eh?!

Rambo: Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.

I'll be fine.

Am I? Why not?

Of course I will.

I will be fine.

Where's the taxi, it's getting late.

 

...

[RichardY]

@barnWouldn't quite be an action movie though. Be kind of bizarre to have a buddy blown to pieces or be subjected to abuse and not think anything of it, at least for first time exposure, could make a joke about it in a sick way, if you're British I guess. Though could have kind of a rabbit mentality, kill one and the others get back to eating grass as if no care in the world.

"Well, no shit. What have we got here, a fucking comedian? Private Joker, I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you. You can come over to my house and fuck my sister. [he socks Joker in the gut] You little scumbag! I got your name! I got your ass! You will not laugh! You will not cry! You will learn by the numbers! I will teach you! Now get up! Get on your feet! You had best unfuck yourself, or I will unscrew your head and shit down your neck!" - Full Metal Jacket

Besides near the beginning of the movie the police officer didn't want him walking through "his town", maybe Rambo could have accepted some money or cheap cigarettes to go the other way, rather than feign compliance/etiquette, but he still had dignity, if not pride.

"They drew first blood, not me." - Rambo

[lorry]

5 hours ago, shirgall said:

You don't turn off feelings, you make use of what they are telling you to map your way through a situation. Mindfulness of your emotions is part of it. Self-knowledge as to the drivers of those feelings is the next (corresponding to your rediscovery of your values). Learning to understand and navigate the situation is the final part. I used fear as an easy example.

Emotions are an unconscious reaction to a situation. It's better to use them than attempt to control them. People are not very good at controlling the unconscious... that's why it's called unconscious.

Mindfulness and self-knowledge are used in arguments, art, personal interactions, and more.

 

Well, I don't think you turn off your feelings as such, but they can absolutely be dampened. Just take a look at someone who is nihilistic.  Or rather, listen to a call in show when someone is discussing an issue of meaningless or lack of purpose and ask "Does this person seem to me to be emotionally muted?". Conversely, have you ever witnessed someone in pursuit of well defined goals, who is also emotionally blunt?

 

 

[lorry]

3 hours ago, barn said:

I think there ought to be. Even Ethically. Lies compell, forces don't. Forces leave no other option but deterministic outcomes.

Lies furthermore can be diminished with truth. Force doesn't do the same trick. It does however escalation which is why it's better to do what the 'man in the uniform says without thinking twice about it'. (within realistic realms, I might add - i.e. can't be ordered to do something unlawful)

@lorry

have another think if you are up to it...

 

As in maximum responsibility for starters... That's why I chose it as the achillees heel of my whole argument.

a.  "Sort of." - I recommend against using relativistic answers to a binary question.

I strive for clarifying. Did it make you feel cornered? If so - is it cornering if I propose no negatives?

b. You didn't answer my question. Don't know why and at this point I rather not conclude anything, other than it's indicative of avoiding a simple conclusion.

Perhaps if I ask the same with different words...

'You are in an empty room with a bowl of food. If you eat the food, can you blame anyone else but yourself for eating it?' (respectfully, only trying to be 'clear as a whistle' )

I would also add, this time as a gentle reminder that I am not putting forward any morals or even currently interested to involve underlying motives as to why it happens, what happens. I only want to establish if you take responsibility for things you do or not.

Say you cause an accident...

Let's distance things a bit...

Say Bob ran over a bunch of school kids. Afterwards, upon interviewing him it is established he's been drunk as a skunk the whole time. Was or wasn't he who committed the act?

I'm asking this because it seems according to your proposed world-view, in fact simil; such people'd get a leeway...

 

Contradictory. No probs. Just letting you know I don't buy it... feel free to ignore my silly reasoning. (in any case if you cared/wanted to see how I added things up: you not looking for answers   + but realisations gained = influence life decisions = hmm... oookaey?! )

Have a good one!

B.

 

No thanks, barns.

 

I just wondered if it clicked with anyone else because then maybe someone links to to something else, maybe not.

 

Take it easy.

G.

[barn]

38 minutes ago, lorry said:

No thanks, barns.

 

I just wondered if it clicked with anyone else because then maybe someone links to to something else, maybe not.

 

Take it easy.

G.

 

Sure. It's all right. I appreciate the opportunity.

Take care,

Barnsley

 

[barn]

I was riffing. Thanks for the fun @RichardY.

Barnsley

[shirgall]

13 hours ago, lorry said:

Well, I don't think you turn off your feelings as such, but they can absolutely be dampened. Just take a look at someone who is nihilistic.  Or rather, listen to a call in show when someone is discussing an issue of meaningless or lack of purpose and ask "Does this person seem to me to be emotionally muted?". Conversely, have you ever witnessed someone in pursuit of well defined goals, who is also emotionally blunt?

What you are describing does not sound like dampening but rather ignoring them. People perceive me as dispassionate most of the time, but that's because I so greatly dislike emotional behavior in rational discussions. Comes from getting yelled at a lot as a kid. 

That doesn't mean I don't feel the same emotions as everyone else.

[lorry]

On 11/21/2017 at 1:48 PM, shirgall said:

What you are describing does not sound like dampening but rather ignoring them. People perceive me as dispassionate most of the time, but that's because I so greatly dislike emotional behavior in rational discussions. Comes from getting yelled at a lot as a kid. 

That doesn't mean I don't feel the same emotions as everyone else.

 

Well, they perceive you as you (existing) and conceptualize you (incorrectly) as dispassionate. Because there is no judgement in perception and "dispassionate" is a judgement, right?

 

To try and get at it from a different angle, I don't think ignoring them is an accurate way to think of emotions because I don't think emotions, as such, can be ignored in the experiencing. Emotions are feelings, and feelings can't be ignored in the feeling. I mean in the experiential sense, you can not choose to not feel a feeling, and I would call choosing not to feel a feeling: ignoring. But you can totally choose to not act on a feeling, but that isn't ignoring it. So you can't choose to not experience an emotion, but you can choose not to act upon it (you can't ignore the emotion but you can ignore the consequences).

 

Let me put it this way. What is the difference between someone taking something you really care for, and something taking something you don't care for, in your feeling and in your valuation of the object?

Greater value, greater feeling of loss. Right? So how to reduce the feeling of loss? Reduce the value. Right? So how to you make it so someone has dampened down emotions? Reduce their value of everything, no?

[lorry]

I knew I got this somewhere.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OscD3RYo6o

 

JP: No Goal, No Positive Emotion.