2022-06-14-Wise to Emotion (2 of 5) Component Parts of Emotions

2:56PM Jun 14, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

emotion

story

person

component parts

motivation

relationship

part

physiological

perceptions

anger

physiology

sailboat

interpretation

composites

deer

perceive

motions

bodily

body

mind

So today I continue this five part series on getting wise to emotions, the wise relationship to them. And part of it is to realize that emotion emotions are not a singular unit unitary thing. But they are composites, they are made up of the elements and pieces. And they're made up of elements in different ways, different parts make up motions in different ways. And maybe that's part of the reason why it's not so clear exactly what an emotion is. And we don't have to know exactly what an emotion is, as a category, we might want to know what anger is, or we might want to know sadness, or happiness or love. There's a whole range of these things that fit under the umbrella term of emotions, and whichever ones we fit in there. They are composites, they're made up of component parts. And why that's important is that sometimes people will have attitudes, beliefs, relationships, to emotions, with the with the idea that it's a singular thing. Anger is anger. And it justifies things, it drives us it, we have relationship to anger, as you know that it's good, it's bad. But when we start kind of not looking at it, as only as a solid singular thing, but start seeing the component parts, then we can have relationship to the different parts, and the relationship to the whole becomes different, we might really realize that some of the elements that can make up an emotion are actually more important, and perhaps more important for, for our motivations for understanding for our healing for a finding our freedom, with it all. Sometimes it's hard to work with an emotion when we only see it as a singularity as a solid thing in and of itself. And, and it can be kind of overwhelming. But once we kind of dropped down underneath the veneer underneath the label or the general kind of solitary concept, we begin seeing it in a different way and have a whole different relationship to what's happening. So a lot, I'd like to offer you some of the things that make up emotions, and maybe you could think of some more as well. So part of an emotion is a bodily experience of physiological shift and change that happens in the body. When an emotion becomes present. For some people, the physiological change is very strong and clear. For some people, it's very quiet, and maybe even they would say there is no physiological change. But I think that emotion is always something and no quieter we become in meditation, for example, the more attuned we can be to even the subtlest changes of physiology as we have emotions, activations, of muscles of energies, probably of hormones and biochemical things, that all this stuff begins to shift and change in the body as we as emotion arise as a persistent as it dissipates. Some of that physiological change might precede the actual arising of the emotion itself, we might have a lot of stress, and the stress hormones, the stress sensations, that tightness in their body is a condition for the arising of anger, and, or fear. And, and, and we and that the condition that precedes it in the body is often sometimes the way to heal it as well, because sometimes as the body relaxes and settles, then the fuel for that particular motion is not being provided. The physiologic physiology sometimes drives the emotional lives. So dropping down into the body and really getting familiar with all the different bodily expressions of emotions, bodily manifestations of them, it can be very important. Another thing that makes up a good number of emotions is cognitive. And we might start with the stories that we have. You know, it's kind of a classic

thing in meditation is to be relatively calm and peaceful. and minding your own business with your breathing. And for some reason that is not obvious at all, your mind produces a thought from long ago of a person you knew, maybe a person who harmed you or hurt you or annoy you. And, and just thinking about that story of what happened to that person, the our physiology changes the energy in the body that maybe goes from being centered in our torso and up into our head, maybe the hands get tight, their jaws get tight, or you feel a contraction in the mind. And because the story still has a lot of juice, a lot of impact on us. And what's fascinating there is to see that the movement is from the story arises to the story is a condition for the bodily manifestation. And the body was fine by itself. But then the story kind of evoke something very powerful. And then the bodily expression came. And when stories are part of emotions, then when we we are, we can be we, if we are storytellers, telling, and retelling the story that can perpetuate the emotion, that can keep it going can strengthen it can, can influence very much the course of the emotion. Because of the nature of the storytelling, sometimes the stories change as we tell it. And so then the emotions change as well. And we might have started off, for example, being angry, and we telling her story of Brexit, but about how we've been, you know, slighted by someone, and then we tell ourselves a story. Well, if that person knows that I'm angry, that probably retaliate, and now I'm afraid and, and now suddenly, fear arises. And then we realize something with another story, we, maybe we realize, oh, that person's actually moving to another continent. And, and said, never going to come back to this country. And, and then you see, ah, you can feel yourself relax, and then there's a happiness that might arise. And so we tell ourselves stories. And the stories have meaning associations. In other parts of this component, part of emotions, that's sometimes more obvious with a story is that there's a self in relationship to the emotion, self understanding self, how we view ourselves how we have other people see us how we are personally affected by the story, the events of what's going on, what emotions mean, for me, what's gonna happen, if I'm, maybe I feel happy, and, and I'm the one who's happy, I'm so happy that I'm happy. And, and, and this will be great my life is made, I'm gonna be happy forever. And, and there's a lot of, I'm making in the making, and part of the happiness might be in relationship to, I'm the one who's happy. And so the self identification with the emotion and the role of AI and self understanding of who I am, and how that that's a component part of motions as well. I'll talk more about that tomorrow. And there's also motivation as part of the emotion. I talked about that little bit with mettā earlier, that emotion, like loving kindness is one that has motivation built into it. It's wishing someone well, wanting them to be well, maybe wanting to support that to happen. If there is anger, there is a motivation perhaps to get rid of something to push it away. And get angry with your computer, you throw it across the room to kind of get it away. There's some emotions come with motivations and intention. Something needs wanting something to happen. And sometimes that's really helpful to notice what motivation comes along with an emotion? What can motivate motivation comes along with sadness, or what comes along with joy. Just noticing this shift and changes what's what what what's the, what's the motivation was the desire that's connected to it. Emotions are also connected to perceptions. And it's a little different than the stories but overlaps with them. And that is, what we what we are, what we think we're perceiving the ideas we have about things. And the

there's a ancient Chinese story of the stoled or vignette that's told of a man who's in a sailboat going across Salt Lake, big lake. And another sailboat comes along and unexpectedly bangs into his sailboat. And the person gets furious. And then he lifts up and looks over the edge of the boat and sees that there's no one in the other boat, it's just somehow gotten the loosens floating around. And the anger was there, thinking there was a person in charge that they could be angry with. And then the person realized, well, you should always be attentive to what's floating around and paying attention. And we perceive things a lot differently, when it's done by some another person, versus if it's done by a natural phenomenon. If a if some beautiful deer, maybe walks across your garden, maybe you're upset, or maybe you've never seen a deer in your property that haven't been around for, you know, hundreds of miles. And you're like the brethren upset, you're just like, amazed, wow, there's a deer with its fawn. And, and, and, but if a neighbor comes across and walks across your garden may be accidentally there's a that we perceive it differently, and we interpreted differently. It are the perceptions we make the most useful perceptions. Are they optional? Are they particular interpretation of events? Maybe they're good perceptions, good interpretations, but to see it as that way. So these are some of the I can go on further. But to spend some time looking at your emotions as they occur. At what is the physiology of it? What is the story's related to it? What are the motivations related to it? What are the what's the how do you how are you as a person as a self as your identity, your idea of yourself? How does that come into play? And what are the perceptions and ideas that operate? When an emotion is there? And are they built into the fabric and the view of the universe that that's the perception, the idea the interpretation to have? Or are there others to be had. And there are others that are more maybe appropriate or more peaceful and, and maybe there's a range of interpretations. And maybe they're all equally valuable. But why choose the one that's stressful for you, maybe choose one that brings you a sense of awe and delight and joy. So so what you might do this next 24 hours, is take some time to sit down maybe with a piece of paper and, and kind of map out the different component parts that make up the your emotion, and different ones you have, especially the ones that are alive, but also you can review other ones you've had. And maybe lay them down on a piece of paper like a little mind map or you know, like a mandala of what they all are. And then consider the component parts themselves. What kind of permanence, what kind of solidity what kind of art do they have? What kind of relationship do you have to the parts? And as you begin looking more carefully at the parts of an emotion, what happens to the emotion? Does the emotion shift and change in surveying the parts that make it up? So thank you, and I hope your emotional life is rich and valuable and supportive for you. And if it's not, I hope that this in deeper investigation into it will be supportive. Thank you