harkkam Posted August 29, 2010 Posted August 29, 2010 Guys, I've been doing some thinking and stumbled on sort of a way to look at life and categorize what we as humans experience in this world and perhaps it can help people cope. I realized that as humans there are three aspects to life that embody the whole human experience. Everything that we do can be fit into these three categories. They are 1. What we think 2. What we feel 3. What we do Everything in life can be traced back to these three things. Why you may ask its important to categorize things because it helps you understand your EMOTIONS, and feelings. Number 2, what we feel is a tricky category because what I have realized is that as human beings we cannot control our feelings like we can what we think and do. For example, if I want to drink water I can walk into the kitchen and pour a glass of water, thats action or what we do. If I want to think to myself "I am a loser and nobody will find me attractive" I can do that to, in fact I can do that as many times as I want. But what you CANT do is make yourself feel happy, not lonely, satisfied etc. You cannot make yourself feel any emotion directly. You dont have the same control over your emotions that you do over your thoughts and actions. I realized that in fact your emotions are like a huge battleship in the water doing 30 knots that only changes course over a large distance or a trian that slows down over the course of a mile or too. Our actions and thoughts because of free will we can manipulate them very quickly. So now what does that matter? Well once you understand that your emotions are in less control of yourself than you think you are in, you can forgive yourself for feeling sad and lonely and you will STOP fighting it. You will realize that you cannot make feelings go away because you dont have control over them like that. The biggest thing I realized is that you can INFLUENCE your feelings through your thoughts and actions. If you keep telling yourself "I will never find another girl/guy like her" then your feelings over time will turn into hopelessness. However if you tell yourself "I will find a girl/guy that makes me happy or I am going to die trying" slowly that thought will build feelings inside of you. Then you can also influence your feelings through ACTION, you can go out and meet new people which will make you feel more confident. You can go on a date or two and that makes you feel better. You can use your thoughts and actions to INFLUENCE and slowly Manipulate your feelings but you can never directly control them. You cant make sadness go away by saying to yourself once "Go away sadness" and you cant make it go away by getting yourself a haircut. But if you say to yourself "I am sad, those are my feelings and they are not going to change overnight, but I dont have to be sad all the time because there is more to do in the world" and when you believe that over time your feelings will change. Getting a haircut will only make you feel better for a short while but suppose you consistently go out on the town for two weeks and meet new people slowly your feelings change. I think that when you realize that your feelings are not so much in your control you can learn to live with them and sit with them better and be at peace with them. When I walk around and go to the places that I met my ex I feel horrible inside and my feelings are telling me, "I want her back, I miss her" and I feel pain in my body. But I tell myself "How can you love a person that does not want to love you back" and slowly those places and memories perhaps will not hurt as much. It also works the other way that what you FEEL can very STRONGLY influence your thoughts and actions. WE cannot manipulate feelings that well but feelings can manipulate us quickly. For example anger, when you are very angry it can cause people to do crazy things and do harmful things to others take negative actions. Or it can cause us to stalk our ex, and check their facebook, because the loneliness and sadness cause our body to act in accordance to their will. Just like feeling bad about yourself can cause you to start having negative thoughts about yourself. If you get rejected by a girl or guy that you like, you start feeling bad and soon enough your thoughts turn to "I am not good enough, I am not smart enough etc" Your feelings can INFLUENCE the things that your brain thinks and believes. Its important that we be able to recognize these interrelationships of thoughts actions and feelings. There may be a day we feel really good and just happy and then suddenly we have a thought that says "I am too fat to talk to that person" and then you take the action of not talking to the person. So thoughts can influence action despite how good you are feeling. Thats why when people say "I love you but I cant be with you" they may feel feelings in their heart for you but their mind has been telling them "They are no longer good for me" so they are able to look past their emotions and take action which is to break up with you. All in all, all three things are interrelated. But most importantly that feelings are the hardest to control and influence. But feelings can very easily influence our thoughts and actions. This can help correct negative self talk. Suppose your feeling bad about yourself, you feel it inside you. Your bad feelings inside you cause you to say "I am a loser and no good" but you can step back and say "Okay I see how my feelings are influencing my thought pattern, they are causing me to say negative things to myself and that is not good for my self esteem" and then you can go right back and say "Yes I am feeling bad, but I really am not that bad looking" and you keep saying that. In my personal life for example I've always wanted to workout but never felt the drive to do it. Now when its time to workout I can say "See I can feel my emotions telling me not to go" but they are merely influencing my actions and I can say "But I made a goal to go to the gym and I will go despite feeling unmotivated because I have free will I can still walk into the gym even if my feelings tell me not to" I hope this helps and feel free to comment and disagree.
AlwaysConflicted Posted August 30, 2010 Posted August 30, 2010 Thank you. I enjoyed reading this. Makes a lot of sense and is very helpful.
Cee Posted August 30, 2010 Posted August 30, 2010 (edited) On your own, you nailed some of the most fundamental concepts of psychology. It sounds like you are a budding psychologist. I've studied psychology (have a master's) & I'll pitch in what I know... First, there are the ABC's of human psychology, which you already figured out. They are taught in most psychology classes. Affect (Feelings) Behavior (What we do) Cognition (Thoughts) The other stuff you were talking about relates to cognitive behavioral psychology. David Burns wrote a landmark book called "Feeling Good: the New Mood Therapy." He argues that you can control your emotions by altering your thoughts and the distortions in thinking. For example, if you "catastrophize" (ie. say it's the WORST thing that could happen), you will feel depressed. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the cognitive approach. I prefer more of a behavioral approach using the saying, "You can't think yourself into right action. But you can act yourself in right thinking." I prefer to take action first (such as eating right, exercise, reading a book) and then I feel better later. Another thing that helps me with emotions is I've learned that an emotion doesn't last long, maybe an hour or two. So if I'm feeling down, I remind myself that the feeling will pass. And my all time favorite quote: "Feelings aren't fact." Just because I feel my life is hopeless, doesn't mean it's true. Edited August 30, 2010 by Cee typo
Recommended Posts