A technique that I have been using for several years to great effect is the following:
Whenever I think my decision making is affected negatively by an emotion I go through these steps:
Identify the exact nature of the emotion.
From an evolutionary point of view, what was the emotion’s original purpose?
What has changed since then that makes the emotion no longer useful today?
Internalize this and “convince” the emotion to stop.
I basically try to “talk” to my subconscious and convince it to stop. I don’t try to fight my subconscious or get it to accept reality but just mentally repeat those findings to myself until the irrational impulses of my subconscious are drowned out by the more rational response I designed.
I basically tell my subconscious that if it wants to help, it should just stop interfering with things that it is incapable of understanding.
Using this technique I have virtually eliminated all grief, resentment and desperation. I won’t try to eliminate pain as this can actually be quite useful. I have also used it to turn hatred into spite, as the later has less of a destructive effect (it is more passive and far less likely to result in an outburst).
I don’t know the reason why it works so well for me, but I could imagine that it is because I treat my subconsciousness’s irrational impulses not as obstacles to overcome but as a machine that is outdated and broken.
Essentially, instead of telling my subconsciousness to “shut up!”, I tell it to “stop helping me!”
Can anyone confirm whether this works? It’s easy enough to be worth trying, but it would be very surprising and force a more general update if it did work, because it sounds like trying to argue away an optical illusion.
That’s because it is—it’s arguing away a psychological misunderstanding. I can confirm that it works for me. I have tried to explain this to people in terms of warning alarms:
Most of the alarms for your body and mind are set WAY below threshold to avoid you only changing your behavior when it’s already too late.
It’s like a low battery light that comes on six months before the battery dies, or your alarm clock telling you WAKE UP NOW WAKE UP NOW, when it doesn’t actually know if you (currently) want to wake up. If your “Check Engine” light is on and you know it’s because the tech forgot to reset it, you’re not going to troubleshoot your engine every time you drive.
Your stomach will tell you you’re dying of hunger long before you starve;
Your hands will tell you to drop that hot plate even though it will not cause tissue damage;
Your muscles will tell you that you can’t lift a certain heavy object, and you stop because you’re listening to the alarms instead of using rationality to assess the actual situation.
The trick to these problems is not to ignore or suppress the alarms, but to think of them as helpful suggestions; this can serve to disconnect them from the emotional connotations that these simple alarms carry with them.
Hunger doesn’t hurt me, because I know that it’s just a reminder to eat.
Physical pain doesn’t cause me to panic if it’s to accomplish a goal and I know it won’t damage me. This surprisingly quiets a lot of the psychosomatic responses, at least in my case. Emotions follow the same pattern, but are easier to tackle when you first become accustomed to this type of override maneuver on your body.
Interesting, I’ll try using that for my anxiety to work on projects. I have successfully negotiated with fear and sadness before, so maybe I should use that more often. I will report back my results.
Edit 2 weeks later: didn’t really get into any emotionally problematic scenario, so I couldn’t test it.
A technique that I have been using for several years to great effect is the following:
Whenever I think my decision making is affected negatively by an emotion I go through these steps:
Identify the exact nature of the emotion.
From an evolutionary point of view, what was the emotion’s original purpose?
What has changed since then that makes the emotion no longer useful today?
Internalize this and “convince” the emotion to stop.
I basically try to “talk” to my subconscious and convince it to stop. I don’t try to fight my subconscious or get it to accept reality but just mentally repeat those findings to myself until the irrational impulses of my subconscious are drowned out by the more rational response I designed.
I basically tell my subconscious that if it wants to help, it should just stop interfering with things that it is incapable of understanding.
Using this technique I have virtually eliminated all grief, resentment and desperation. I won’t try to eliminate pain as this can actually be quite useful. I have also used it to turn hatred into spite, as the later has less of a destructive effect (it is more passive and far less likely to result in an outburst).
I don’t know the reason why it works so well for me, but I could imagine that it is because I treat my subconsciousness’s irrational impulses not as obstacles to overcome but as a machine that is outdated and broken.
Essentially, instead of telling my subconsciousness to “shut up!”, I tell it to “stop helping me!”
Can anyone confirm whether this works? It’s easy enough to be worth trying, but it would be very surprising and force a more general update if it did work, because it sounds like trying to argue away an optical illusion.
That’s because it is—it’s arguing away a psychological misunderstanding. I can confirm that it works for me. I have tried to explain this to people in terms of warning alarms: Most of the alarms for your body and mind are set WAY below threshold to avoid you only changing your behavior when it’s already too late. It’s like a low battery light that comes on six months before the battery dies, or your alarm clock telling you WAKE UP NOW WAKE UP NOW, when it doesn’t actually know if you (currently) want to wake up. If your “Check Engine” light is on and you know it’s because the tech forgot to reset it, you’re not going to troubleshoot your engine every time you drive. Your stomach will tell you you’re dying of hunger long before you starve; Your hands will tell you to drop that hot plate even though it will not cause tissue damage; Your muscles will tell you that you can’t lift a certain heavy object, and you stop because you’re listening to the alarms instead of using rationality to assess the actual situation. The trick to these problems is not to ignore or suppress the alarms, but to think of them as helpful suggestions; this can serve to disconnect them from the emotional connotations that these simple alarms carry with them. Hunger doesn’t hurt me, because I know that it’s just a reminder to eat. Physical pain doesn’t cause me to panic if it’s to accomplish a goal and I know it won’t damage me. This surprisingly quiets a lot of the psychosomatic responses, at least in my case. Emotions follow the same pattern, but are easier to tackle when you first become accustomed to this type of override maneuver on your body.
Interesting, I’ll try using that for my anxiety to work on projects. I have successfully negotiated with fear and sadness before, so maybe I should use that more often. I will report back my results.
Edit 2 weeks later: didn’t really get into any emotionally problematic scenario, so I couldn’t test it.