> ....I thought back to the foundations or causes of my emotional
expressions, or at
> least as I understand them. I find that most are grounded in fear of one
kind or
> another, learned over time until they have become habitual.
> This sets up for me a filter which "sees" situations in some pre-existing
light
> (sometimes a bit dim). Through these shadows, decisions are almost
> spontaneous, depending upon the nature of the current circumstances. I find
as
> you did that such emotional responses are indeed "logical", but
unfortunately only
> in retrospect. I believe as you that logic and emotions are both things
that can be
> improved upon which is why I bothered to respond to your post. It doesn't
mean
> that old habits will suddenly disappear, but that future filtration can be
put to better
> use if I link the logic and emotion of a given situation in the past.
(I changed the Subject line on this message, because I feel this part of the
conversation is really focusing on Mental Models and the suggestion has been
made to have threads focused on each of the LO disciplines. Perhaps we can
go in that direction with this thread.)
John,
I think you've given us a nice description of emotionally-laden mental
models, and the beginnings of a technique for altering them - linking our
emotional responses to past experiences in which those emotions were
"logical" and legitimate. (Did you come up with this on your own or have you
been reading Freud? ;-) ) I'm by no means a Freudian in my beliefs, as I
expect will become apparent as I talk more here, but he did come up with many
useful concepts, so I want to give him credit.
What you've described is basically what Freud labelled "insight" - making a
connection between the present and the past. Your point about old habits
persisting, even in the context of that new knowledge (of the connection),
partly speaks to what Freud called, "working through", a process of
understanding and experiencing the consequences of that insight.
At one level, there is just the cognitive and behavioral changes that one
must make: first being aware of one's interpretation of a particular
situation and the emotional and behavioral reactions based on that
interpretation. Second, forming an alternate interpretation and set of
responses. And third, being able to substitute the new for the old in real
time. The key here is practice, practice, practice.
At another, and to me more interesting/profound/difficult level, is that such
emotional insights often have a way of spreading throughout one's world view.
Perhaps the most basic is the sense we have whenever we learn something new,
that it would have been better if we had known this thing sooner - a sense of
missed opportunity, if you will. Other emotional consequences can be much
more specific, and can be strong enough that the individual will actively
resist acting upon (or in more extreme cases, even acknowledging) the
insight. In this kind of situation, one's focus has to shift to the
consequence of the insight, before the insight itself can be focused upon.
The metaphor I often use is one of those three-dimensional wooden puzzles
with interlocking pieces - you have to poke and push and pull several
different pieces before you can pull one out. Only then does the whole thing
loosen up enough for you to choose a specific piece to pull out. Another way
to visualize it is as the mind-as-system with some interconnected feedback
loops.
I hope I haven't gone on too long, and that what I've said is useful to
people here.
-Jeff (BrooksJeff@AOL.com)
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>