Article extracted from a workshop & book called:
DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOU - by Dieter Luske
... all following articles, are written as workshop manuscript
... questions were asked to stimulate active participation.
ARTICLE NUMBER - 17 - CHAPTER THREE
LOLLIPOP SOCIETY
I am sure you are aware that the first time you started to eat (or rather drink), was as a result of your mother responding to your screaming. She fed you to make you feel better. Sooner or later you discovered that whenever you felt lousy, because you were hungry, wet, lonely or whatever, by showing that you were uncomfortable, somehow, your mother came to feed you.
So far this response is a simple natural learning response.
With time, the learning is constantly deepened. You grow up and sooner or later you get a bit sick, (perhaps with a cold). Something funny happens now.
(Not all parents do this, but certainly, at least in the past, a lot did.)
Did what? Your parent would reward your cold with a lollipop, or something else nice.
"Here sweetie, That will make you feel better." Instead of a sweet it could be something like a toy, a book or any little reward, any of them in effect being, lollipops.
The difference in your adulthood reaction may be that you either eat something or buy yourself something nice, in order to feel good (compulsive shopping?). Somehow you don't seem to manage to make yourself feel better without using something outside yourself. That makes you a dependent, you are not relying on yourself.
Actually we probably could blame all human misery on this principle-the need for more, greed, wanting to be right, wanting power; everything could be blamed on this principle that we need something to make us feel good or better.
However, I guess that sounds a bit too simplified and blaming doesn't count anyhow.
And this is the point, we are aware of our response in wanting something nice to make us feel good.
To fix this little problem is easy, as we simply go by our old rule:
IF YOU DO WHAT YOU ALWAYS DO, YOU GET WHAT YOU ALWAYS GET
... so, do something else. This something else, is to work the other way around.
Remember-being proactive-change before you have to change?
That is what we are going to do. We will change our emotion before we get the unwanted emotion. This is emotional choice.
Coming back to the 'lollipop society,' and the the reason I coined the phrase.
Firstly, our whole society seems to react like this; secondly, if you take your child to a doctor, (even sometimes a dentist), that child will often receive a lollipop.
That sugar pill, a lousy lollipop may well be, in adult life, replaced by a shot of heroin.
Is that far fetched? Do you think an addict loves him/herself?
Addicts need the 'lollipop' to make themselves feel better.
In what way are you reacting? How do you make yourself feel better? Do you use something external, like sweets, drugs, special food etc? Or do you use something internal?
Can you find out what specific emotion you feel, what that emotion is telling you, and what to do about it?
An important aspect of achieving emotional choice is knowing how to select and access the most advantageous emotion when you want it and need it. Before you can do that, you obviously have to know what kind of emotion you do feel and what you would like to feel.
So, how are you? How or what do you feel?
If your answer is simply, 'good' or 'bad', then you are not really in touch with your emotions. 'Good' or 'bad' can't help you, they are generalisations. You have to know specifically what kind of emotion you feel. Knowing your specific emotion helps you to either choose it again or find a more appropriate one to replace it with.
Let's have a look at feeling 'bad' and go behind that word to find out what you really feel. Could it be that you feel: bored, lonely, restless, sceptical, sorry, lethargic, unmotivated, suspicious, anxious, nervous, fearful, hopeless, irritated, disappointed, insecure, cheated, etc?
The advantage of making these "feeling distinctions" is that your emotions actually indicate what you need to do, to feel different. If you feel bored you look for something exciting, but what could you do if you only feel bad?
Knowing one emotion will give you automatically the oppostte or a more suitable emotion.
Let's explore the other general feeling,'good'. Feeling 'good' may mean you feel:
joyful, intrigued, fascinated, curious, grateful, encouraged, hopeful, inspired, warm, excited, motivated, determined, sure of yourself, happy, naughty, carefree, sexy, enthusiastic, ecstatic, etc.
Having any of these above mentioned specific emotions
will do a number of things for you:
- It helps you to appreciate emotions more fully.
- It points out to you, where those emotions are coming from.
- It helps you to recall the emotion you need.
- It helps you to avoid doing things which make you feel 'bad'.
- And even more important, it shows you directly, what to do, to trigger more of those emotions you want.
- It helps you to become aware of the message behind that emotion
You may even have a PET EMOTION.
This is an emotion you particularly like and also find easy to trigger.
My pet emotion is curiosity.
I love to find out things and know things. If I feel bored, I trigger the feeling of curiosity, that gets me going immediately.
Find out your pet emotion!
It is you who wants to be in control of your responses and of your experiences, and not be controlled by your emotions.
Let me give you one more example. Perhaps the anxiety or dread you felt about an upcoming meeting caused you to concentrate your planning on how to get out of the meeting, rather than planning the most effective presentation. If you had a pet emotion like mine, you simply would have triggered curiosity to overcome your anxiety. You could feel curious as to how the people would respond to your presentation, or feel curious as to whom you may meet.
Alternatively you could have asked yourself "which emotion would be good to have in that situation?"
You may have come up with emotions such as determination, anticipation or others.
As you will appreciate, it makes sense to bring your life, (including your emotions) under your control or under better management. True control comes from having a choice, having options for your emotional responses, and from having the ability to choose whichever of those options are more satisfying, given your current desires and circumstances.
Now let me tell you three main ways and victim positions of emotionally loaded situations, in which people demonstrate an inability to cope emotionally:
- People consistently and chronically respond to everyday or ongoing life situations with debilitating emotions, such as:
feeling inadequate, helpless, ashamed, despairing, angry or frustrated. For some people the evening news, a teenager's haircut, a filing error on your Bankcard statement, or being lied or cheated to, are occasions for their incapacitating, often over the top emotions.(The victim principle by itself can work wonders here).
- People demonstrate a lack of emotional choice by having no satisfactory way of coping with things that they feel are intolerable, such as: shyness, loneliness, inadequacy, fear or guilt. Often these people try to get away from these emotions by extreme withdrawal, by violence or aggressive behaviour, or by using or abusing various substances, such as drugs, etc.
- Other people believe that it is wrong to feel certain emotions, (do you?) such as: DESIRE, ENVY, HATE, ANGER etc. Because of this belief, whenever they do experience one of these emotions, they respond with debilitating emotions such as guilt or shame. Religions, traditions and customs are great for these kind of emotional inhibitions.
Take some time now to have a good long look at your
own emotional responses!
- Do you recognise yourself in any of the above emotional responses?
- Have you got any emotional inhibitions such as a belief that you shouldn't have some particular emotions?
- Find out your own emotional traps!
- Are any emotions hindering you from doing what you really want to do?
- Can you make emotional distinctions? Do you know your emotions, specifically?
- Have you got a pet emotion?
Summary on Emotions:
We have come much closer to emotional choice and control! You are aware that you have a wide range of emotions. You are aware of your emotional traps.
What are emotions? Emotions are our responses to any situation. Emotions are distinct from physical feelings, that may occur at the same time. Emotions are definitely distinct from the value judgments we may make about them. Emotions are messages.
This chapter on emotion has given us awareness.
The
following chapters will give us:
The functional meaning of an emotion.
Triggering and changing an emotion.
By the way, the inhibiting of emotional responses is similar to negative affirmation (worries) or limiting belief systems. In constantly repeating one thought or emotional response in your mind, you will create your own problem.
Luckily with the same technique you can create your own solution.
... to be continued ..
Excerpt from a workshop & book - published 1993 - titled; "Do you believe in You"
www.usenature.com - Dieter Luske ©
