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Click on the below article link to obtain background
information to this blog post:
Here is a portion of the insightful article about
change and influence, from lifehacker.com, that I referenced in my Examiner
article.
“You're probably familiar with Stockholm syndrome-the term used to describe
how hostage victims tend to develop positive feelings towards their captors.
Stockholm syndrome isn't a kind of brainwashing by the captor; instead, the
victim adapts to the poor situation he or she is in. If most people can
adapt to something as awful as being kidnapped, most people can adapt to
smaller positive changes in their own lives. provide yourself with the proper
influences. …and also look at how your environment and the people you know
shape your life.
If you've ever found yourself making out-of-character
decisions based on your emotional state—such as binging on ice cream after a breakup—you
know how easily your feelings can overtake your actions. Rather than letting
your emotions lead you towards poor judgment and irrational behavior, however,
you can learn to compensate for different emotional states and to fabricate
emotions to alter your mood. In order to do that you need to, simply put, get
in touch with your feelings. The idea isn't so much to cry into a pillow about
your wasted childhood, but understand what you're feeling when you're feeling
it, what the root cause is, and what you can do about it. We're going to take a
look at how you can dissect your emotional state to use it to your advantage,
and also look at how you can fabricate emotion to change how you're feeling.”
Lifehacker’s recommendations to initiate positive change:
·
“You can't really control your emotions if you don't
understand them, and one of the best ways to understand them is to take an
acting class. To some this may sound fun, and to others this may sound like
hell. Love it or hate it, acting lessons are one of the best ways to explore
how and why you feel certain things. Your goal should be to find a class that
will make you uncomfortable every time you go. In my experience, any class
teaching the Meisner technique is very
effective if you put a lot of effort into the exercises. It can be slow,
tedious, and uncomfortable, but it's capable of bringing out emotion you might
not realize you had.
Your emotions aren't in full force if you're not really
doing anything, so you need to put yourself in uncomfortable situations in
order to bring them out. This doesn't mean you should make yourself feel
horrible, but that you should go out and do things that you might resist
because you're worried about the downsides. Meeting new people is something
that makes most people uncomfortable, and it's a great place to start,
especially if it's a first date. Try new things that scare you. If you notice
you're glued to the couch and don't want to get up, do the opposite. Spend time
with people you don't like. Go to a movie you're sure you'll hate. Your
experiences won't always be pleasant, but they should incite emotion that you
can later analyze and better understand.
Like an abbreviated diary, every time you have an
emotional reaction to something, write it down. You don't need much detail, but
just a sentence or two noting the emotion you're experiencing and the
(possible) cause. For example, I get extremely irritable when I'm hungry. I
will lose my temper far more easily when I'm hungry, so whenever I notice
myself thinking irrational (and sometimes hateful) things, I always remind
myself that I'm just hungry, I'll eat in a minute, and the "asshole"
who accidentally missed the garbage can and didn't notice is mostly a result of
my frustrated stomach. Until I started to pay attention, I never really noticed
that I was a jerk whenever I was hungry. Instead, I just thought I was a jerk.
This is a simple example, but the point is this: pay attention to how you feel
and the other issues currently present, and you'll find it much easier to
manage your negative emotions.
Fabricating emotion is difficult. Once you understand
your emotions you'll find it a bit easier, but it helps to be able to recall
how it feels, physically, to emote. We all know how to smile, for example, but
you can probably count more fake smiles in family photographs than you can real
ones. If you don't know how to create an authentic smile (also known as the Duchenne smile), it
will be very obvious to everyone around you. The easiest way to learn to fake
expressions is to practice them in the mirror. You can try them out to see what
you look like and you'll immediately know if they're passable or not. You'll
also note that it feels physically different to create an authentic-looking
emotion than it does to create a fake-looking emotion. For example, an
authentic smile shows more in the eyes than it does in your mouth. When someone
smiles a true smile, their eyes wrinkle (creating "crows feet")
because a new musicle—the orbicularis oculi muscle—is
used. You'll come to remember this feeling and be able to replicate it away
from the mirror after a little practice. It's not necessarily easy to emote in
front of the mirror, but that's not as hard as you think. If your goal is
simply to learn to smile better, you'll get there if you just stare at yourself
for awhile. Eventually it will get so ridiculous that you'll have to laugh… If
you need to change your mood and your mindset, the ability to fake it ‘til you
make it is very, very useful.”
I was thrilled to find this article online today. If
you click on the Lifehacker link above you’ll be able to read much more than
I’ve shared in my pieces today. They go on to discuss how you can “prime your
brain” and, of course, it gives the support information relevant to this. I am
becoming more and more intrigued by how the brain works. I feel like going out
and buying a model with the labeled areas so I can fully appreciate each part
and better realize the individual function and how each area interfaces with the body. I’ve learned a lot in
the past year about this remarkable organ but I have so much more to learn.
What are your thoughts
about outside influences? Do you feel you are easily swayed by environmental
variables? Leave me a comment and let’s discuss it.
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