- Luke Monahan
- Perth
- Australia
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Emotion and communication
Lately I've been seeing videos/conversations about sexism and racism both here and in other forums.
The one thing that stands out to me more than anything else is emotion as a roadblock to a thoughtful exchange of ideas.
We all seem to suffer from a bad case of us and them mentality where we try to categorize people we encounter as one or the other.
It would be really easy to argue with someone that is exactly as you imagine them to be because you've already rehearsed the argument a million times in your head, a drooling hateful pervert/racist/whatever else.
Unfortunately, more often than not, you find someone that is in some grey zone and you do your very best to convince yourself and them that they are one of the people that are creating the problem in order to act out your fantasized conversational exchange where you tell them off for being such a bad person.
When you have two people trying to act out their fantasized conversational exchange, they seem to be very good at finding a way to accommodate one another and end the conversation with nothing less than the most bitter hateful wrath.
I certainly know that I am not above this sort of flawed thinking and I can remember times when I have been down such a path.
To what extent can we be aware of ourselves and stop this from happening?
Why are we so blind to the cognitive flaws which stop us from having meaningful and constructive interaction?
Debra Smith 200+
So all of this is to say, I wish I were not injured by the actions of others and I have done all I know to be whole again and still I feel the assault of those words and actions by people who do not care to change and want their postion guarenteed and protected at the expense of woman like me -30 years later. I tried to make it clear that i am on both sides of this issue as the mother of four sons who are now encountering the kind of discrimination I face because of the configuration of their bodies. How can someone from the side lines really believe that they are more knowledgable or have more invested. To me it is craziness to think that way - and yet I must be invested because I am still here trying to reason - even if I have to bring my brokeness with me.
Gail . 50+
What was programmed out of you is another communication medium that, because of the programming (indoctrination), you fail to recognize.
There is a HUGE difference between an emotion and a feeling. An emotion is a bodily response to a thought. It appears in the presence of an erroneous belief. A feeling is a universal language that permeates the entirety of the unified field of which we are a part. Feelings are never "negative" (for lack of a better word).
Becoming self-aware is easy enough. Start with a timer. (preferably an analogue one that you can slip into your pocket). Turn the timer and when the bell rings, ask yourself what you are thinking about & feeling. Another exercise: use the timer to see how long you can hold a thought/emotion. (You don't need an analogue timer for this). Continue asking yourself other questions. See what thoughts trigger what emotions.
Extend this by looking at your beliefs and recognize how these determine your thoughts that precede emotions. As you do this, you will see that sometimes you believe one things and other times you believe the exact opposite. Understand that if the belief is valid, it will not change simply because circumstances have. (errant beliefs produce emotional responses such as the ones you mention during a heated debate)
Beliefs are the fabric of your reality. If you confuse emotion with logical thought, you will find yourself spending a lot of time in "suffering" mode. (suffering = any unhappy state of mind). You will live w/ fear & frustration. Fear-based decisions produce fearful consequences. Awakened ones = not so.
When you have sorted through your own beliefs, and tossed the ones that don't work for you, your life will be so transformed 4 the +
Barry Palmer 50+
I criticize my own work. I just read my first comment here, and realized that it was not very helpful. I was trying to point out the simple logic that our cognitive flaws make us blind to our cognitive flaws. But we can improve ourselves.
Go back and read some of your earlier comments and pay attention to what you did not write. Pay attention to its tone as well as its logic, and the emotions it expresses or implies. If you see yourself addressing the person rather than the idea, take a close look at your own emotions and motivations.
Pats advice, "View things as they are not how they should be and you will be a Lot happier."
is very good. Apply it to your own writing. Pat is insistent that we see things as they really are, not as they should be and not as we want them to be, and without the false colors that emotion or memes can add. Always make yourself aware of the context, especially the context of the writer. Before criticizing someone's comment, look at his/her profile.
All that said, remember also that some topics require emotion. Writing with cold logic about injustices such as slavery or genital mutilation is an additional injustice to the victims. These crimes deserve our rage.
Stewart Ellis
Rhona Pavis 50+
Barry Palmer 50+
"Why are we so blind to the cognitive flaws which stop us from having meaningful and constructive interaction?"
How can we not be blind to our own cognitive flaws?
pat gilbert 50+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9R-Wrpd8w8
pat gilbert 50+
You have the right not to communicate to someone who you don't want to talk to, My advise would be if you don't want to talk to them don't. Don't talk to toxic people as no good will come of it.
Keep a good attitude and practice good manner and you will eliminate a lot of this sort of thing.
View things as they are not how they should be and you will be a Lot happier.
Keep your opinions to yourself.
It is more effective to change someone's mind to get them to talk about it by using the Socratic method.