“Your emotions are meant to fluctuate, just like your blood pressure is meant to fluctuate. It’s a system that’s supposed to move back and forth, between happy and unhappy. That’s how the system guides you through the world.”
Daniel Gilbert
Dan Gilberts “The Surprising Science Of Happiness”:
While I often enjoy doing podcasts and guided instructions myself I will let Dan Gilbert share his perspective in his own words today. If you find this video helpful I would truly consider buying his book.
Looking Through Your Thoughts And Emotions:
Most of the time when we are trying to get away from stress we are comparing 1 train of thought to another. In short; arguing with ourselves. This is the “normal” state of high stress humanity where we are trying to decide which thought to believe.
Really this arguing with ourselves boils down to trying to decide which action, behavior, viewpoint, or perspective is most likely to make us feel better about our current experience. It is a process of addition, we are adding things up and trying to come up with a “new” and “better” belief system.
The process of self inquiry is the opposite. It is asking ourselves the question “what does the world look like when seen THROUGH this particular belief”. How does my emotional body respond when I pretend this thought is true? How does believing this thought affect my behaviors and actions? What other thoughts arise in relationship to taking this perspective? In short; how does this thought experience the world?
The process of self inquiry becomes one of subtraction; what would it be like to let go of this thought? How much more free would I feel by letting go of experiencing the world through this thought? We aren’t replacing a “bad” thought with a “good” thought but rather finding out how much better we might feel simply by letting go of 1 without putting another one in it’s place.
Up Last: Practice