Emotions
Understanding our Emotions is fundamental to understanding ourselves, our motivations, and our reactions to life events.
Creating the Emotions You Desire
In order to effectively create the life you want, you must be able to recognize the emotions that you feel, the external and internal stimuli that trigger them, and develop methods for redirecting negative emotions towards productive ends. Without these abilities, you become a passenger on your own ship, being tossed about by emotional rough seas and unable to correct the course to minimize the damage or avoid the storm altogether.
You must alter your own incentives to make yourself do the things you want to do.
See Emotional self-regulation.
The God Concept
The unique perspective and biggest insight into emotional regulation that metaculture proposes is the notion of the god concept. By associating god with everything that exists, as well as the greatest good that we can conceive of, a neural shortcut between any external event and our pleasure center is created. This provide automatic happiness for the believer that is able to see good in all things and experience all of life through the lens of positivity.
Thoughts Are Loops
Feedback loops also provide perspective and understanding when it comes to human emotions. Negative thoughts can inhibit our ability to function, causing us to make mistakes and fail to achieve our goals, which leads to more negative thoughts and an even greater inhibition of ability. When allowed to spiral unabated, this leads to deep depression cycles that can be hard to break.
Likewise, love and happiness can beget more love and happiness. When we are filled with positive emotions we share that joy with others, and they become more willing to share their joy in return. See karma.
Breaking the feedback loop of emotion is possible, for example when you make a joke during an argument, force yourself to do an activity you enjoy when you are sad, or pull out your red flags on a date that was going really well until that moment. Granted you don't actually want to break a positive emotional feedback loop on purpose, but it happens all the time.
Emotion Maps
These images by psychologist Roger Plutchik show the full spectrum of emotions and their relations to each other.
Emotional Videos
Videos that explain or evoke emotions.
The emotional impact of these songs can be significantly enhanced by knowing the stories behind them. Read about the story of Hurt and the listen to the King of Tears podcast from Malcolm Gladwell and unlock a whole new emotional level with these songs.