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Self-Devalualtion and Imperceptible Feelings · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

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  Hello everyone and welcome to the Curious Mind podcast.
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  My name is Gabriel Ellis. I'm a psychologist,
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  psychotherapist and Buddhist scholar, and in this podcast I'd
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  like to reflect in depth on psychological concepts,
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  sometimes the history of psychology, concepts of
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  meditation, so that you gain a deeper understanding beyond the
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  usual a bit more superficial perspectives that we got
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  provided on psychological topics so that you can evaluate a
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  little bit more yourself and the psychological world around you.
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  And today I would like to reflect on a concept which is
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  self devaluation and what I call imperceptible feelings.
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  And this is in fact something that is important to many
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  psychological and psychotherapeutic traditions,
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  and I hope it will become clear in my description why that is so
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  and how we can use those approaches, those concepts, to
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  our own betterment and to become more healthy in the process.
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  So there is already widespread knowledge that it is not events
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  per SE, not events as such that determine my psychological
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  well-being, but how I interpret them.
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  So for example, if I lose my smartphone, that in itself is
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  the event, but it doesn't determine necessarily how I feel
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  about it. It depends how I interpret and
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  how I evaluate this event. So I might see it as a blessing
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  for whatever reason. Maybe I wanted to get a new
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  phone to begin with. It might be a catastrophe
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  because all of my private data are stored there and
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  photographs, passwords, and so on.
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  And now it's such a hassle, at least I imagine it to be.
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  So to get a new phone and all of these, I don't know if those
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  interpretations are true. Maybe I think that it's a
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  blessing, but then the process it turns out that it's not.
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  Maybe I think it's a catastrophe.
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  And then it turns out that there are some advantages to it.
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  Be it as it may, how I feel about the event is what is
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  important psychologically, not the event as such.
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  So this is a distinction that I think many of us who are a
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  little bit more knowledgeable and psychology are familiar
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  with. If not, then certainly this is a
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  good introductory step for you to reassess your daily life, be
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  it your partnership, your work. Also, if you know the concept of
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  nonviolent communication, then this basic distinction is very
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  much at the center of it. Namely, to see a difference in
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  the event which in the context of nonviolent Communication,
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  something that my partner, for example, or someone at my
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  workplace does or says to distinguish this from how I
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  interpret it, what it means to me.
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  Because often enough, when we don't make this distinction,
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  then we attack. We criticize the person for
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  their action, and we don't highlight how my interpretation
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  of what they said and did was actually an essential aspect or
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  essential part in the outcoming emotions that I felt.
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  So that in the context of nonviolent communication, when
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  we make a request at the end we make the request to the other
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  person so that it helped us to reinterpret or to interpret
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  differently what they say and do.
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  It's not to put the whole blame on the other person.
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  It's, you know, follows very much the expression of only two
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  can play this game. It needs two people to create a
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  situation that affects me psychologically if it's
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  interpersonal and so I approach both the other person, but I
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  also take into account my interpretation of the events.
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  OK, so I think of these two levels are fairly well
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  understood and it makes sense, even though it can be
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  challenging in those situations to differentiate between the
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  event as such and my assessment or evaluation of it, and thus
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  also to understand that my emotion comes from the two of
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  them and not just from the event as such.
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  Now, the third level that I want to add to this is the aspect of
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  will or intention, meaning usually events and
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  interpretation. They don't happen in a vacuum,
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  they don't just stop in the consequences with the assessment
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  of them, but the conclusion of my assessment brings forth a
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  certain act that I want to do. Again, let me bring the example
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  of I lose my smartphone or it breaks.
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  I evaluate it. So let's say I find this
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  horrible event. So now I have to go through the
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  hassle of getting a new one, and now I need to initiate that
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  activity. I need to plan and initiate,
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  when I do it, what I do, where I go, how much I want to spend,
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  how I approach the purchase and so forth.
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  So the willpower, the intention is now applied to the execution
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  of the the acts that followed on to the assessment of the event.
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  Will intention is the third part in this sequence.
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  Now, when we look at what is involved, what are the basic
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  ingredients of this willpower and intention that I apply?
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  It's relatively clear that part of our personality already comes
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  into play and the way that we do it.
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  Meaning that even though we are certainly not alone in the way
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  that we approach the situation, many people, if they would find
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  this event, the loss of the smartphone for example, if they
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  find it catastrophic, many would initiate, for example, the
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  purchase of a new one. But the way that we do it, if we
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  follow up immediately, where we go, how much it's worth to us,
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  how much we complain about the whole process.
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  So the way that we apply the willpower and the attention to
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  the situation already carries somewhat the fingerprint of our
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  personality, even though we are still very much in exchange with
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  the immediate circumstances that triggered our intention.
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  So 3 levels so far. Event assessment, application of
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  willpower or intention. Based on that, there is the 4th
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  level. The 4th level is the evaluation
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  of my approach. Now I don't evaluate the event
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  as such. That was the second step.
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  I apply willpower and intention. But then afterwards I evaluate
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  what happened and how I approached it.
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  Let's say I went to the store, I spent some money, I come home, I
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  have the new phone, and then I generally reflect on how it went
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  and how satisfied I am with what I did and how I did it.
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  This is the evaluation of my approach.
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  Depending on how I evaluate myself in the sequence, the
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  consequences that I drew from my activity, I can be dissatisfied
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  with myself or I can be satisfied with myself based on
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  this assessment. Based on this evaluation, there
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  are again feelings and emotions that come up.
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  They again are much more reflective of my personality
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  because they display how I relate to myself.
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  Now, how visible and perceptible are those emotions and feelings
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  compared to the first feelings that appeared when I lost my
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  smartphone? Certainly there was.
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  In our example it was disappointment, anger,
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  frustration, and so on. Now, the feelings that emerge
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  out of myself evaluation, I would argue that in most
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  situations they're still perceptible.
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  But depending on how habitual those feelings are, let's say
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  usually I'm quite satisfied with how I approach things in a
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  situation of challenge like this.
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  And if I'm so habitual in my satisfaction with myself, I
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  would argue that my feelings and emotions are not that
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  perceptible. Certainly if someone asks me So
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  are you satisfied with how you did it?
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  I would say, yeah, I'm quite satisfied.
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  And yet, even though I might not consciously realize how in that
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  situation what my feelings are of satisfaction, for example, I
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  would say that these feelings and emotions still radiate
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  through my system, through my mind, through my emotional
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  system, and they contribute to what myself feeling is to
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  myself. Attitude is OK.
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  So this was the 4th step after the third step where I applied
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  intentional willpower. Now and the 4th step I evaluate
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  my approach. In the 5th step I make an even
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  more abstract distillation of the whole sequence of events.
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  I create and contribute to myself assessment.
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  So even more than in the last step I come to the conclusion
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  much more generally about myself.
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  It's really good that in the shop I didn't let people, you
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  know, talk me into buying an expensive phone, for example.
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  Or I find it so shitty that I don't assert myself more and
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  that I don't value myself enough.
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  And so in these assessments there is an implication of self
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  value. I find myself good.
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  I like myself. I like myself in stressful
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  situations or I don't like myself.
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  Why am I like this all the time? This is so frustrating.
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  Again, I did let it happen to myself again.
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  I let people talk to myself in a certain way.
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  I'm so dissatisfied. I'm so frustrated with myself.
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  Or it can be somewhere. Of course, in the middle I just
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  picked an overly positive or negative example.
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  Usually I would say in most situations and somewhere in
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  between. But many people, based on the
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  way that they are brought up, based on how they're influenced
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  by authorities, work situations, relationships and so on, they
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  internalize a rather negative self dialogue.
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  And in this negative self dialogue, they come to negative
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  conclusions about themselves. Negative assessment, self
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  devaluations. Now these self assessments,
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  those self devaluations, they come of course with their own
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  emotions and feelings, but often they are dull and often enough
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  they are imperceptible completely.
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  Because I become, if it's ingrained in my personality, I
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  become so used. It's so habitual that I approach
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  myself in this way that I don't even perceive the impact of my
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  negative assessment toward myself, also not the impact of
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  the positive assessment of myself.
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  Now of course, generally in therapy we are confronted with
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  negative self assessments, with self devaluations.
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  The problem with those imperceptible feelings and
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  emotions is that they still affect us and they still affect
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  us in a way that is not negligible.
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  Quite the opposite, they affect us in a way that affects our
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  self feeling and our approach to other people, our approach to
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  the next challenging situation, our approach to relationships,
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  authorities, performance situations and so forth.
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  And here is where the sixth stage comes in a stage of
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  therapy. And in this stage I evaluate
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  myself assessment, I evaluate myself image.
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  So basically I bring to the surface how I habitually relate
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  to myself. If I habitually criticize
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  myself, devaluate myself, look down on myself, I'm frustrated
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  with myself, or somewhere in the middle or positive, I bring this
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  to the foreground and I become conscious of the emotional
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  impact that that has. Now how do I do that?
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  Because often enough people don't realize the emotional
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  impact. I take this self dialogue, the
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  inner dialogue that I identified by answering the question what
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  do I usually tell myself after challenging situations?
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  Before challenging situations? And if people are not aware of
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  this at all, then I basically artificially help them to create
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  some sort of a in a dialogue that represents how they usually
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  relate to themselves. And now we take this dialogue
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  and we imagine that someone else would tell us those words.
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  How shitty are you usually? Why do you let people walk over
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  you? It's so amazing that you usually
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  react this way. It's so satisfying to see you in
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  situations, standing up for yourself, all those very
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  fundamental messages about myself.
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  I imagine that someone else tells me what I usually tell
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  myself and then it's easy to see how would I react if somebody
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  habitually would tell me those words.
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  And in the same process, I understand I would.
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  Usually when it comes to negative self assessments, I
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  would never tell those words to anyone else.
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  I respect them too much. I'm too much concerned with
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  their well-being before I tell them the words that I tell
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  myself. And then it becomes clear the
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  impact of those imperceptible feelings and emotions as a
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  consequence to how I talk to myself.
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  And this is what many therapeutic methods apply.
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  They bring to the surface in one way or another, how I relate to
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  myself, how I talk to myself, how I assess myself.
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  They show how I habitually devaluate myself in order to
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  create a new value system for how I should relate to myself,
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  of how I want to relate to myself.
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  Basically what we're creating is an ethical shock where clients
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  within a psychotherapy see what they're doing to themselves and
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  how they are treating themselves and that they would would never
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  do it to somebody else. And as a consequence of this,
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  people understand, OK, I want to treat myself at least as well as
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  I want to treat others, if not better, because who else is more
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  important to myself than I am. Then it comes to the application
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  of how do we change these things.
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  Some therapeutic methods, they might focus more on this ethical
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  impact and create kind of this new orientation, this shock
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  value, the insight that comes from that.
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  Some might be more practical and to spell out the practical
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  approach, what we need to do is to stop this well oiled machine
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  of self devaluation. So we have to learn in daily
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  life to stop ourselves and to notice when we apply negative
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  self talk, negative in a dialogue.
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  This is the first step. If I don't catch myself doing
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  that, there's very little chance that I can change my ways,
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  change my basic relation to myself.
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  So that's the first thing I have to realize when I do it.
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  Once realized, I have to stop what I'm doing, question myself.
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  Is it really what I want to imply in here?
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  That I'm a bad person? That I'm not worthy of love.
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  Not worthy of attention. Not worthy of respect.
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  Or am I criticizing something in my behavior?
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  Yes, the wish that I would have acted differently in that
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  situation and then form a plan of how I wish to behave in a
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  similar next situation without being too, you know,
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  perfectionistic And yet to relate to myself fundamentally
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  in a positive way. Just as we want to deal with
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  children when they are growing up 6 year old, 8 year old, 10
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  year old, 12 year old, we separate the criticism of a
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  certain act from the evaluation of the person.
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  So to a child we want to bring the message across.
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  I love you, I accept you, respect you.
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  What I don't like is this feature and your behavior.
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  And I wish you to act in a different way next time.
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  It's a balancing act. But I think emotionally and tone
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  wise, the distinction is quite clear.
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  So first, we notice what we're doing.
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  Second, we understand the inner dialogue.
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  We understand how we want to relate to ourselves.
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  We correct our vision and we go on to the next situation.
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  The effects will not come immediately.
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  It will take time until we notice the different, the
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  improved, the more healthy relation to myself.
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  It will take time, but it will come eventually and noticeably,
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  because the more consequential we are, the better we catch
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  ourselves and correct our approach.
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  The more we provide the unconscious with an autopilot of
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  how to now assess myself in situations, and when the
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  unconscious accepts the new perspective, which is that I'm
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  valuable, worthy, respect myself and so forth, the emotions that
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  it creates will be so much more rewarding because there will be
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  emotions basically either of satisfaction and peace or even
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  more positively with self value with joy.
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  So this is I think a feature that many therapies will share
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  once it's realized that self devaluation is taking place on a
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  habitual basis. And I hope that with this video
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  on this explanation, you gain some insight into the structure
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  of what is going on in our mind, namely that there are different
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  levels that accumulate and basically lead to a message to
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  ourselves. It starts with events, with
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  situations that it ends with a very fundamental message about
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  myself if I'm good or not, and that this basic fundamental
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  evaluation of myself generates very fundamental feelings and
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  emotions that reflect myself feeling with which I am walking
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  around dealing with daily situations.
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  OK, that is it for today. Feel free to leave comments and
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  questions and I will try to address them in the next video.