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Emotions and Waves With Carly Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to you. This week's My Joe Monday.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to talk about emotions today because we
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: all have them, and let's face it, many of them
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: are great. We love them. Like today, I got a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: PB which means personal best at the gym and I
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: felt really good. So I guess the emotion was joy
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: ir relation, especially as I walked in with so much doubt,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so it felt even better. And then afterwards, I was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: smiling at strangers as I walked past them, and I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: had a little skip in my step. And this was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: an emotion that felt good and as a result, it
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: had an impact on my energy and my behavior. So
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: what happens when we feel emotions that aren't great. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I know this is pretty predictable, but you know, they're heavy,
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  Speaker 1: they weigh us down, they're uncomfortable, and they can easily
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: impact our behavior. And I know, when I'm feeling down
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and I'm feeling a bit depressed, the last thing I
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: feel like doing is smiling at strangers in the street.
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  Speaker 1: It's more kind of head down, avoid on eye contact,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and kind of get the hell out of there. When
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: those uncomfortable emotions show up, that's when we can dive
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  Speaker 1: into that avoidance pool. So avoidance is our mind's instructions
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: to protect ourselves. So it's pretty normal our minds one
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: are safe and comfortable. So the default strategy is short
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  Speaker 1: term avoidance. We all do it. Scrolling, drinking, complaining to
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  Speaker 1: friends is a way of avoiding how we're feeling withdrawing,
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  Speaker 1: or we could go into that fixed mode and try
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  Speaker 1: and think our way out of feeling by analyzing ourselves
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  Speaker 1: or using emotional regulation strategies, which of course do work
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: short term and can be helpful, but they're not really
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a long term fix. What we don't tend to do
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: is just feel what we feel, like, really feel our
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: emotions without trying to control them or question them or
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: go into battle with them. Just feel. And it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: until I was introduced to Marita therapy around ten years
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  Speaker 1: ago that I became aware of all that effort of
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  Speaker 1: focusing on trying to control my emotions was actually really
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  Speaker 1: shrinking my world. Sometimes what I need is to just feel, like,
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  Speaker 1: really really feel it. And in the first stage of
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the original classic Marita Therapy, which I spoke very briefly
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: about last week, the protocol that showman Marita created over
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  Speaker 1: one hundred years ago, where it was called the rest stage.
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  Speaker 1: Patients were asked to lie in a bed in a
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  Speaker 1: room with little more than a window for four to
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  Speaker 1: seven days and just rest. So no books, no visitors,
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  Speaker 1: no radio, no phones, nothing but their own mind and body.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And there was a doctor who supervised and monitored them.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And there was somebody who brought them their meals, which
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure were amazing Japanese food, which is probably the
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  Speaker 1: highlight of their day. And this sounds being stuck in
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  Speaker 1: a room for days on end may sound like torture,
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  Speaker 1: but stay with me on this one because the outcome
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  Speaker 1: is so interesting. This first stage was the opposite of
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  Speaker 1: most therapies. They didn't talk about their pain to a therapist.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Nobody tried to talk them out of their fear or
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  Speaker 1: teach them a technique to manage or delve into their past.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: They were left alone with whatever came up, with no
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: choice but to be with it. And you may assume
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: that patients spiraled into some kind of emotional vortex, but
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  Speaker 1: under the doctor's supervision, what happened instead was something pretty remarkable.
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  Speaker 1: So the emotion rises, it peaks, and then on its own,
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  Speaker 1: it starts to subside. So Marita described it as a wave.
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  Speaker 1: So it builds up and up and up, it reaches
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  Speaker 1: this high point that it cannot sustain forever, and then
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  Speaker 1: it flows back down without anybody forcing anything. And that
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  Speaker 1: was the patients who struggled and tried to resist it,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: who tried to think their way out or white knuckle
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  Speaker 1: it out, only kept the wave going. So Marita described
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: this as trying to stop one wave with another wave,
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  Speaker 1: for all you get is more waves. So by the
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  Speaker 1: fourth or fifth day, the final part of this first
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  Speaker 1: stage of Marita's protocol was boredom. So no enlightenment or
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: self discovery here. It was they were just bored and
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  Speaker 1: this is what he expected, and that was the sign
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  Speaker 1: that the patient was ready to move to the next stage.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: What meant was the wave had taken its course, it
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  Speaker 1: had flowed up naturally and then subsided. The mind wasn't
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  Speaker 1: fighting it anymore, and the patient was bored enough to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: want to actually do something. And I find this really fascinating.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: The patient was in an environment where they had no
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  Speaker 1: choice but to fully experience whatever feeling came up. It
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  Speaker 1: was as if they became one with that feeling and
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  Speaker 1: only then did it take its natural course, subsiding and
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: leaving them bored with themselves. And if you look at
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  Speaker 1: this from an attentional viewpoint, they started with their attention
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: on themselves, their emotions and thoughts and their struggles. They
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  Speaker 1: experienced this natural flow of their emotions, which then subsided
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  Speaker 1: over time, and then their light of attention turned outwards
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  Speaker 1: and they wanted something that just wasn't focused on them.
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  Speaker 1: And then the next stage was work like gardening or
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: craft work. And you think about it, it's like, after
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  Speaker 1: days of being so internally focused, it's not hard to
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  Speaker 1: imagine how wonderful the garden must have looked and felt. Now.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I imagine they had so much curiosity and wonder as
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  Speaker 1: they went outside. And it didn't mean that the patient
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  Speaker 1: no longer felt their emotions, But what this process helped
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  Speaker 1: them do was allow them to be there while they
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  Speaker 1: did whatever purposeful work that they chose to do. So,
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  Speaker 1: of course it's not realistic that we're going to spend
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a week in a room on our own, but I
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  Speaker 1: think the principle is really worth considering. Left alone, so
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  Speaker 1: no struggle, no going into battle, no judgment, which is
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  Speaker 1: very hard to do because emotions can be really uncomfortable.
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  Speaker 1: But if we can leave them alone, emotions they can
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  Speaker 1: rise and they can fall. And it doesn't matter if
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  Speaker 1: you're in Japan in a small room a century go
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  Speaker 1: or whether you're at the kitchen sink today. What we
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  Speaker 1: can remember is that we can feel what we feel
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  Speaker 1: and still turn to what is next. The feeling will
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  Speaker 1: rise up and fall like a wave if we allow
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  Speaker 1: it to take its course. And I think this has
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  Speaker 1: been the major shift for me doing this work, is
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  Speaker 1: understanding that emotions don't have to control our behavior. I
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: can still smile at strangers no matter how I'm feeling,
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  Speaker 1: and that's sometimes a simple but very hard thing to do.
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  Speaker 1: But when you do it, you might find that that
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  Speaker 1: smile makes a difference. So I hope that's been valuable.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Have a great week everyone, I'll catch you next week.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Seeya