Month: July 2020

If the reason you are reading this is that the title of the blog caught your attention or raised your curiosity, keep reading and I will fully explain it.

What do you do when you don’t know what a new word means?

You consult a dictionary.

What do you do if you don’t know what an article or a news story  is trying to convey?

You seek out the opinion of experts to help you make sense of an information source that appears to be ambiguous.

What do you do if you aren’t clear what a situation you find yourself in means?

“Is this a trick question?”, you ask.

Well, not exactly.  In fact, many of the interactions you experience may actually start out being ambiguous in that they can have a different meaning based on how you have chosen to view what is going on.

Let me give you an example.  The phrase “How are you?” is very common.

In most cases, the response you get is “Fine.” or “Good”.  The meaning to the other person of what you have said is that you have acknowledged their presence. Another way to do this is to just say, “Hi.”.

But, suppose, the other person responds with something like, “Let me tell you..yesterday was terrible…”  In this case, he or she heard you ask for a detailed retelling of all the bad things that they experienced.

Same phrase, vastly different interpretations.

So, how can you get some information about how you are interpreting the interactions you have with your surroundings?

The answer is that you become aware of your emotions.

Your emotions are your first window into how you are interpreting what is happening to you.

So, it a very real sense, it is your emotions that inform you about the meaning you have given to the event that you are experiencing.

In other words, your emotions are, at least initially for you, the meaning of life.

Let’s dive into this a bit deeper.

Here is the process you (and everyone else) use to interact with your world.

You are hardwired to scan your surroundings for any threats.  This scanning is a hold-over from when we lived in caves and the threats we faced would, indeed, kill us. Our emotions were survival mechanisms whose function was to keep us alive. These survival mechanisms are reflected in the primary emotions (mad, sad, glad, fear, surprise and disgust).

When you subconsciously perceive a threat, a fast-track message goes to your Amygdala which puts you on alert.  This is the fight/flight/freeze response you are familiar with.  Note: it is actually a reaction in that you don’t really think about it.

This is  you assigning meaning to your life as you have, subconsciously, defined whatever is happening as a threat and your brain has issued an alert.

So, when you become aware of an emotion, you also become alert to the meaning or significance of this event to you.

Or, in a very real sense as I noted above, emotions are the meaning of life.

At the same time, a slower message goes to your cerebral cortex.  This is the thinking part of your brain.

It is here that you have an opportunity to change your perception based on your assessment of what it going on.

You are now moving beyond your initial subconscious emotional reaction to a rational emotional response.

When you change how you view the situation, the meaning of the situation changes to conform to your adjusted perception and the emotion you experience changes to match that perception.

Once again, your emotions reflect the meaning you give to your life.

So, while emotions are not exactly the meaning of life.  They are both a reflection of and a window into the meaning you give to the life experiences you have.

Or, to put it another way, the meaning of life.

 

Have you ever offered some excellent advice to a friend which helped them deal with a difficult situation?

Of course you have.

And, maybe, in a moment of self-reflection, you realized how good the advice was and felt a little rush of well-deserved pride. I hope so.

Good for you!

But, and this is the kicker, have you ever found yourself in a situation similar to the one you helped your friend navigate through and you didn’t use your own advice?

The answer for most of us, including me, is “yes”.

And, yes, when it happens to me (a qualified expert in these matters), I feel kind of silly, have to laugh at myself,  forgive myself, and reevaluate the choices I have made.

When I taught a Personal Growth class at the University where I teach, I would often answer questions from the students noting that I was much better at helping them solve their issues that I was solving my own.  The reason for this is that I was objective and unburdened  by emotions when I responded to their issues so I could easily and quickly access my experiences and knowledge to formulate an answer to their question.

In my own case, however, I was often very subjective  and emotional.

This subjectivity clouded my judgement and left me less effective as a problem solver.

I had the necessary knowledge but I was too close to the situation and the knowledge I had didn’t kick in.

From this perspective, here is my self-help secret…

When you are facing an issue that is problematic, troublesome, and emotional for you, follow these six steps:

1. take a piece of paper and write out the issue as you understand it to be.  Note: the “facts” of the situation are not critical here as it is your interpretation that is critical.
2. imagine that a friend of yours has approached you with this exact issue and requested your help
3. write out your suggestions to your friend’s request.
4. put the suggestions you’ve written away for a day or two
5. pull out the suggestions  you wrote down
6. commit to follow the advice that is written down in front of you.

While this “secret” may not work in every situation and you may have to seek some outside input, it will be effective in many situations because:

• you are a good “advice giver” when you are objective
• this process helps you be objective
• the 1-2 day cooling off period gives you some distance from the issue
• you’ve committed to following your own advice.

I hope this helps.