The mood of each person is characterized by the so-called pendulum effect. It lies in the fact that the more the pendulum of emotions swings in one direction from the equilibrium point, the more it will deviate in the opposite direction, i.e., after the ultimate surge of positive emotions, the delight of euphoria is followed by a fall into the abyss of depression and despondency.
This is due to the fact that the strong energy release that accompanies joyful excitement depletes the body’s energy, and until the energy balance is restored, the person will experience an emotional decline, the more significant the stronger the initial excitement.
This effect is especially pronounced in people with a weak nervous system, in whom mental exhaustion is a consequence of prolonged or intense emotional stress.
The pendulum effect manifests itself in its entirety after emotional stress exceeds a certain threshold, individual for each person. The level of this threshold is higher, the more stable the nervous system is.
Falling in love is somewhat reminiscent of short-term psychosis. It is characterized by the highest emotional stress, consuming a huge amount of energy.
Traditional sex, especially between people who are in love with each other, also requires enormous energy expenditure and depletes the body.
This is one of the main reasons why many married couples largely lose sexual and emotional interest in each other after their honeymoon. Undoubtedly, many conflicts are generated by dissimilarity of views and characters, but, as a rule, these conflicts are based not so much on everyday causes as on mental and physical fatigue caused by loss of energy, which causes irritation towards a partner on a subconscious level, which is what a person usually , doesn’t even realize it.
Show-Taoist psychotechniques, which consist of special energetic and emotional training, allow “Calm” to avoid the effect of the pendulum and experience powerful positive emotions without unnecessary waste of energy with periodic return to accumulate strength to a flat plateau of calm (to the point of balance), preventing further pumping of the pendulum and avoiding falling into the abyss of depression and sadness.
The point of balance is a state of calm and quiet joy, a state of diffused calm surprise at the world around us.
The balance point or stable emotional background is a positively colored “zero” point in the swing of our emotional pendulum.
Meaning in today's meaningless postmodern times is often found through aestheticization. We achieve mental excitement, ecstasy, emotion, through fascination. Once upon a time, truth enchanted a person, just as now enchantment is one of the truths, if not the only one, even if not recognized in the eyes of people seeking the highest truth. In the life of modern society there is no place for spiritual realities, miracles, Revelation; it is replaced by quasi-concepts of these phenomena. As in the times of the sixties, who turned towards the east for sacred meaning, now there is the same feeling of a sacred vacuum.
The unsystematic, eclecticism, and ignorance of the views of modern man do not oppress him at all. This sacredness remains just another charm, a charm that evokes pseudo-spiritual experiences. If a person is an adherent of Christianity, then it does not matter whether God is dead or He exists; a person, believing in him, wants to act only based on his ideas about the world, without at all asking the question of how divine energies are woven into his life. Sensory perception in the spiritual replaces this spiritual and works to only deliver experiences to a spiritually thirsty person.
To be a hunter of meaning, to bridle meaning. It's still a burden. Meaning is revealed only from the values of those things to which we give meaning, to which we focus and rely on. If such meanings as: status, family, helping others, work have not been acquired, then it’s worth thinking about. After all, losing something from them, you can approach another. How will you help others if your health does not allow it? Then the meaning of life is lost? Then you need to find him. Otherwise, you can fall into the abyss, become fixated on one meaning of life that has not been realized - more expensive for yourself.
But let's not deviate from the topic.
The existential boredom of modern times is not a feeling, but a mood. Against this background, phenomena and objects come into contact, events occur, moments flash by, situations unfold. The moral of our time lies in finding yourself. Isn't it? How simple it is, right? And I will say the opposite, find another, as he is; and realize yourself before him. As Gogol would say, without quotation, there is not enough goodness in goodness, and in friendship there is a lack of friendliness. We lack the tangible and bright. We are moths: we live in the day of a bright event. And then we die away until another event occurs. Let's face it. Do you lack passion, energy, or emotions? And the root - I mean. Life can be lived without others. But this is not life, but living. You need to spend your vacation, or better yet, with your loved ones. And you won’t live by emotions alone, you have to be active. And there will be no existential boredom. And if there is, then - according to Kozma Prutkov - look at the root.
Peace or life to the fullest?
The fullness of life is always a swing (or pendulum) between positive and negative experiences. We want to live life to the fullest, which means we need to swing in both directions. If we extinguish one of the sides (usually the negative one, of course), the speed fades, the amplitude drops, and peace sets in. This is exactly where depressive states are located: not good/not bad, not sad/not happy...
On the other hand, we strive for comfort.
Comfort is when the environment is not noticeable. Comfortable shoes, those that are not noticeable on the foot; comfortable temperature, the one you don’t feel. Comfortable states are stable, you don’t want to change them.
Those who do not want to live strive for stability. It seems that there is nothing wrong with striving for comfort, but you can unknowingly end up in a lifeless state. When decisions become conceptual, the situation that has arisen may not be lived in the present moment, but stuck in the past.
In this trap, stability becomes lifeless. Peace like in a morgue.
The desire for comfort, when negative experiences are suppressed, means the desire for death.
The fear of experiencing negativity stops the pendulum. They are afraid of wolves, don’t fuck in the forest).
Life is always in motion. To go against life or resist it is to fall into the trap of peace and stability.
Emotions are interdependent. Considering how basic pure emotions alternate, you can see how the pendulum of emotions swings.
Basic ethological (instinctive) emotions: rage, fear, joy.
Fury- energy to overcome obstacles. We can distort this initial energy directed at the situation in every possible way. For example, accusing someone of feeling angry or irritated.
Fear- the body’s reaction to mobilize resources. Altered state of consciousness. Selecting the optimal response mode in the minimum time. To escape, to defend, or to attack for the sake of defense. The analytical work of the brain is turned off and incredible powers and abilities are turned on. The consideration will come into play later, when the danger has passed and there is time to analyze what happened. The feeling of fear also comes later.
We have fear of the state of fear. It prevents us from using an altered state of consciousness. It is useful to be able not to avoid fear, but to go into it, to let it pass through yourself.
Roughly speaking, rage is needed to catch up, and fear is needed to escape (defend, attack for protection, save/help). Every living thing runs. If he doesn’t run away, he’ll be devoured; if he doesn’t catch up, he’ll die of hunger.
Joy- the remaining energy after rage, when you achieved or after fear, when you succeeded or found yourself safe.
Joy is hard to come by. It comes when you live life to the fullest. When the pendulum swings in both directions, into pleasant and negative experiences.
This is when emotions go back and forth. This is when you go from euphoria to a hard minus, and, being in one state, you look back with horror at yourself in another, when you are constantly ashamed of THAT behavior, thoughts, words, when you reject and deny yourself THAT - whatever it may be. This is how I used to live.
What has changed now? I loved my emotional swing! Because I discovered how it works! First - discovery (of a situation or something in oneself) - shock and fear, then - denial and protest “this can’t be, I don’t want it that way!” - hysteria and tears, then gloomy acceptance “Yes, damn it, it’s still like that. Well, how to live with this?! This is some kind of horror! - quiet depression and shame, and then suddenly - and take off: “Yes, this is so, and it’s wonderful that this is exactly so!”, and reaching a new level of strength and self.
But it happens exactly like this only under one condition: with honest, total living of each state. If there are tears, then to the point of exhaustion; if there is depression, then - curl up on the bed in the dark and “let the whole world wait”... By the way, he doesn’t have to wait long. Because when you experience emotions without slowing down, they very quickly exhaust themselves and one suddenly comes to be replaced by another.
Previously, I did not allow myself to go into this “emotional inadequacy”, I slowed down at the very beginning, rested on fear, went “into my head”, explained to myself the unreasonableness and inexpediency of emotional storms, they say, “what will people think”, and that “the current They will certainly harm the status quo.” I controlled my emotions. Until the moment when suddenly the spring broke and they began to control me. Then she risked consciously letting herself go... When moving from state to state, looking back and horrified at herself, blaming herself for “that’s all,” trying to pretend to herself that “it wasn’t me.” Then I learned to accept - “Yes, sometimes I am like that. And here's another one. And I can also be like this.”
True, a new question immediately arose: how can we live with this when there is no stability? How to plan life, affairs, work, after all? And then the answer came to him: no way! Trust the flow, ride the waves of your emotions and live based on your current state, without trying to force yourself to feel something else, always accepting yourself and finding anything for yourself to occupy yourself with. I began to learn not to fit myself into things, but to carefully fit things into myself.
Now I already know: if a “storm” is approaching, I must, without slowing down, take a step forward, a step towards it, no matter how scary it may be. Because a bonus after a day or two will be new opportunities, awareness, insights, something incredible that was previously closed, old connections and frameworks that were just too scary to break will be broken, and instead of them something unexpectedly new will suddenly begin to come.
For those who are not particularly familiar with me, this looks strange or funny: “No, no, we can’t meet today, today I’m terribly busy, I’m crying!” For those who know me better, this is a sign: in a couple of days I will go to a new resource and begin to generate ideas that a week ago could not even come close to my head.
Logicians who read my blog are horrified: “But she constantly contradicts herself! Just a couple of days ago she wrote the opposite!” But it is from these posts that you can most clearly see how it works, and first of all, I can see it myself.
I grow through such a build-up, each time “after” I find myself a step higher than I was “before”. Perhaps this can be done in some other way, but for now this is the only option available to me for developing myself. No matter how strange and neurotic it may look from the outside at times, tracking one’s own dynamics of development and changes occurring in life clearly shows that this has the right to be.
For me, this is also “awareness” and “conscious choice” - having discovered emotions and feelings in yourself, not running away from them “into your head”, into thinking about where they came from and whether they should be there, but, having closed your eyes, take a step forward and desperately step into their very abyss. Whatever they came, whatever they have. And in love, and in hatred, and in sadness, and in joy.
“Although emotions and feelings are subjective in form, they all have certain external manifestations (in the form of various movements, gestures, facial expressions, intonation and timbre of the voice). Moreover, “mental movements” cause quite obvious physical changes: people turn red, turn pale, their heart and breathing rhythms accelerate (or slow down). The activity of the circulatory, respiratory, digestive organs, endocrine and exocrine glands, etc. may change. Under the influence of negative emotional states, sometimes prerequisites for the development of early diseases are formed...”
Pendulum of emotions
We are all victims of a common stereotype: a person can control his thoughts, but will never take control of his emotions. Well, it's true. But only if you have never dealt with emotional control before...
In this chapter, I will talk about my matrix of emotions, according to which you can always better navigate your own emotional world:
Conducting trainings on stress management and emotion management, I teach people to diagnose their emotions using the above matrix, formed by two axes: the horizontal axis is energy, the vertical axis is the expression of a good mood.
In which of the four “squares” are active and stress-resistant people most often found? Here's what the surveys showed during class:
“Quiet confidence, assertiveness, determination” – 60–70% of the time.
“Irritation, anger, rage” – 15–20% of the time.
“Boredom, despondency, depression, sadness” - 10% of the time.
“fun, joy, ecstasy” – 5-10% of the time.
Our mood usually resembles a pendulum swinging between two poles of a scale:
Dejection Joy
Moreover, if the mood suddenly goes “positive”, it can then just as sharply jump “into the negative”. At the same time, moving from sadness to joy is much more difficult. Without practical experience, it is not easy to evoke positive emotions in yourself.
How can you manage your emotions? What management tools are there?
And here the following control levers will come to the rescue:
● change of direction of thoughts;
● presentation of certain images;
● causing certain sensations in the body
● specially selected movements;
● specially selected scents;
● certain music.
In principle, emotions are a volatile thing. Everyone knows how easily the mood can sometimes spoil, and, on the contrary, what instant delight good news can cause. However, other emotions can be quite rigid. That is why you will have to spend some time “calling out emotions”. Mentally spend at least 3-10 minutes on this process. At the same time, you can work not only with the positive direction of your emotions, but also with the degree of their intensity.
It is possible to control the swing of the “pendulum”, even if at first it seems impossible. But think about what influences our emotions? On the one hand, the external environment: the people around us, difficult situations and even the weather. And on the other hand, our own attitude towards ourselves and the world. Let's say, a person with an overestimation will be very upset when he realizes that the attitude of others towards his person does not correspond to his imaginary importance.
Other people suffer from underestimating themselves: hence their insecurity and vulnerability. Our mood is spoiled by the lack of important skills or information, as well as by an overly emotional approach to things that, in fact, do not really matter.
For many people, their lives are spoiled by the so-called “obsession with perfection,” as well as the fear of failure: they want to remain on a pedestal forever, and are so afraid of making a mistake that they prefer to never take risks or do anything new. The level of ambition also affects the mood: it happens that a person wants a lot, but cannot achieve it yet - and worries. Sometimes it’s painful, but such emotions also serve as an excellent “locomotive of success” that helps you achieve your plans.
Of course, the external environment, as a rule, cannot be controlled. But we are able to control our internal state. This is precisely what all meditative techniques (both in Buddhism and Orthodoxy), shamanic techniques, methods of martial arts schools, etc. are aimed at. Their main task is to extinguish negative emotions. But it also happens the other way around.
In a variety of artistic schools (Chekhov, Stanislavsky, etc.), artists are taught to evoke certain emotions in themselves - anger, fear, sadness, joy. They must be able to portray them, even if they themselves do not experience anything similar. However, if Stanislavsky emphasized the mental representation of certain circumstances (vivid images in the head caused an external expression of emotions through the actor’s motor skills), then
Chekhov proposed, on the contrary, to work more with external manifestations and motor skills (knowing that certain movements can “ignite” the necessary emotions).
Can we control our bad mood? Of course! American scientists even discovered a special center in the brain that is responsible specifically for bad mood. This structure (located a few centimeters behind the right eye) is activated in people who complain of irritability, agitation, and constant outbursts of anger. How to “tame” her if her mood is already hopelessly spoiled?
In my trainings, effective techniques are used to teach emotional state control. "Pendulum". To begin with, I suggest that participants enter the “zero point” (see the diagram above). To do this, concentration techniques are used. Then everyone must voluntarily “go negative” and experience negative emotions (90% of people are much easier to “program” themselves for sadness rather than joy).
To ruin your mood, I suggest thinking about past failures, debts, your illnesses, the inevitable end of life, and so on. At the same time, you should conjure up vivid pictures and images in your head to create a whole “feature film.”
Having caused a state of negativity, you need to keep it in your head, stewing in your grievances and pessimism, in boredom and anxiety. We are often told: “We should always think about the good.” But the world consists of only half joy. We are not children, and we know: in this life there is both white and black. And you need to be able to competently manage both.
Participants should immerse themselves in black thoughts and images, analogues of negative emotions from the past, for 3-10 minutes. And then they need to transfer their thoughts back to the zero state. Without this, the mood pendulum simply cannot swing towards the positive.
First they concentrate on an imaginary zero. After which, smoothly, using positive thoughts, accompanied by bright pictures and images, they move “to the plus”. You can help yourself by using slides, music, smells and physical exercises that stimulate positive emotions.
Having reached the condition, after ten minutes have passed “in the positive”, you can again move on to the negative, then again to the positive, and so on. It is important to comprehend the process of transition from one emotional state to another and understand: each of them can be held, each can be entered and exited. A month or two of such training will provide you with good control over your emotional world.
You can also use additional techniques: "Managing Emotions" Think about it: what emotion visits you most often during the day? What kind of negative thoughts come to mind? What situation provokes them?
Now “enter” the emotion you have designated. What thoughts accompany her? Highlight the key ones. And... replace them with similar, but positive ones. After this, they should be scrolled through your head several times (once is not enough!).
