Your Two Emotional Permission Points

You have two Emotional Permission Points and they ‘live’ in your left, logical thinking neo-cortex.  You will see them, if you look for them, whenever you are in a situation that suggests an emotional response may be needed.

Permission Point 1: Emotional Production

Think of a moment in your life when you were in a position to produce an intensely negative emotional response to a situation - but chose not to.

You got a taste of the emotional response rising up through your body but  chose not to release the ‘full blast’.  The people around you were unaware, after the situation passed, you had felt an emotional response coming on at all and you retained a sense of control.

Do you remember a moment like that?

Chances are you sensed the emotional response approaching and applied a mental model that changed the context of the situation for you.  The normal reason we reduce and remove our emotional responses is because by giving ourselves a different route out of the situation through the use of an alternative thinking template we manage to regain our sense of control over how we are affected by the situation and that sense of control reduces our sense of threat.

Can you think of another situation in which you granted permission for Emotional Production?  Chances are it was the right thing to do.  An important point to remember is that ‘feeling bad’ in response to a situation is not the same thing as ‘being bad’.

I’ve seen a lot of evidence that a well controlled emotional response can create an exquisitely appropriate outcome – you just need to make sure you do not overdo it.

Oh, and you also have to take responsibility for making sure you fully complete the emotional cycle.

Permission Point 2:  Emotional Release

The emotional response is produced in the body and the feelings come up – your logical thinking brain then receives a request from the body for the emotional response to be released.

If you refuse to release the emotional response you block it and It will not leave your body until you change your decision.  You may block it without realising you did.

If you block the response because you have decided it will do more harm than good to release it at that time and plan to release it in more appropriate circumstances you are practicing ‘suppression’.

Suppression means you are consciously aware of the emotional response and its trigger and can later process the response in order to return to a non-emotional state.  Suppression is a useful social tool.  Suppression is a good thing most of the time.

If you permanently refuse permission for release, however, maybe because you disagree with the emotional response itself, this leads to repression.

In repression the trigger and the response become separated as we attempt to ‘destroy’ the emotional response.  What you end up with is a trapped emotional state that just appears to be the ‘new you’.  This new you could be a constantly angry you or a constantly disgusted you or a constantly fearful you (insert the emotional response of your choice).

All because you refused emotional release at Permission Point 2.

If you give yourself the right to produce the emotional response at Permission Point 1 you must also take responsibility for granting release at Permission Point 2 (at some point).

Obsessions, phobias, panic attacks – all emotional disorders - are caused by the failure to grant release when the emotional response comes back up through the body.

If you give permission for emotional production you must also make sure you give permission for appropriate release.

Regards.

Carl