I consider it necessary to introduce the concept of the EMOTIONAL ARC in modern psychology. What it is? According to traditional views, our emotions are triggered by the brain, primarily by its limbic system in response to emotionally significant signals from outside. For example, they saw the danger - they strained, the victory behind us - we rejoice, the danger went away - they relaxed. That is, the signal transmission scheme is simple: the signal is the brain’s response is an emotion, that is, an inner experience and its external expression.
However, as it seems to me, this is not exactly the right description. In fact, emotions are started - attention! - not the brain, not the brain itself. Emotions are triggered with the participation of the brain, but directly they are triggered by another, namely - they are triggered by the expression of our face and the drawing of our body. And why does the expression of our face and the figure of our body depend? Well, from what it does not depend ... Each of us has his own, habitual expression of our face. At someone habitually gloomy, and someone scattered, many are constantly tense. Look at yourself in the mirror: as an expression of your face, you are characterized by a rather light light smile - or alertness? Remoteness? Arrogance? A facial expression can carry traces of the last conversation or a recent frost if you were at a dentist. Photographers know: if a person s eyes are closely screwed up in the photo, then those who look at this photo, screw up their eyes and look at the photos more closely. And if you are chewing chewing gum now, do you rather have a dull ruminant look on your face - check it out?
Add your body picture here - the body is collected or loose, charged or tired, cheerful or faceless - and you will understand what your emotions actually start. A person with a normally joyful face will blossom with unexpected joy, while a person with an absent-minded face will miss an unexpected joy, and a man with a frown will brush it off ...
And now take a look at it from the point of view of physiology. A signal comes to us, we evaluate it as joy, but then the brain tries the signal of joy put on our face, run on our face. Even if it turns out and our face reflects joy - it’s not an emotion, it’s a plan for emotion, there’s no experience there. Moreover, in the first seconds a person still does not notice his joy, a person usually does not immediately notice that he is doing something with his face and body.
And only at the next step, already by its reflex connections, the expression of the face and the figure of the body trigger the emotion itself. This is an additional emotional arc, when the face and body intercept the control of the brain and themselves start to steer our emotions.
However: why should we know this? What difference does it make for our emotions to be triggered by our brain or our face? What does this give us? Can we somehow use this knowledge?
Yes, for sure.
Our brain, the more limbic system, we can not directly control. And although I trained, I find it difficult to manage. But I can control my own face, I can follow his expression - it works for me. And can you? If you can, you can control your emotions.
All that is necessary for the possession of emotions is to notice in time what is happening to your face and not to admit the wrong person, not to make the problem body. The difficulty here is to "notice". Ordinary people do not notice what happens to them with their face and their body, therefore they can not control themselves. If you learn to notice subtle changes in your face and can control your body - you can control your emotions, be able to control yourself.
