Refactoring emotions

📝 Episode notes
In this episode I talk about some challenges I've been facing when working with my own emotions and mental state, especially regarding suppression and avoidance of emotions using procrastination, caffeine, cigarettes or easier tasks than the ones I should be using.

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[ppppp]

Something my therapist told me was that people have very little control over how they feel, but they have much more control over how they feel about how they feel. Generally, and instinctually, how you feel and the way you feel about it are the same. For example, if you're angry, you're going to be angry that you're angry. If you're happy, you're naturally going to be happy that you're happy. But with practice you can change these secondary emotions and thoughts to be generally positive, even for emotions you view negatively. And in turn, they'll help turn all of your emotions into better experiences.

[victorlclopes]

This is amazing! It's so nice to hear someone simply talking about this outside of a religious or philosophical perspective. I've been trying to deal with this for many years and trying to make others wake up and look at what they're feeling at the moment. Most people are "immersed" in their own emotions and when they, for instance, get angry because of some situation, they just feel it and they act and they think "it's this other person that is doing this to me" and so on. When you finally can see that you're feeling something (and when you're feeling something), and that same kind of situation comes, you stop and think "look! I'm angry... how interesting is that", or "look! How vain and full of pride I am, that this situation makes me feel like this", and then you can even make fun of yourself, and choose how you're going to act. You can see it... and that changes everything.

[bilbenhamou]

I thought he was about to talk about refactoring Emotionjs 🤷‍♂️

[atila]

Super nice having these chats. I can totally relate to that friend of yours. For many years I lived in a place I hated and in a life I hated but I was paving the pathway to one day have the life I wanted, and I noticed after all that the previous life I had left marks on my character when I finally moved over. I had a strong depression that lasted for 3 months and during this process I confronted myself and all those feelings and decided to embrace it, each of the feelings and learn from them and use these lessons as part of my toolbox. And at this new life I chose I eventually found myself working really shitty jobs that were way below my qualifications and surrounded by people who were in that same place I had been for so long, with the difference that they were not working for a future, they were just living paycheque by paycheque and were also super bitter and my go-for-it and embracing of my poor situation at the moment triggered their worst behaviour towards me. I moved forward as I have always done, today I am starting in the coding pathway and find myself in so many challenges and have this constant feeling of drowning, of having a flat learning curve, of maybe being too old, but I deal with all these emotions and at this point I conquered a stability that allows me to go through rough goings without much worry other than achieving my objectives. I usually watch your videos related to foundations JS but this video of yours showed a real human side of yours. You rock dude, big inspiration.

[anglerpocky]

Good job putting this video out there, I imagine the doubt that runs through your head, but I think that putting yourself in vulnerable positions is when you grow. I commend you for putting yourself out there and talking about emotions!

[nathancornwell]

“Boredom is the most sublime of all human emotions because it expresses the fact that, the human spirit, in a certain sense, is greater than the entire universe."

[BigKaTrob]

Super low end frequencies from 3:40 - 4:00 made me think somebody was walking up my stairs. LOL

[keycapslapper]

Wow this really brought me back from some dark emotions I've been feeling the past couple of hours. Thanks :)

[GerardoSabetta]

Thanks for talking about this. I was an ADHD kid and now many years later I’m struggling again with concentration, motivation, procrastination, etc.. I thought it would be the same diagnosis I had as a kid, but apparently is not adult ADHD, I started looking for answers with professionals about 4 months ago and I’ve recently switched to a CBT therapist, I can relate with so much of what you mention here and in previous videos on mental health. Since ADHD seems to be out of the equation, I’m learning to manage my cognitions, emotions and behaviors, and I feel like I’m slowly making progress for once in a long time, I feel less anxious and slightly more optimistic on life. Your mentions on CBT along with other things i’ve read convinced me to give that paradigm a shot, so thanks again for these kind of videos.

[victornaut]

I might not shake hands with this man, but he's already helped me A LOT. Thanks again MPJ!

[yumaikas]

So, a couple of things that have helped me deal with a shorter attention span:

Doodling on a sketchbook seems to help lengthen my attention span. Writing about things can help some.

Dealing with unresolved emotions is _super_ important, however.

[AnthonySherritt]

Wow this is beautiful. It's crazy what comes up when you stop indulging your coping mechanisms. No joke.

[pronyCJ]

thanks mpj! your videos seem to resonate with whatever im currently experiencing. especially with escaping emotions with avoidance behavior (which i didnt recognize until now)

[PrasadGayan]

I enjoyed this video than others. Great thanks dude :) .

[percurious]

Thanks, MPJ, for sharing this. Might help some people embark on a new train of thought. May be even me, too ;-)
Kind regards

[greatscott]

Love ya, MPJ! Thanks for sharing this. I have similar struggles. This helped me a lot.

[normallydistributed]

Amazing video! I talk with my therapist about this as well.

[RohithVarma]

Hi mpj, I have experienced similar phase in my life. Once when I went for an interview, I was rejected simply because I was tense. It was then in my life I thought to give importance to engineer my inner well being. Inner Engineering programe by isha foundation helped me to recover. I have been doing these practices since 2 yrs.

[Leon-Li]

It is human nature to avoid negative emotions. I feel u.

[sameed]

All the emotions we feel have survived through our evolutionary past for a reason. They exist to tell us something about how we should act in the world and it is useful to pay attention to them, even the negative ones, especially the negative ones. I have an addictive personality and have worked really hard over the last year to overcome caffeine and cigarette addiction. Procrastination and food addiction are the ones I'm currently struggling with, so thanks for sharing. I'm sure it took a lot of courage to make this video.