Continuing on with our discussion of mental discipline and bad habits control, let's look at the effect of language we use and the visuals we invoke. We communicate externally and with ourselves with language and visuals mostly. Yes we use gestures and other senses too but in a very limited fashion. Our brains use language overtly and visuals to get into emotional states. So by understanding our language and visual triggers and countering them in various ways, we can arrest the path to get to the undesirable emotions and behaviors. Sometimes, the method is narrowly defined as Neuro Linguistic Programming but we will look at it in a broader way to understand some of the methods by which the brain uses language and visuals. Rather than subscribing to any one technique or narrowly believing in one methodology, let’s broadly understand the verbal and visual tools used and maybe we will broadly tie them to mind your thoughts theme we are discussing here.
Just like the Pavlovian dog experiments, we anchor our emotions to certain external events. Lets take an example, you are trying to help someone, you are putting effort, but they don’t ask to find out how you are doing if you need anything. This anger against that person gets triggered by their apparent selfishness. The more you see them busy in their own self, the more your emotions get triggered. Now you are anchored into this. Now you need to unanchor yourself and then get anchored into a different emotion to be healthy as anger triggers intense inflammation as described in Chapter x.
Now think of this person as a five year old, very self absorbed and not aware of others. The more you look at them, the more you think about them as a child in a grown body. Just bring a comical gesture about what they are currently doing and this loosens your anger and every time you see them remember the five year old analogy, then that becomes a new anchor. Through pure visuals and language “ 5-year old” you can shift your association from strong negative anchors to less strong and even positive anchors. Let’s say you get mad when someone eats with their mouth open making loud noises. Obviously the anchoring between your emotion and what you encounter cannot be changed right away. Instead if you imagine the person eating grass and it's coming out of their nose and ears, then the funny image may loosen your emotion and every time after you may not experience the same strong emotions.
Let’s digress a little bit and look into language and evolution. Language evolution in humanoids was thought to initially stem from mirroring or gesture observations. The F5 premotor neuronal brain area of monkeys and the Broca’s region of the humans contain a mirror system of observing gestures which is the pre-language communication system that served as a seed to more advanced vocal communication. But humanoids having two of the legs freed from walking could go beyond the monkeys to connect the motor skills developed by the freed legs, leading to dramatic motor brain connections and development, leading to complex hand use for skill development, brain and hands (motor skills) building and expanding on each other,. This increased motor complexity lead to increased brain development and language development, as motor skills is the precursor of language. This hypothesis of the author is corroborated by above references and research. Apart from this digression, coming back to our discussion of mirroring, we can imitate or mirror another human whose emotional and behavioral patterns we want to create in ourselves. By observing people whose mannerisms you think are conducive to your benefit, you can imitate and temporarily achieve the mirroring of actions and behaviors and thought patterns. This may be useful in situations where you are sad, angry, anxious, fearful and could lead to adverse actions if you don’t right away change your emotional course. This is why, your mom always said change your friends if you want to change your habits. Mirroring happens in society and we confirm to our friends groups. So if you have habits and patterns you need to change, first lose the group that supports or abets your habits or induces your thought processes.
Sometimes we have certain rules about things and when others violate those then that gets us in trouble via flared emotions. But sometimes we don’t believe in the rules and violate them but others feel differently about them which again gets you flared up or gets you into making decisions or involving in activity that is considered bad habit forming. Some of these are for example, people say, I need to enjoy life and they drink at parties. That’s a rule they laid out between enjoying and drinking. For someone else, it may not be so much fun. You are driving in the early morning, no one is up yet, see a red light but no one is around, and you feel it’s a rule that can be broken. But someone else may find it not acceptable. But this now can be applied not just alcohol and traffic rules but social rules, ethical rules, governmental rules, quid pro quo rules, and many more. You may feel after the end of the day, you can come home and switch on the TV and your spouse feels after a long absence, it’s time to talk and bond. You have to cultivate the reframing in order to live a peaceful life. I myself, feel in a group setting if someone doesn’t contribute in any way, feel they are not holding up their end. Fairness issues really rile me up. I find many governmental rules applied to some and not to others depending on who you know. This drives me mad about the government and their ever increasing red tape and getting into everyone’s business. But this attitude will only hurt my health. Some may think the marriage rules could be loosely interpreted and some the use of substances as freedom etc. So reframing is necessary if you need to get out of bad patterns and habits.
Meditation or guided imagery where you see the bad habits and emotions going away and replaced by desirable emotions, thoughts. This is more visual technique where you can sit calmly and imagine being immersed in the desirable state and visualise leaving the undesirable state. Sometimes just focusing on a simple object or sound keeps other negative thoughts away. Practicing something like this before sleeping is a good idea as this increases relaxation and not lose sleep over your daily stressors.
Sometimes you have to look at yourself in an unattached fashion, nothing committed and disconnected from the emotions in order to understand the situation without a bias to come up with the strategy to correct your thinking.
Imitating and being motivated by other successful people and how they manage their issues is another way to develop techniques to help our emotional makeup that seems to get us to make bad decisions. I have seen this where writers interview many successful people and think now they also can practice the same principles. I am sure it can work, that’s why we read books and have role models and want to be inspired by others. I certainly was inspired by Bill Robinson the Celtics Basketball player and coach who used his reputation to help the community. Having such role models is a good thing and stars in the various industries can take such fame and apply it to uplift humanity to do good things.
Setting clear, achievable, smart goals to achieve the outcome. This works for very measurable things including in my case achieving zero alcohol which means the number of days I had zero alcohol before I have to restart that clock and challenge myself to increase the number of days.
Let’s digress a little bit and look into language and evolution. Language evolution in humanoids was thought to initially stem from mirroring or gesture observations. The F5 premotor neuronal brain area of monkeys and the Broca’s region of the humans contain a mirror system of observing gestures which is the pre-language communication system that served as a seed to more advanced vocal communication. But humanoids having two of the legs freed from walking could go beyond the monkeys to connect the motor skills developed by the freed legs, leading to dramatic motor brain connections and development, leading to complex hand use for skill development, brain and hands (motor skills) building and expanding on each other,. This increased motor complexity lead to increased brain development and language development, as motor skills is the precursor of language. This hypothesis of the author is corroborated by above references and research. Apart from this digression, coming back to our discussion of mirroring, we can imitate or mirror another human whose emotional and behavioral patterns we want to create in ourselves. By observing people whose mannerisms you think are conducive to your benefit, you can imitate and temporarily achieve the mirroring of actions and behaviors and thought patterns. This may be useful in situations where you are sad, angry, anxious, fearful and could lead to adverse actions if you don’t right away change your emotional course. This is why, your mom always said change your friends if you want to change your habits. Mirroring happens in society and we confirm to our friends groups. So if you have habits and patterns you need to change, first lose the group that supports or abets your habits or induces your thought processes.
Sometimes we have certain rules about things and when others violate those then that gets us in trouble via flared emotions. But sometimes we don’t believe in the rules and violate them but others feel differently about them which again gets you flared up or gets you into making decisions or involving in activity that is considered bad habit forming. Some of these are for example, people say, I need to enjoy life and they drink at parties. That’s a rule they laid out between enjoying and drinking. For someone else, it may not be so much fun. You are driving in the early morning, no one is up yet, see a red light but no one is around, and you feel it’s a rule that can be broken. But someone else may find it not acceptable. But this now can be applied not just alcohol and traffic rules but social rules, ethical rules, governmental rules, quid pro quo rules, and many more. You may feel after the end of the day, you can come home and switch on the TV and your spouse feels after a long absence, it’s time to talk and bond. You have to cultivate the reframing in order to live a peaceful life. I myself, feel in a group setting if someone doesn’t contribute in any way, feel they are not holding up their end. Fairness issues really rile me up. I find many governmental rules applied to some and not to others depending on who you know. This drives me mad about the government and their ever increasing red tape and getting into everyone’s business. But this attitude will only hurt my health. Some may think the marriage rules could be loosely interpreted and some the use of substances as freedom etc. So reframing is necessary if you need to get out of bad patterns and habits.
Meditation or guided imagery where you see the bad habits and emotions going away and replaced by desirable emotions, thoughts. This is more visual technique where you can sit calmly and imagine being immersed in the desirable state and visualise leaving the undesirable state. Sometimes just focusing on a simple object or sound keeps other negative thoughts away. Practicing something like this before sleeping is a good idea as this increases relaxation and not lose sleep over your daily stressors.
Sometimes you have to look at yourself in an unattached fashion, nothing committed and disconnected from the emotions in order to understand the situation without a bias to come up with the strategy to correct your thinking.
Imitating and being motivated by other successful people and how they manage their issues is another way to develop techniques to help our emotional makeup that seems to get us to make bad decisions. I have seen this where writers interview many successful people and think now they also can practice the same principles. I am sure it can work, that’s why we read books and have role models and want to be inspired by others. I certainly was inspired by Bill Robinson the Celtics Basketball player and coach who used his reputation to help the community. Having such role models is a good thing and stars in the various industries can take such fame and apply it to uplift humanity to do good things.
Setting clear, achievable, smart goals to achieve the outcome. This works for very measurable things including in my case achieving zero alcohol which means the number of days I had zero alcohol before I have to restart that clock and challenge myself to increase the number of days.
# Sources
* "From monkey-like action recognition to human language: an evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics”, by Michael A Arbib, Behav Brain Sci. 2005 Apr;28(2):105-24.
* ”Human balance, the evolution of bipedalism and dysequilibrium syndrome”, John R Skoyles, Med Hypotheses,. 2006;66(6):1060-8.
* “Two families with quadrupedalism, mental retardation, no speech, and infantile hypotonia (Uner Tan Syndrome Type-II); a novel theory for the evolutionary emergence of human bipedalism” by Uner Tan, Front Neurosci, 2014 Apr 22:8:84. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2014.00084. eCollection 2014.
* “When the hands speak”, by Maurizio Gentilucci , Riccardo Dalla Volta, Claudia Gianelli, J Physiol Paris, 2008 Jan-May;102(1-3):21-30. doi: 10.1016/j.jphysparis.2008.03.002. Epub 2008 Mar 18.
* “Spoken language and arm gestures are controlled by the same motor control system” by Maurizio Gentilucci, Riccardo Dalla Volta, Q J Exp Psychol (Hove), 2008 Jun;61(6):944-57. doi: 10.1080/17470210701625683.
* “The evolution of language” by Michael C Corballis, Ann N Y Acad Sci, 2009 Mar:1156:19-43. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04423.x.
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