Reclaim your Sceptre - harnessing psychic energy

The Fifth Key in this series of postings on reclaiming you Personal Sceptre is learning to harness your Psychic Energy - which is ultimately about seeking purpose.

Yesterday we looked at personal transformation - versus mere adaptation: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/reclaiming-your-personal-sceptre-adaptation-vs-claudius-van-wyk/.

Today we look at harnessing psychic energy. Some people call our ‘feelings’ the ‘life force’ – psychoanalysts even call it ‘libido’ - beyond the mere desire for sensual pleasure.?Psychic energy, as emotion, is the source of motivation – of the energy that makes us ‘get up and go’. We see two essential ways of understanding emotions more deeply.?

Feelings as valuing

Firstly emotions as ‘feelings’ are considered to be signals of ‘valuing’.?We won’t feel much about things that are not consciously or unconsciously considered important. The stronger the feeling, the stronger the emotional response, the greater the degree of value we put to that situation - negatively or positively.?

Emotion as energy

Secondly we see ‘emotion’ as ‘energy seeking purpose’. Psychic energy is being generated to mobilise us to take action towards some outcome - whether that mobilisation is sourced in positive or negative awareness.?

This we do know about psychic energy – it is deeply influenced by what is going on in your imagination. You see there is great power in imagination. Wondrously the imagination also functions in the unconscious. So your ‘mind’ – the accumulation of your life habits – might itself therefore tend towards being ‘functional’ or ‘dysfunctional’ as we examined yesterday - see: ...

Unconscious imagination? How does that work?

Remember we spoke about suppressed stuff. A memory might be triggered that flashes so quickly that it escapes our conscious awareness – yet we get the feeling of it. The whole mind/body system has been pre-coded to the unconscious memory. It has influenced our motivation – it is the source and modulator of the movement of psychic energy. We need to learn to flow that energy in a creative way. The psychologist Fritz Perls said, for example, that the aggressive instinct is equivalent to this life force – but stressed that the vital instinct became progressively channeled into greater ecological outcomes – to being able to make a choice for increasing responsibility with that natural drive that is intended to control our context/environment/ecology.

Emotional intelligence

So clearly we need to become emotionally competent – that quality of emotional intelligence is called EQ. And EQ requires getting in touch with our feelings. This is important. Often getting in touch with our feelings is as simple as getting in touch with what is going on in our bodies.

So here now we offer a useful interpretation of our feelings. Call them ‘emotions’ – and call that in turn, ‘E-motion – E for the energy for motion. Your psychic energy is emotional energy – the stuff of motivation – the stuff that gets us going. Sure its all about hormones and neurochemistry – but much more important than knowing the physiological side of emotions is to know what to do with them – how to channel that energy constructively. And you want to channel that to reclaim your personal Sceptre.

Let’s look at a simple model originally described by Prof Rachel Jack of Glasgow University. With lots of rigorous research she identified four basic emotional states: GLAD, MAD, SCARED and SAD. But to this we have chosen to add a further powerful state, AVERSE.

Glad

Now the one emotion we all want to experience more of is GLAD - as illustrated in the painting above. Consider this. What your mind is ‘full of’ at the moment will determine your emotional state. So if your mind is full of gratitude for the good things in life, of positive expectations for the future, and the confidence that you have what it takes to make a good future happen, then you are ‘glad’. This will range in intensity from feeling satisfied all the way through joy to feeling ecstatic – the sort of feeling you would have if you've heard really good news – or won a major competition. We’ll if that’s the feeling you’ve got, there’s really nothing else to do about it than enjoy it - celebrate..

Descriptions of the experience of the GLAD state include: enjoyment, enthusiasm, excitement, passion, pleasure etc.

Mad

But now consider that you do have expectations, something you want to have or experience, but somehow you are blocked in getting it, something is in your way, you feel trapped in a situation that is out of your control – like being stuck in the traffic. Well, then you are going to be MAD. And this is going to range in intensity from being mildly irritated or frustrated – progressing all the way to blind rage. This condition you must do something about. Anger not only clouds your mind –it’s really bad for your health. Here’s what you do.

? Make sure that what you want is really important (like I really need my sleep and that loud music of the neighbour is disturbing me)

? Make sure that you yourself are not the cause of the problem – like you are irritated with something else but are projecting your irritation on the neighbours

? Identify a practical response to the problem that can be carried out intelligently – like go talk to the folks – sensitively – and get on with it.

? If it is out of your control take other minimising measures – like closing the door and windows or use earplugs – whatever. Let go until you can indeed do something about it. Act decisively, or make plans for the future, for example like getting the body corporate involved in finding a solution, and make clear decisions – above all, try your best not to fret.

Descriptions of the MAD state include: anger, perturbation, vexation, displeasure etc.

Scared

What happens if you are full of negative expectations rather than positive expectations?

Well then you are going to be SCARED. Fear is about your mind being full of thoughts about negative things that could happen in the future. Fear is always about the future.

This can range in intensity from mild concern – like someone being late for an appointment – to panic. Fear too is very debilitating so you need to do something about it.

? Identify what the real scenario is that you are afraid of – often fear can be very vague and in identifying a real scenario it can be seen to be unlikely.

? Identify what measures you can take to prevent that scenario – or avoid the consequences – and act on that intelligently.

? Share your fears with someone you trust – the opportunity of talking about things brings its own relief.

? Consider what you would need to do if the worst case indeed happens – often going to that worst case and considering steps after that might have happened provides some relief as well.

? After that all you can do is let process take its course.

Descriptions of the SCARED state include: concern, anxiety, worry, nervousness, dread, paranoia etc

Sad

The following emotion is SAD. This is all about experiencing loss. Something that was important to you has been taken away by circumstances – you lost your job because of the recession, or a loved one, or something is currently being experienced as slipping away – like your health is deteriorating. Your mind is consumed with something that had value (a romance) and it is no longer there.

This can range from mild disappointment (you were unable to get tickets for a show) to deep grief. Again this emotion can be very debilitating. The worst is the kind of depression that comes with losing the sense of meaning or purpose of life – it can go to utter despair or even becoming suicidal. Again you must act.

? Acknowledge your grief and express it – here good friends count a lot

? Identify the experience of value you have lost – this is important – not the material thing but rather the experience it gave you. Let’s say your pet died. Yes, you mourn Poko. Yes, that Chihuahua cannot be replaced. But the value you experienced, like companionship, fun, etc. - that can be replaced.

? Find alternative means to re-experienced the value that was, and indeed still is important to you. There is always life after even the most devastating experience. We have heard of those inspiring stories of people who have overcome the greatest tragedies.

Averse

The final general emotional category is AVERSE. This is when you are confronted with a situation?that violates your values, be that mild dislike to intense disgust. There seems to be three potential responses in such a situation. * If you can address and remedy the situation that affronts you, do so. What is helpful is to identify the meta-outcome of investing time and energy in doing so. Clearing the blocked drainpipe is not fun, it might be smelly and messy, but the outcome is worth the effort. It might be time for some sensitive and straight talking about a difficult issue. Identify the principle that motivates you in addressing the situation, and then pragmatically employ strategies and tactics to address it.

* Then, of course, if circumstances permit, in a situation deeply threatening to your wellbeing, walking away is always an option to consider. Getting into that metaphoric lifeboat when the ship is sinking is the sensible thing to do.

* Sometimes however a seemingly intractable situation has no obvious solution, and there’s no obvious way out. Many people feel that way about the prevailing global environmental situation - or their economic circumstances. Then you simply need to take whatever steps you can in mitigation. You mindfully dance with the situation, endure, until something changes - and it inevitably does.???

EQ and self-regulation

Emotional intelligence requires that in all of the negative challenging emotions identified above, you need to (i) experience the emotion, (ii) articulate it (get it off your chest), (iii) address your situation as realistically as possible and (iv) take action. There’s no better substitute than taking some sort of action – it is after all an affirmation that you are alive.

Your words

Finally – watch your language. Positive language encourages positive images in your powerful imagination. Watch the words you are using. Watch the conversations that you are engaged in. Walk away from habituated negativity – it is often a sign of unconscious dysfunctionality. You owe a positive frame of mind to yourself and others.

And remember – your language and thoughts affect your feelings – your feelings immediately impact on your physiology and gets your entire system ready for action.

Getting smart about your feelings is about getting smart in your world. That’s why its called emotional intelligence.?

Cart before the horse?

Now you might be wondering why we first dealt with the challenges of growth and learning, and self-regulating the intensity of emotions before going on to the exciting part of using your mind more creatively. Why did we not go straight to showing you how to create an exciting future? Well the answer is simply this; if we do not understand the nature of our muddled thinking that comes with seeing life through jaundiced eyes, then our future is bound to be compromised. If we do not understand the deep effect of our emotions, and how to manage that, our future is compromised.

And then ff we do not fully appreciate the processes of growth and learning, our state of motivation can easily be derailed. Emotional intelligence and personal resilience promotes the clarity of thought that enables proactivity and creativity. Now, most importantly - emotional intelligence and personal resilience also have much to do with your core values – and without an understanding and appreciation of your core values, you see, you cannot get to know or reclaim your personal Sceptre.

We'll look at values tomorrow