All of us are always doing what we’re doing because it is nested in a sequence of goal-directed actions. These sequences can be very complex and sophisticated, or they may be very shallow and seem almost primitive.
Some sequences might only be one or two structures deep. For example, you are bored, so you decide that want to get drunk. Why? Because you don’t want to be bored so getting drunk is the ‘solution’ to solve this boredom. If someone were to stop and push you too far on the ‘why’ you might get angry or violent. However, for most things, many of us have a more sophisticated hierarchy of answers for the question of why we do the things that we do.
Life isn’t fair or predictable though and sometimes we commit to something which we then realize isn’t what we expected, nor does it move us towards our goal. When this occurs we feel disappointment which is the signal that we’re experiencing something that’s not relevant to the goal we are attempting to pursue (and may actually be interfering with it).
This disappointment can easily and quickly slide into anxiety because as soon as you realize you’re off track, you question what you are doing and why you are in that situation. Along with (or immediately following) the disappointment you may feel anxious. That’s what anxiety is for – it’s a signal that the pathway to your goal has been disrupted, so multiple new pathways have now emerged. Everything was going along quite nicely and your mind was simplified, but now you are suddenly awake and must consider or create new avenues of possibility. An inner conflict of sorts has emerged, and certainty has been replaced with uncertainty.
Anxiety signifies the degeneration of an attentional hierarchy into multiplicity. The reason it feels bad is because when this happens your body can’t compute how much energy you need to put out to propel you towards your goal. You can’t organize your world so you will use more energetic resources than you can replenish. The simplicity of faith or certainty you felt before is replaced with complexity and chaos because your personal narrative has been challenged or collapsed.
Our powerful negative emotions alert us to the collapse or our organizing narrative. This is very interesting to know.
When value is clear, decisions are easy, and positive emotions compound over time. When we see a clear pathway towards our goal we are rewarded with energizing feelings that reaffirm the personal story we have been telling ourselves about who we are and where we are going.
Positive emotions propel you forward which is why it is associated with action. If you are enthusiastic it’s because you can see a clear pathway towards a valued goal. If you are enthusiastically moving forward and it’s working, your brain tracks this fact and rewards you with the release of dopamine. As you repeat such positive achievements the increased dopamine floods your neural connections in a way that makes them grow more and more.
When you practice something that is working the circuit that is activated in your brain is bathed in dopamine. This is the foundational physiological state that allows you to flourish and thrive. This is growth both literally and metaphorically as you are neurochemically encouraged to develop a continued habit of this practice.
Note that for this reason you should be extremely vigilant that you do not build a habit of pursuing things that are not good for you. This is what happens to you when you become addicted to something bad – you’ve built a little monster inside of you that constantly needs feeding at the exclusion of all other things.
Positive emotions also conserve energy as your actions become more efficient as you get closer to achieving your goal. They signify that there’s less demand for energy output with every step forward. Negative emotions signify that things have become too complex for you to manage.
When we watch movies we see this emotional signaling as we vicariously experience this through the lens of the main character. You infer the goal of the protagonist (or the villain) that’s being portrayed on the screen. You adopt this goal as your own and then you play out the emotions in your own body, which mimics the main character. If you are engaged in the movie you will live all that inside of you.
This is also the mechanism we use to understand other people. We listen to them to understand what it is that they want and then we can use this as a frame of reference to connect to them emphatically. We need to understand their goals and desires to feel the same emotions that they do, which incidentally is how we achieve peace in any society. We must all share the same narrative and feel it to be a worthy goal or ideal. Both inner and outer peace emerge from clarity of goals and a structure that creates space for positive emotions to continually emerge.
If we do not share the same narratives then we will all experience different emotions. This will lead to a lack of understanding between us and it becomes almost guaranteed that we will run into conflict with one another (and this conflict can become deadly in a single moment). Therefore, it is a precondition of a peaceful and civil society that everybody is united in the same narrative.
So the two most important questions on both an individual and collective level are 1) What is the current narrative, and 2) what should the narrative be?
If you are not real and raw with yourself privately then nothing is going to change and negative emotions like anxiety will continue to surge. They will also probably increase in frequency and severity if ignored, eventually castrating your options in life. Discernment, honesty, patience and faith is required to forge the daily discipline necessary for the meaningful change that an ordered life can bring.
Through a Tarot reading or spiritual consulting will work with you to help reorder your mind, emotions and ultimately your life. I will do this in a knowledgeable and warm manner. If you are ready to know yourself better and explore ways to improve your emotional experience of the world. Please contact me to discuss how we can work together.