7. Dealing with reflexive emotions

Hi everyone, this is Reza Mehman, and you’re listening to the seventh episode of the Project Mindset podcast. Imagine you’re at the bakery and you only have 24 euros left in your pocket. You’re about to pay when someone runs past you and steals 10 euros from your bag. In such a situation, it would be pretty stupid to throw all your remaining money after the thief in a fit of anger. The very thought of it is absurd. And you’re probably thinking, “What on earth am I getting at?”

So I think this analogy works perfectly if you replace the 24 euros with 24 hours. You have 24 hours in a day, and someone comes along. For some reason, this person starts a discussion or an argument with you, and you’ve already wasted an hour on it, so to speak. The other person moves on, but you’re still upset about this argument for the rest of the day. To stick with the money analogy, you wouldn’t throw money after a thief in a fit of rage, but we throw our other important currency—our time—almost without limit at a time thief.

Thought loops after conflicts

It’s really strange of us. To be honest, for a long time I was exactly the same way, dwelling on discussions or arguments with other people for quite a while afterward. I would mentally replay the discussion countless times, think about what I would say next time, or regret what I hadn’t said last time, what I wished I had said, and so on and so forth. But when I first heard the analogy I just mentioned and tried to understand that in this case, you have to replace money with time, I realized—or rather, realized for the first time—just how much time I had wasted in my life up until then.

The problem isn’t really the time-wasters themselves, because arguments and discussions keep coming up. The problem, in my view, is how we deal with emotions and the thoughts that follow from them. Emotions are constantly being triggered by something or other. Like I said, having an argument or a discussion, or at work, in collaboration with colleagues, and so on. Or even just scrolling through social media – that already stirs up emotions, in this case, for example, like envy or aversion, or whatever.

Distinguish between emotions and thoughts

Now, one could say, quite simply, “Hey, just let go of your emotions, try to control them.” But honestly, I don’t believe it’s possible to simply eliminate or switch off emotions in any way. You can control your thoughts, but emotions are essentially reflexes. You’re probably familiar with the kneecap reflex test at the doctor’s office. If you gently tap your kneecap, your lower leg moves forward, and you can’t control it or even try to prevent it from happening.

It just happens. And I think it’s exactly the same with emotions. We sometimes have absolutely no control over which emotion arises at a given moment due to some trigger. That’s why I tell people, hey, don’t even try to see emotions as something negative, but rather try to see emotions as a kind of transmitter of information about yourself. And that’s exactly what today’s podcast is about: dealing with emotions in the right way.

I’ve discovered three approaches that work for me, and I hope they might be helpful for you too. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions about these three approaches, just write to me afterward. I’m really looking forward to your feedback. But let’s start with number one. Emotions are transmitters of information and aren’t inherently bad. You have to recognize emotions that have been triggered by something, for example, by those time-wasters I just mentioned, for exactly what they are.

Emotions as personal feedback

Messenger of information. More precisely, information about myself. There was obviously a trigger that evoked an emotion in me, like anger, shame, envy, or whatever you want to call jealousy. And I’m only now realizing that this trigger is actually a trigger for an emotion within myself. As you know, I’m a big fan of feedback from other people. In this case, it’s feedback from myself. If you want to understand the topic of feedback from other people in more detail, what I mean by that, just check out episode three of Project Mindset.

But in this case, I’m talking about feedback from and through myself. The triggers that evoke emotions in me are nothing more than, as I said, information. So, as a first step, I acknowledge to myself that a specific trigger evokes a specific emotion in me. I don’t judge the emotions. They aren’t inherently bad or good. They’re simply there. For me, it’s comparable to the kneecap reflex. If you tap it gently, your lower leg moves forward reflexively.

Consciously perceive triggers and reactions

When you have any kind of trigger for emotions, a reflex occurs. And how I react to that is essentially the second part. So, in the first part, it’s about recognizing emotions as information transmitters and not inherently viewing them negatively. In the second part, emotions, in my view, must be separated from the subsequent thoughts and actions. It’s about controlling the thoughts that arise from them, not the emotions themselves. For example, I accept that I feel anger or discomfort when something specific happens.

But I control my thoughts and the actions that arise from them, and I try to control that completely. You probably remember the story of the Buddha’s two arrows. We talked about it in one of the podcast episodes. The first arrow hits me, and I can’t do anything about it. It comes completely unexpectedly and causes pain, for example. I have no influence over the first arrow. It comes, so to speak, out of nowhere.

But where I definitely have control is in how I react to the second arrow, the first arrow. Whether I just get angry, retaliate, or am in a bad mood, or whatever, it’s up to me how I react. Interestingly, what I’ve noticed in this context is that some of my friends sometimes beat themselves up for even feeling emotions like envy, anger, etc. To be honest, I also feel envy in certain situations, and I don’t like to admit it.

Accepting feelings and directing thoughts

I can fight against it now and say it’s not true. Or I can simply accept it and try to see it objectively; I’m just feeling envy right now. But I think, as I said, emotions are like reflexes. However, I think I definitely want to control the thoughts that follow or result from them. Again, as I said, emotions are a kind of information transmitter. This also reminded me of the story of the bearers of bad news in ancient times, who were essentially killed for delivering bad news.

They were merely the messengers of bad news. They weren’t the instigators of the actions behind that bad news. Here, the messenger is portrayed as the villain. The emotions, in this case, are essentially the villains. No, these are simply pieces of information that have now been transmitted. Thirdly, and I find this absolutely crucial, emotions shouldn’t be judged, but rather validated. In fact, in my view, one must even allow for some leeway in making false assumptions.

What I mean by that is, as we’ve already said, emotions simply happen. They’re triggered or set in motion by something. You can and should talk objectively about, for example, feeling envious, jealous, or angry at someone—so far, so good. After accepting my emotions, as I said in step 1, and trying to separate and control my thoughts and actions from them, as I said in step 2, I definitely reconsider in step 3 whether I’ve truly understood the emotions correctly.

Question your own reaction

I try to validate myself. Was I really angry with the other person? Was I really annoyed by them? Or is there actually another emotion at play, or something else entirely? We tend to listen to that first inner voice. And now comes something mind-blowing that I recently heard in an interview with a neuroscientist who said something incredibly interesting. It was also about that first inner voice we have, the one we usually listen to.

But he said, hey, back then, Galileo Galilei, who based his observations of the stars and their orbits on the hypothesis, wow. All those stars don’t actually revolve around the Earth, as everyone assumes or says. They don’t even revolve around the sun, as everyone might have also assumed, but they revolve around something completely different. In this case, of course, around the Milky Way galaxy, for example, around itself. That was, of course, crazy for the time, to say, wow, the Earth isn’t even at the center.

Thoughts on the inner voice

And the neuroscientist said something similar, namely that they’re currently trying to figure out whether the inner voice might not actually be the center of one’s being, but rather areas in the brain that are essentially silent or quiet, or simply not as loud as other areas. Perhaps these are the brain’s center. So that was a kind of mic drop moment for me, and it got me thinking again. It’s actually true that the inner voice is something I hear most loudly, but perhaps subconsciously, it’s my mindset that triggers me to think something, to go somewhere, to do something, to think about emotions in a certain way.

Look beyond the first emotion

And that’s where I say I also try, when I have an emotion, when I notice the emotion is there, if my first thought is that it’s anger, I try to dig deeper. Is it actually anger, or could it be something else? For example, I used to have a colleague at work who really got on my nerves, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I thought about it for a long time and talked to a friend about it a few days ago.

I think at that moment I was perhaps even a little envious of the effort he puts into his work; that sounds a bit strange, but it actually struck me after a while. Or when I’m annoyed with my partner, I love her of course, but maybe I’m not actually annoyed with her in that moment, but rather disappointed in myself for not having shown her enough love beforehand, even though I always intend to.

Allowing for other perspectives

So, you really do have to accept emotions as they are, but maybe also validate them: is what I’m feeling really the right thing to do? Maybe try looking at the whole thing from a different perspective. So, guys, I have to say that I find this episode incredibly important in terms of content, and I hope you feel the same way. Please let me know if you see things differently or have any further tips. But we’re also nearing the end of the episode. Here’s a short summary. Number one: emotions are transmitters of information and not inherently bad.

Think of it like this, for example, a knee reflex disc. Emotions simply happen. You shouldn’t even blame yourself for developing such emotions in the first place. Number two, emotions must be clearly separated from the subsequent thoughts and actions. Think of the Buddha’s two arrows. The first arrow hits you, but how you react to the second arrow is entirely up to you. Number three, emotions shouldn’t be judged, but validated.

Is your assessment, or the first opinion you heard, really the right one? Isn’t there perhaps another reason why you reacted the way you did, or why you reacted emotionally to something? So, as I said, that’s it . Those were three steps I take in dealing with emotions. I hope you enjoyed the episode. As always, folks, I’m trying to keep the channel growing. If you liked the content, or at least learned something from it, leave me a review, subscribe to the channel, and tell your friends and acquaintances about it.

Feedback and conclusion

That’s the only way the channel will grow. As always, if you have any questions or feedback, just write to me. Have a great day, everyone. See you next time. Don’t forget, mindset is everything.