I personally think what had the most impact for myself was dealing with stronger emotions in personal development contexts. Facing real fears that actually matter in my life had the most impact.
That adds a very relevant aspect to this. For me strong emotions where almost never an issue. Even in the two incidents I mentioned I wasn’t hindered by emotions. The first just went too fast (I have little memory of the situation itself and none of fears) and the second involved no fear or anger either, only an immensely powerful urge to protect. And the latter didn’t feel like emotion. I have difficulties to explain this partly because I have so little experience with strong emotions.
I have no fear of hight nor falling nor constriction nor darkness nor aloneness nor animals that I know of. I’d think I’d enjoy parachuting (I think it would be an interesting aerodynamics experience a great view) and can’t imagine fear (it may be not comparable but I don’t feel fear when falling during climbing or in a roller coaster either). But I agree that training to deal with strong emotions e.g. in these cases has also many benefits and falls into the same category of stress innoculation.
But independent of the fear and emotions in these situations there is still the training effect. In stressful situations do higher cognitive functions decline and you fall back to the level of your training. One can observe this even during heavy physical exercise: Just try to answer complex mathematical queries during it.
I have no fear of hight nor falling nor constriction nor darkness nor aloneness nor animals that I know of.
A lot of people on LW aren’t exactly neurotypical ;) While we did interact shortly in person it wasn’t long enough for me to know how you tick. If I remember right your reaction to hugging was pretty normal.
How about social fears? Fear of rejection by woman? Fear when getting hit on by a homosexual dude?
Fear of negotiating?
Even in the two incidents I mentioned I wasn’t hindered by emotions. The first just went too fast (I have little memory of the situation itself and none of fears)
In your description above you mentioned that you were covered in fear.
There are multiple kinds of fear. There’s fight, flight and freeze. To me it sounds like you did freeze.
I do fear physical violence and harm for me. I hate violent behavior in general esp. if I can’t understand it.
How about social fears? Fear of rejection by woman? Fear when getting hit on by a homosexual dude? Fear of negotiating?
No fear of rejection. I do not understand the concept well. If it doesn’t match that’s how it is. I won’t manipulate anyone to like me in the short run as I’m interested only in the long run. The main reasons I do not approach anybody are not fear but a) too little motivation on my side, b) too much expected effort per hedons, c) too few that are attractive to begin with.
when getting hit on by a homosexual dude?
Didn’t happen yet. If there is no risk of violence I can’t see how it is different from any other social situation.
Fear of negotiating?
I don’t understand where there can be any fear as long as no existential risks are involved.
But considering I see that I do have a social fear: Presenting in front of a large audience. I don’t fear it beforehand but I know that I have trouble speaking until I get into flow. 30 people is enough. You may have noiced it during the LW Europe Berlin presentation.
The common pattern for strong reactionsis far reaching consequences I do not have under control.
To me it sounds like you did freeze.
I did cover. As I said I have no clear recollection of it. It was no planned ducking or active in any way. Passive self-covering as far as I can tell. I did write fear but considering it it was more how I’d interpret it from an outside view, not how I knew it felt. As I said above I surely felt fear. I know emotions—only the situation has to escalate quite a bit to raise the emotions to a level that it controls my actions—and not just giving inklings as to what might be appropriate.
Fight fear feels different than flight fear with feels different then freeze fear.
Could you elaborate as to how these differ except obviously for the reaction they cause?
How do you do when it comes to feeling positive emotions? Do you have them in your life?
I feel a lot of happiness resulting from interaction with my children, their actions or just from observicing them be. This reminds me of a negative emotion that is triggered by my children too: Anger when they hurt or are cruel to each other. That causes a dissonance I can’t resolve easily and sometimes hinders efficient action.
I enjoy some sports and physical entertainment.
I take calm delight from the merry parties at my home.
I am happy when a project or plan is a success. And if not even small successes come in for a longer time I can get slightly depressed (out of which I usually get quickly by phone calls with supportive relatives).
My dominant emotion if you can call it that is flow. The immersion into a subject. It is not happyness nor satisfaction (these may come afterwards). It is a feeling of agency. I fall easily into flow if a subject engages me and there are many. I’d call flow a positive emotion.
In very difficult situations (personally, socially, involving others) where after exhausting all my actions and all my reasons the situation still looks bleak I feel desperation and tearfulness. It happens seldom and in all the few cases except one it led to support by others so I see this as an adaptive emotion the actually did help me despite it feeling—well—bad. To illustrate it I once was resonsible for a larger group of children that failed to respond positively to all my positively intended actions and nothing I did helped against the unrest and meanness among them. Finally after some days (we were a group of caregivers) I broke down and cried and was relieved and comforted by others of our team.
Reconsidering all this it looks as if emotions result from situation I can’t control. As I control most situations very well by a) avoiding trouble, b) long-term planning, c) training, it may just be that I just don’t get into emotional situations sufficient often to learn to feel and deal with them.
ADDED: I notice that I’m revealing lots of personal detail which may appear strange. I feel no risk from that (thus no fear). I do not expect reciprocation.
That adds a very relevant aspect to this. For me strong emotions where almost never an issue. Even in the two incidents I mentioned I wasn’t hindered by emotions. The first just went too fast (I have little memory of the situation itself and none of fears) and the second involved no fear or anger either, only an immensely powerful urge to protect. And the latter didn’t feel like emotion. I have difficulties to explain this partly because I have so little experience with strong emotions.
I have no fear of hight nor falling nor constriction nor darkness nor aloneness nor animals that I know of. I’d think I’d enjoy parachuting (I think it would be an interesting aerodynamics experience a great view) and can’t imagine fear (it may be not comparable but I don’t feel fear when falling during climbing or in a roller coaster either). But I agree that training to deal with strong emotions e.g. in these cases has also many benefits and falls into the same category of stress innoculation.
But independent of the fear and emotions in these situations there is still the training effect. In stressful situations do higher cognitive functions decline and you fall back to the level of your training. One can observe this even during heavy physical exercise: Just try to answer complex mathematical queries during it.
A lot of people on LW aren’t exactly neurotypical ;) While we did interact shortly in person it wasn’t long enough for me to know how you tick. If I remember right your reaction to hugging was pretty normal.
How about social fears? Fear of rejection by woman? Fear when getting hit on by a homosexual dude? Fear of negotiating?
In your description above you mentioned that you were covered in fear. There are multiple kinds of fear. There’s fight, flight and freeze. To me it sounds like you did freeze.
I do fear physical violence and harm for me. I hate violent behavior in general esp. if I can’t understand it.
No fear of rejection. I do not understand the concept well. If it doesn’t match that’s how it is. I won’t manipulate anyone to like me in the short run as I’m interested only in the long run. The main reasons I do not approach anybody are not fear but a) too little motivation on my side, b) too much expected effort per hedons, c) too few that are attractive to begin with.
Didn’t happen yet. If there is no risk of violence I can’t see how it is different from any other social situation.
I don’t understand where there can be any fear as long as no existential risks are involved.
But considering I see that I do have a social fear: Presenting in front of a large audience. I don’t fear it beforehand but I know that I have trouble speaking until I get into flow. 30 people is enough. You may have noiced it during the LW Europe Berlin presentation.
The common pattern for strong reactionsis far reaching consequences I do not have under control.
I did cover. As I said I have no clear recollection of it. It was no planned ducking or active in any way. Passive self-covering as far as I can tell. I did write fear but considering it it was more how I’d interpret it from an outside view, not how I knew it felt. As I said above I surely felt fear. I know emotions—only the situation has to escalate quite a bit to raise the emotions to a level that it controls my actions—and not just giving inklings as to what might be appropriate.
For most heterosexual dudes there a fear that can be triggered. but it might very well not be the case for you.
Fight fear feels different than flight fear with feels different then freeze fear.
How do you do when it comes to feeling positive emotions? Do you have them in your life?
Could you elaborate as to how these differ except obviously for the reaction they cause?
I feel a lot of happiness resulting from interaction with my children, their actions or just from observicing them be. This reminds me of a negative emotion that is triggered by my children too: Anger when they hurt or are cruel to each other. That causes a dissonance I can’t resolve easily and sometimes hinders efficient action.
I enjoy some sports and physical entertainment.
I take calm delight from the merry parties at my home.
I am happy when a project or plan is a success. And if not even small successes come in for a longer time I can get slightly depressed (out of which I usually get quickly by phone calls with supportive relatives).
My dominant emotion if you can call it that is flow. The immersion into a subject. It is not happyness nor satisfaction (these may come afterwards). It is a feeling of agency. I fall easily into flow if a subject engages me and there are many. I’d call flow a positive emotion.
In very difficult situations (personally, socially, involving others) where after exhausting all my actions and all my reasons the situation still looks bleak I feel desperation and tearfulness. It happens seldom and in all the few cases except one it led to support by others so I see this as an adaptive emotion the actually did help me despite it feeling—well—bad. To illustrate it I once was resonsible for a larger group of children that failed to respond positively to all my positively intended actions and nothing I did helped against the unrest and meanness among them. Finally after some days (we were a group of caregivers) I broke down and cried and was relieved and comforted by others of our team.
Reconsidering all this it looks as if emotions result from situation I can’t control. As I control most situations very well by a) avoiding trouble, b) long-term planning, c) training, it may just be that I just don’t get into emotional situations sufficient often to learn to feel and deal with them.
ADDED: I notice that I’m revealing lots of personal detail which may appear strange. I feel no risk from that (thus no fear). I do not expect reciprocation.
That sounds all healthy. I’m not sure if it’s worth focusing your energies in changing something about this issue.
Training automatic responses to a few crisis situations might still be valuable.
Thank you for your external view. I got the same impression. I’m somewhat unusual—but who isn’t in some aspect.