Chief posted this in another thread and it got me thinking about another topic that I wanted to discuss. This is something that's given me trouble for a long time. Just how does one get in touch with one's emotions? I have a very difficult time with this idea. For example, if I'm not happy right now, I don't know how to call to mind a memory of happiness. (I can remember a time that I was happy, but I can't remember what it felt like.) Likewise with desire. What kind of mental exercise do you do to think effectively about emotions?

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Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea

I love that you asked this question,

I can very easily change the way that i am feeling and its from a very basic method that has been used by actors for god knows how long

Its going to take you a while before you actually can be able to do it, so dont become discouraged,

The reason why it is going to take a while is all because from now on you are going to start to notice your emotions,

What you do is, the next time you are happy, sad, angry, ect. you have you realize the fact that your feeling that emotion, and think to yourself, why am i feeling this way,

Then you need to be able to go back later and to channel that feeling, say a day later or so

What actors do is, if in a scene they have to cry, they start to go back in their mind and think of things that made them sad, and the more you remember different events in time, the easier it is to do,

The main reason why guys dont realize their emotions, is because out society has put this image of if your emotional your a homosexual,

And what tends to happen is you will have these really macho men, who have been bottling up their feelings for a long period of time, will start to cry, get angry or what ever, and have no idea why they are feeling this way, and they will start to feel uncomfortable about the whole situation

I have found the fastest way to get in touch of your emotions is for you to watch a movie that is known for being funny, sad, ect. and while watching it, take note to why it is giving you this certain feeling

i could talk about this for hours, so if you have any questions that i haven't answered in here just shoot me a PM

Best of luck

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-Dre

If your going to question me, you better have a theory behind your argument.

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."
-Harvey Fierstein

If I remember correctly, actors refer to this method as the magic question. It's legit.

However, society has repressed the emotions of man and woman alike in a lot more ways than one, including the homosexuality example. Sometimes it takes more than a theater technique to open yourself up.

Our American culture is heavily rooted in the original values of those who first settled here from Europe. This is the same group of people that burned women at the stake for adulterous practices, accusing them of witchcraft. The sexual repression of our modern culture has led millions of people to adhere to a set of guidelines that force them to repress feelings of desire and the such.

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if a man from our society conditioned himself, over a lifetime, to repress emotions that were judged as morally oppositional to the standards of a group that he affiliated with. A process of emotional repression would probably deteriorate one's mental health in a way that limited his emotional expression and ability to get in touch with the earthly chemicals whirling around in his and a woman's body in order to flirt properly.

This most certainly isn't the case for everybody, but I know it took ME a while to get over some sexual hangups that I allowed to be instilled in me through religious affiliations I once followed. They really held me back. When I was free of them, however, I was able to flow much better and emotionally vibe with women freely.
Something is obviously holding you back from diving straight into the lake of fiery desire. Rather than just letting yourself FEEL emotions like desire, you would rather think about them first. This is your first mistake.

You must dare to dive straight to feeling an emotion rather than thinking about it first. You can't "think effectively about emotions" and expect that to work for your purposes here. In fact, pickup isn't about thinking at all. It's all about feeling. If the philosophical purity of THINKING is your forte, then it's time to step out of your comfort zone and face that which you fear: the raw earthly pleasure of FEELING. Before you can communicate your emotions to others, you must know these experiences like the back of your hand.

Go on a quest to find your sensations. The common man often does this by having sex, drinking, doing drugs, and relying on other overwhelming external forces to make him feel. He can describe what he feels to a certain extent. The artist, however, takes advantage of the placebo effect. He can take one glance at the curvy brunette walking past him and become completely absorbed in how the wrath of her feminine form captures his attention and lures his mind of reason into oblivion as the blood rushes faster and faster throughout his body to bring him to the ecstasy that only his body can experience. He chooses the death of his reason because self-destruction breeds creation.

This is why pickup is an art rather than a science.

And this is why Chief is the Man

Mad Props

I'm definitely bookmaking this

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-Dre

If your going to question me, you better have a theory behind your argument.

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."
-Harvey Fierstein

Chief, your response touched on a variety of complex points and I'd like to talk about them. If you observe any unspoken or unconscious assumptions in anything I say, I welcome you to make me aware of them.

You begin with a discussion about repression. I don't know if I can give it a fair shake, but I will try. I am not an emotionally repressed person. I have no difficulty feeling emotions in the circumstances that evoke them. When I experience happy circumstances, I feel happy and I easily express happiness. When I am confronted with something that I want, I feel and express desire. I am not ashamed nor cagey about my emotional responses to any circumstances.

Before I begin discussing the next section, I'd like to clarify some terminology. People understand the concept of emotion differently; maybe I need to change the way that I understand the concept. When I say "thinking about emotions," I don't really mean rationally examining them. I mean experiencing them in the absence of the stimuli that normally cause them. Emotions, though, are just thoughts of a different colour. They still involve chemical processes and electrical impulses in your brain. Emotional thoughts and rational thoughts manifest in different ways, but they're both THOUGHTS. Feeling is just thinking with a different part of your brain. If I make any distinction, it is analogous to this: You can imagine your mother's face; it probably triggers the same mental recognition processes in your brain as actually seeing your mother's face, but nonetheless, we recognize that it is a different experience from actually seeing your mother. Likewise, when I say something like "thinking about feeling happy," I'm trying to create a feeling of happiness without the experience that made me feel happy in the first place.

I have a high degree of control over the mental processes that govern rational thinking. I can call to mind the quadratic equation, the preamble to the constitution, and the ideal gas law. I have a much lower degree of control over the mental processes that govern emotional thinking. I don't know how to go inside my head and BE HAPPY.

You follow up, however, with a remarkably good piece of advice. "It's all about feeling. If the philosophical purity of THINKING is your forte, then it's time to step out of your comfort zone and face that which you fear: the raw earthly pleasure of FEELING."

There is a lot of truth in this statement. You would not be the first person to accuse me of thinking too much. I readily acknowledge that it is true. (If I knew how not to think so much, I wouldn't suffer from insomnia.) You are also correct that I am afraid to think emotionally without also thinking rationally. While I am not ashamed of my emotional impulses, I WOULD feel ashamed to act on them without rational thought. To be blunt, anger and lust are normal and human, but murder and rape are not acceptable responses. Can we agree that a balance between emotional thinking and rational thinking is necessary? (I'll readily confess that I lack such balance.)

Finally, do you have any other suggestions about how I might open myself to more emotional experiences? We both know that I'm not going to take your advice to have sex, drink, do drugs, etc. so I might as well be practical and ask if you have any other recommendations.

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Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea

Thanks for clearing up some things.
I did NOT advise you to drink and do drugs. Read this again: No one here strives to be the common man. Everyone here strives to be a pickup artist.

Let go of rational thought when faced with ecstatic stimuli that allows you to feel anything, and allow the placebo effect to blow you away.

Another thing I have my workshop students is to hone in on an emotion and list every word they come up with when they think about that feeling. That should be a good start in freeing up your expression because you'll end up anchoring certain words to the feeling you're focusing on, and you'll eventually be able to recall that emotion through firing that anchor.

Very well put. There would be much less violence and social ills our country if it weren't rooted in these, sex-repressive, life-negative values - but I digress.