Outlaw Emotions

So getting back to the horse metaphor from the Nov 14^th post, the horse wants to be joined by other horses. When we’re emotional, we want company, too. For humans that means that our friends empathize with our emotion and have a personal insight into just why we feel the way we do.

Empathy is super easy to do biologically and super difficult emotionally. Inside key areas of the brain are neurons whose sole job is to pick up other people’s signals and feel them the same way. These neurons are called mirror neurons. Here’s a great video by NOVA on the subject - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mirror-neurons.html We can feel sad while watching an unhappy TV or movie character, we can easily relate to the Hallmark card image of a smiling face, and we can quickly guess just why a child is crying over a spilled ice cream. Biologically, we are wired to easily empathize with one another and quickly guess each other’s motivations. A useful trait for a complex social animal.

On the other hand, we’ve been taught since babyhood that some motions shouldn’t happen at all. Some of us even got punished for feeling sad, afraid, or angry. For years, we have been practicing the art of ignoring our emotions, distracting ourselves from our emotions, and belittling our emotions. Not a surprise then that when we see someone having an emotion – we freak out.

Take Home Point: Empathy is easy to do. We happily empathize with emotions that are on the OK list like happiness. When a friend is happy, we join them. We mirror their happiness. Why would one try to advise someone out of happiness right?