Recently, I was accuse wrongly by a guy i worked for scheming against him and doing things to him that i did not commit. Like most normal people, I felt intense amount of anger and disappointment toward him.

However, what really puzzles me is that i keep replay in my mind the things that guy said to me over and over and experience that anger emotion in me.

I try my best to do things to distract myself from experience that emotion because at the time, i logically conclude that i did not like that emotion.

The more i suppress that emotion, the more i keep thinking about it and experience it and the more i suffer.

However, laying in bed just a few minutes ago, i came to a realization. The reason i keep on experiencing that emotion because I DESIRE that emotion.

Now that is the concept that most people will find it hard to understand. Why would anyone DESIRE negative emotion?

The things is, we have no control over what we desire. Desires is subconscious, wants is logical.

I did not want to experience that emotion, but i desire to experience it. The more i want to not experience it, the more i desire it. Suppression is the greatest way to increase desire.

By the fact that the more i want to not experience that emotion, the more i suppress that emotion and the more i desire it.

When you want something that is the opposite of what you actually desire, the more conflict you create within yourself and the more you suffer.

Your emotional body(some say it's your soul) are hungry for emotion. It wants to experience emotion...any kind of emotion including suffering. Since it's HUNGRY for emotion, you need to feed it.

The beauty about emotion is that you can literally create any kind of emotion by focusing on it.

Since I actually DESIRE that emotion, I focus purely on that emotion and the sensation of that emotion gave me. I realize that any emotion can be fun and i fully enjoy that emotion in that moment.

When i fully experience that emotion and gave my soul enough of that emotion, it felt full and it doesnt DESIRE it anymore. Once it doesnt desire it anymore, it doesnt exist in my mind at this moment anymore.

A similiar example would be when you're hungry. When you're physically hungry, your body desires food. When you feed it enough food, it doesnt desires the food anymore.

Shinzen Young said to fully experience the emotion because if you suppress it, the suffering increase by 1000 fold. At the time when i listen to him, i did not understand. The thing about a lot of things you learn spiritually, you cannot logically understand until you experience it.

Now I understand.

The next time you experience some negative emotion or pain, realize that it's your soul desire to experience it and feed it all it wants. It will then disappear once you feed it enough.

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Another good examples in pickup would be jealousy plotline. Why do you guys think jealousy plotline works so well, because believe me, it totally works.

Basically what happens is that when you flirts with a girl, you're creating this immense good feeling in the girl. Right when she is at the height of that experience, you left her and flirt with another girl.

She wants to experience more of that emotion, but you "suppress" that from her because you ran off and flirt with another girl and not give it to her. So she chase you.

When a girl chase you because of jealousy plotline, she's not really chasing you, she's chasing the emotion you gave her earlier.

The opposite of that is "neediness". Why is it that neediness mess up your interaction with the girl? It's because you gave her too much good feeling.

Once she felt she got enough good feeling from you, she doesnt desire it anymore.

When a girl reject you because of neediness, she's not actually rejecting you as a person, but rather she doesnt actually desire whatever emotion you gave her earlier anymore.

A humbling realization huh? You realize it's not about you, but rather it's about her own emotion and your own emotion.

i totally agree on the part about accepting and working with emotions contrary to denying them. Self-awareness is the basis of emotional intelligence and you can't improve if you don't know what you are. But why the should you desire negative emotions??? Unless you neural pathways are habitualy used to negative emotions and one is addicted to them or you upbringing taught you what to expect (e.g people treating you unfairly), this desire does not make sense. We are biological machines designed to like stuff that is good for us and to dislike things that threaten us.

Why do people like violent or sad movies? Those movies obviously generate negative emotion but some people are completely addicted to them. I believe all desire to experience a full range of emotion, both positive and negative. By fully embracing and enjoying them all, we are embracing our humanity

That's a difficult question and deviates from your topic. Maybe people like sad movies because they can identify themselves with tragic characters. And violence in movies? well you can explain that with some evolutionary psychology and amygdala hijacking: violance was always critical for survival and our notions against violance are very novel in the history of homo sapiens. Hence the emotional stimulation of violance in movies. That's why I was really happy about the violance in There Will Be Blood, I guess. hehe. But I don't see any reason why you should focus on negative emotions. Negative emotions are negative conditioning to move you in a better direction! Again, if you resist them, they will persist. Sometimes they are neccessary (no pain, no gain!), maybe they can serve as a counter example to undertand the context of your life and what is at stake, but negative shit is not desirable.

I see you are operating on a logical pattern. Like i said in the original post, i did not understand what shinzen young was talking about until i experience it. Just keep my post in mind when you truly experience an extremely strong negative emotion and you will understand what i am talking about.

(05-17-2011 03:24 AM)Brian Wrote:  I see you are operating on a logical pattern. Like i said in the original post, i did not understand what shinzen young was talking about until i experience it. Just keep my post in mind when you truly experience an extremely strong negative emotion and you will understand what i am talking about.

thank for you that oh Dalai Lama!

I've also experienced very strong negative emotions, but I don't desire them... I've used them to move forward in life, but desiring them..... That's like saying we crave depression....

I do agree with the "what you resists persists", but again that's because you're fighting against that emotion and not using it.

I have mixed feelings about a lot of this, but I'll reserve judgment on that for now. When it comes to what you said about neediness though, I can definitely disagree.

Neediness is not a good feeling. Yes, if you're feeling starved for attention then even a needy person's attention might feel good, for a bit. It doesn't take long until you get that icky feeling though.

Neediness with a girl is so unenjoyable for her because it's like a vacuum, sucking validation and good emotion out of her. Instead of going in with the intent to give her something, whether that's interesting conversation or positive emotions, you are going in asking her for self-esteem/validation/good emotions, without giving her anything in return.

Needy people are also very inauthentic, because they don't really care about you as a person, they're just looking for their 'fix' of good emotions. This is why hot girls reject most guys who tell them how hot they are; apart from usually not having great game, the guys are also only approaching her solely for her hotness and not for her holistic value as a person. If you read Mark's posts where he discusses 'the hottest girls', he talks about how hot girls are in this constant position of having people want something from them that they think will make them happier/more fulfilled/etc. Guys believe that sleeping with a hot girl will fill a need inside of them. That is neediness. Not giving good emotion, but taking it.

I'll give a different perspective on this.

As long as you categorize things as good/bad, favorable/unfavorable, positive/negative, you will always experience ups and downs. Until all events are viewed with equanimity, the polarities will always exist. Until the desire to prevent certain experiences exists, mental fluctuations will always exist.

The moment you decide to accept all events as just events, the moment you stop associating labels like positive/negative, the moment you let things be, that is the moment, you are free.

Ironically, that also makes you an expert at everything, yet you don't care. How? Because your mind is not biased towards certain events transpiring, you view the reality of things, not the reality filtered through your emotional and personal biases.

A concrete example: Let's say you have decided that you never want to be angry. Over time, this becomes a part of your identity. What does this mean? It means that even if the situation calls for it, you will not be able to express anger. By the very fact that you view yourself in a certain way, you preclude the possibility that you could be any other way. This is what is meant by annihilation of the ego. In that state, you are everything (because you do not associate yourself with any identity, you can assume whatever identity you want at that moment) and yet you are nothing (because you don't have an identity).

The biggest problem with unleashing it on other people is often time, we desire a "result" from that unleash, such as that other person is suspose to feel guilty or suspose to not get angry back at us. However, fully experiencing it in your own mind work just as well and it doesnt carry with it any expectation from the outside world to give us.

After all, regardless of whatever happen in the outside world, our brain receive and process the signals all the same.

In all honesty, i try my best to explain this concept to everyone around me, including my family members and none of them can understand this on an emotional level lol. This is one of those time where i fully realize emotions cannot be process by logic but only by experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aUjLiLiriA