From 4116231e47f7f492ae96352b242d7cfbfc136c02 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Craig Maloney Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2019 08:56:55 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Reworking the wording on emotional triage. --- chapter07.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/chapter07.md b/chapter07.md index 1fbe5f2..a51ada9 100644 --- a/chapter07.md +++ b/chapter07.md @@ -82,11 +82,11 @@ This exercise isn't about dwelling on or punishing yourself with your feelings. ## Emotional Triage -### FIXME +One of our learned behaviors with our feelings is to run away from them or try to suppress them. We do our best to avoid feelings that make us unhappy or uncomfortable. We also try to hold back our positive feelings lest we show too much exuberance. This can lead us to be confused or conflicted about what we're feeling and why we're feeling that way. By sitting with our feelings and emotions and understanding where they're coming from we can get a clearer idea of what our mind is thinking and the story we're telling ourselves. -We have a tendency to want to run away from our feelings or try to suppress them. Our feelings aren't always pleasant and we want to avoid things that make us unhappy or uncomfortable. We want our internal story to be one of someone who is smart and capable of making the computer do anything we put our mind to doing, but when we feel negative emotions or fail to live up to our stories we start to feel crappy about ourselves. We wonder if this is worth it and wonder if we will ever be happy working with computers. +Think of this practice as emotional triage. Hopefully you've never had to go to a hospital emergency room, but if you have you'll see a whole array of medical professionals who are trained to diagnose what just walked through the door and determine the severity of the problem. When we recognize and reflect on our emotions we too are diagnosing what emotions we're having and the severity of those emotions. We take these moments when we're having these emotions to determine what the emotions are and what triggered those emotions. As we review our emotions we are gentle with them and recognize them for what they are. A good medical professional doesn't impose their own desires on the patient; they simply accept the patient for who they are, diagnose what the patient is experiencing, and act accordingly. When we recognize our emotions for what they are and determine where they are coming from we can better understand what we're facing. -Think of this practice as emotional triage. Hopefully you've never had to go to a hospital emergency room, but if you have you'll see a whole string of doctors and nurses who are trained to diagnose what just walked through the door and determine the severity of the problem. When we recognize that we're having an emotion we too are diagnosing what emotion we're having and the severity of the emotion. We take these moments when we're having these emotions to see what the emotion is. As we review our emotions we are gentle with them and see them for what they are. A good doctor or nurse doesn't impose their own desires on the patient; they simply accept the patient for who they are, diagnose what brought the patient in to see them, and act accordingly. When we recognize our emotions for what they are and determine where they are coming from we can better understand what we're facing. +### FIXME The more we do this practice the better we'll become at recognizing our emotions and why we're having them. We'll be better able to see what we're feeling and understand why we're feeling them. When we feel anxious we can recognize that we might be in an area of development where we don't fully know what we're doing. We can then feel the anxiety for a bit (don't try to chase it away just yet) and then think about what we're currently working on and the areas that might be new to us. We can then mentally note them, or (better still) write them down or journal them so when we complete what we're doing we can review the areas that caused us anxiety. -- 2.31.1