A systems view of negative emotion and cognition

[Carl-Richard]

The orienting framework for this is the concept of "control", which can be deduced from the concept of autonomy (feeling like being in control of your actions) and competence (feeling like you're able to exert control through your abilities). These are cornerstones of feeling like you are able to exert control and influence over your surroundings and in your life in general.

What happens when you feel like you lack control? You develop various symptoms of negative emotion and cognition:

Anxiety: a state of hypervigilance, which may involve a worry about what may happen in the future that will lead to a bad outcome (or not happen the way you want it to go, the way you are willing to it go if you could control it). With worry, it's the feeling of lack of control projected into the future. It might not necessarily involve a specific (lack of) competancy but maybe a general one like inability to predict the future (i.e. uncertainty), which is a potent cause of anxiety.

Rumination: thinking about something that went bad in the past, a goal you didn't achieve, or some problem you seem to be unable to get over or solve. It's the feeling of lack of control projected into the past (or the immediate past if it's happening concurrently, a.k.a. "now" but still in the form of a thought so still technically the past). Getting stuck in endless "problemsolving" that goes nowhere is a typical sign of rumination.

Depression: which might involve

• helplessness (not knowing what to do or how to do it, and therefore not doing anything) or
• hopelessness (not thinking this will ever change).

These are less operational forms of feelings of lack of control as they don't entertain or mobilize for action (unlike in anxiety and rumination) but simply cease or accept that no action will work. This manifests physically as (or is associated with) psychomotor retardation, low mood, low energy, the typical "immobilizing" symptoms of depression.

You could think of depression in the form of helplessless and hopelessness as the extreme endpoints of negative emotion and cognition, because they represent the extreme endpoints of feeling of lack of control ("nothing works, nothing will ever work"), and because while anxiety and rumination might not necessarily involve depression, depression often involves anxiety and rumination.

 

And how does mindfulness, spirituality, cognitive flexibility, deal with these issues of lack of control (e.g. meditation, letting go of identification, etc.)? You might simply accept the lack of control and thus gain control in that (i.e. you identify with whatever is happening and it's you, so nothing bad can ever really happen, nothing really needs to be controlled, because it's fine anyway whatever happens). Acceptance is the very pure mirror image of helplessness and hopelessness, because you are always able to let go and opt out of the need to control and therefore opt into absolute control (as opposed to being perpetually stuck).

But do you want to let go? That is always the issue. That's the crux of all the world's problems. But still, it's a good thing to have in the toolbox, a good thing to be aware of, and a good thing to know that you can orient yourself towards when you perhaps realize everything else is hopeless (be it due to depression or simply knowing nothing in life will every fulfill you at the deepest level, will never alleviate your suffering at the root, only temporarily soothe it).

Because, the cognitive machinery associated with anxiety, worry, rumination, depression, is always active to some degree as long you are identified with that which needs to survive. The brain and the organism evolved these things because it was good for surviving (predicting things in the future, keeping account of things in the past, honestly judging your feeling of progress and performance).

So as long you identify with survival, that is what you will experience to some degree or another (unless you are in complete control and acting perfectly in accordance with your autonomy and competence, which is possible to a huge extent that many might not appreciate but is still a relatively rare and even fragile state: this is where the emotions and cognitions take on a highly positive and excited and passionate form like the creative and productive states you can get in while working on something meaningful or doing something you love; the self-referential machinery flips over to the self-transcendent and self-actualizing machinery). But you will probably keep doing that for a while more so it's good to know these things until then.

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Quote

But do you want to let go?

The question at the heart of it - the most confronting question of all.

In my experience most do not want to let go. 

[WonderSeeker]

2 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

The question at the heart of it - the most confronting question of all.

In my experience most do not want to let go. 

Letting go is a 21st century skill 0% of schools teach.

It's a skill that takes only half a year of deliberate work to build. After that life becomes much ease-ier.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

32 minutes ago, WonderSeeker said:

Letting go is a 21st century skill 0% of schools teach.

It's a skill that takes only half a year of deliberate work to build. After that life becomes much ease-ier.

I think as well as the above, showing people that they are the ones who do not want to let go, is the hardest part of the teaching ... 

[Rishabh R]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

But do you want to let go?

Disrespectful interactions.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

15 minutes ago, Rishabh R said:

Disrespectful interactions.

Ruminating and re-playing out the interaction over and over after the fact, and re-igniting and perpetuating all the negativity surrounding it? 

I still get into loops like this. Maybe it doesn't describe you, though.

It is my mind attempting to reconcile responsibility. 

It rarely happens to me now, but it was one of my biggest things to let go of.

[LastThursday]

Reading the above, the thing that springs to mind is "control of what?".

There are things we absolutely have to control, such as where and how to get food, finding a place to sleep, the base things of survival. Then from there each form of control gets more and more removed from base survival. I suppose control here means all forms of it, whether self-control, control of others, control of environment or circumstances? Where control is a forcing of things to be beneficial to oneself.

Letting go then, would be either deliberately relinquishing control over certain things, or re-framing things so that the sense of needing to control it evaporates.

I think some people are more prone to needing to control than others, because the sense of control gives them comfort or security, they over control.

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

This manifests physically as (or is associated with) psychomotor retardation, low mood, low energy, the typical "immobilizing" symptoms of depression.

I always found it intruiguing that these symptoms of depression are nearly exactly those of being ill in general, such as with a cold. Maybe the body's reaction to depression is one of "I must be ill" and acts accordingly? Just a thought.

Edited 8 hours ago by LastThursday

[Hojo]

I think this is what Karma yoga is for.

You constantly say this action is for balance and harmony in the universe. 

The universe is already balanced and harmonized and you have 0 control so every action even ones you make up are bad are for balance and harmony.

Edited 8 hours ago by Hojo

[Rishabh R]

2 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Ruminating and re-playing out the interaction over and over after the fact, and re-igniting and perpetuating all the negativity surrounding it? 

Yup. I remember replaying harsh rejection from a girl in the past in my mind. I have tried acceptance of suffering , cognitive reframing and they helped as well help me to a large degree still.

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I always found it intruiguing that these symptoms of depression are nearly exactly those of being ill in general, such as with a cold. Maybe the body's reaction to depression is one of "I must be ill" and acts accordingly? Just a thought.

An organism that can't move (by its own accord) is by definition ill. Humans just have a projected mental space of this dynamic called depression. If you get hurt and for example break a limb, you will experience a form of depression, because you can't move like you used to. And when you move and it causes pain, that restricts the movement and keeps you in a state of low mood and low energy to avoid that pain. Pain, low mood, low energy, depression, they are all a part of the same system. And of course, when ill or hurt, the body wants to stay still so it can heal (there is an evolutionary pressure for that), so that also feeds into the system above, increasing pain sensitivity, pain from fever, pain from inflammation (inflammation is an immune signal), etc.

Notice also in depression, it's not just your body that slows down in its movement, it's your mind. Your cognitive abilities, your working memory, your IQ, your ability to see connections, tanks. Notice also when you're truly sick, especially with the flu, you can notice your "circle of concern" diminishes severely (every goal you have that is not about staying put and healing gets distinctly removed from your mind). It's like you could be working on the most exciting and meaningful project and then you get the flu and suddenly you forget all about it (I've experienced this and it's quite palpable). And of course, meaning and excitement are dopaminergically mediated, and dopamine is the neurochemical of movement (cognitive and physically).

Edited 2 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Rafael Thundercat]

11 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

The orienting framework for this is the concept of "control", which can be deduced from the concept of autonomy (feeling like being in control of your actions) and competence (feeling like you're able to exert control through your abilities). These are cornerstones of feeling like you are able to exert control and influence over your surroundings and in your life in general.

What happens when you feel like you lack control? You develop various symptoms of negative emotion and cognition:

To get control is a stage. Go for 43:00 

At least about controling the feminine,the more you try to control the less you will conect with love. The video touch in more than that but control is in the kernel of it.

 

[Joseph Maynor]

Is the assumption here that letting go is ideal because the self (or ego) is an illusion and takes no action anyway?

[LastThursday]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

An organism that can't move (by its own accord) is by definition ill.

I suppose I was just poking at cause and effect there.

Depression isn't a conventional illness whereby the body (and mind) need to be damped down so that it can recover and/or not injure itself further. The body could be energetic, and the mind still ruminate about the lack of control, and feel hopeless, and indeed you could do that with a sharp and active mind to even greater effect.

I wonder if the negative rumination actually comes from the body reacting as if it were ill (physically), and not the other way round?

Of course being lethargic in body in and mind, is a very good indicator to others that "I need help", and maybe that is part of the equation?

Edited 57 minutes ago by LastThursday