How Do You Feel?
Explained in terms of what you see.
Normally a person is unaware of what makes him feel the way he does when encountered with a particular stimulus. This stimulus can range from getting an appreciation from a colleague to hearing a cry from the baby.
A person may feel happy in the presence of a certain stimulus while he may feel frustrated in the case of others e.g. getting an appreciation from a colleague may elevate his mood while hearing a cry from the baby may make him anxious.
An analogy to what one sees
Consider a person living in a particular place. There is a certain view that he sees when looking in a particular direction. One of the views can be similar to the one below.
In this view, the person sees a green field along with a building and some skyscrapers at the back.
“What we see in a particular view can be analogous to the various events in our life and their impact on us”
Kindly re-read the above statement as it is the crux of this analogy.
The greenfield can be analogous to a romantic relationship that one is currently having while the building behind it can be analogous to a break-up with an ex-girlfriend. The skyscrapers at the back can be equated with incidents of opposition by his family and society towards his infatuation towards girls during his childhood.
“Basically what we see in a view can be equated with a list of events in our lives in relation to a particular stimulus”
The above example can be considered a result of encountering a stimulus of let’s say, watching a romantic scene from a movie. The various events from one’s life pop up in his subconscious mind and he feels love, fear, or anxiety depending upon these prominent events.
In the above example, the person has events of love analogous to greenfield and fear analogous to skyscrapers and hence he will have a mixed feeling when encountered with the stimulus of watching a romantic scene from a movie.
For another person, the view that he gets may be very serene. He just sees gardens and mountains. This can be equated to incidents from his life that are mainly pleasant and hence he will have feelings of love when encountered with a stimulus of watching a romantic movie.
“Encountering a particular stimulus can be equated with the direction in which a person sees”
If one encounters a pleasant stimulus then it may be analogous to looking in a direction that has a good view like the one above. If he encounters a bad stimulus then his view direction will be towards an unpleasant scene.
Example: Ram encountered a stimulus of getting an appreciation from his colleague. The life events that pop up in his subconscious mind were mainly pleasant and hence he felt nice. This can be analogous to Ram looking in a direction in which there is a lot of beautiful things.
After coming home, Ram heard a cry from his daughter. This brought about many negative incidents from his life and he felt anxious. This can be analogous to Ram looking in some other direction where the view is not good.
“As the view direction determines what we see, similarly the stimulus determines what life events come to our subconscious mind which makes us feel in a particular manner”
Quantity doesn’t matter
A person may drive a car for 20 years and may have a pleasant experience for all these years until he encountered an accident. After the accident, he feared getting into the car again.
Thus, we see that it is not the number of incidents that matters. It is the impact that a particular incident has on a person’s life. All the previous incidents of driving a car did not prevent him from feeling anxiety after the accident.
“This can be equated with having an object in our view that blocks everything behind it so that we can’t see them”
The view shown below can be equated with such a horrendous incident as it hides all the pleasant sceneries that exist behind it.
The building above is analogous to the incident of a car accident as it completely blocks the view. A person cannot see beyond it and thus he does not remember all the good times he had earlier while driving the car.
We have a superpower
We see various superheroes bringing the building down just by the act of looking at them. Actually, we do have this superpower.
“If we put our concentration on a particular life event then we destroy its negative effect”
This is the essence of catharsis. In catharsis, a person focuses on the event that had a negative impact on him. He re-experiences the fear till the incident loses its impact. This technique is advocated by various psychologists to get over the harmful effects of various negative incidents in our life.
Example: A person who met with a car accident should concentrate on the car accident and re-experience the fear in relation to it. This act will remove the emotional charge and make the impact of the accident diminish. He may again be able to get into the car and drive.
“Catharsis can be considered like the superpower we possess”
If the view that we have contains a big building that blocks all the beautiful sceneries behind it then the mere act of concentrating on the building will destroy that building. This is the superpower we possess.
After the destruction of the building, we may be able to see all the beautiful things that the building was hiding from us. There may be beautiful trees and gardens on the other side of the building and we may be able to look at them again.
Conclusion
In this article, I tried to relate how we feel in terms of what we see. This analogy is difficult to grasp but once a person understands it, he will have a deep insight into what makes him feel the way he does.
Upon seeing the blockage in our view, we do have the superpower to destroy it just by the act of looking. This superpower in psychology is called catharsis. Through catharsis, we can destroy the impact of various negative events in our lives so that the incidents that come up in the subconscious mind have no negative feelings. This is analogous to creating an unobstructed view while looking so that we enjoy the beauty of the scene.
