Oh Veronika. The synchronicities make me smile! Emotional intelligence is my big project right now that I am leaning into at work. I’m trying to meet the poetry of the science and the art. Or should I say the heArt. Cuore-osity. In doing so I’ve tried to introduce poetry to a bunch of type As. It’s an interesting conversation between psychologists and other healthcare clinicians. The term empath drives me crazy. Empathy is meeting somebody where they are not where we want them to be. It’s a response. Positive thinking is blown out of proportion. Resilience seems to be the gate through which wisdom arrives? There is an article on the neuroscience of resilience that somehow resonates with me the most.
I will read this a few times as I always learn so much more and trip over the truth in the spaces between your words. On an interesting note, the science is telling us “ emotional intelligence” has significantly gone down the last four years.
In the end, I think it comes down to -is a story telling us or are we telling the story? Emotions are definitely only messengers. The mystery is the way.
Thank you for sharing your gift and living into the questions! 🙏❤️
Thank you so much for your response, Jamie, especially this "The term empath drives me crazy" – I was worried I might step on some toes with this...
From what I'm seeing here on substack, real emotional intelligence is going up significantly. To me 'emotional intelligence' means communicating with your own emotions in an intelligent way, and understanding them! At last!!
Yes, I think we are preaching to the choir maybe here on Substack. I love how this little tribe is reflecting, releasing, and growing. One word at a time. Your words make a difference, and help reclaim the true meaning of what they were always intended for in the symbiocene. Science tries but there’s some thing underneath that we are leaning into so much deeper here. Keep writing. We need you. 🙏❤️
I think when it comes to emotions, we are only scratching the surface of understanding them. Emotions cannot be understood with the conventional scientific approach. I very much looking forward to deepening this conversation and hearing more about your big project!!
Yes, language cannot fully touch the ineffable. Maybe she can just hold it for a moment. My project is to have a bunch of healthcare clinicians, who are in the people business realize that we can only give away what we have cultivated ourselves. I’m trying to help them on a journey from me to We. The self part and the rituals surrounding it are often neglected. The habits are not there. We don’t rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the levels of our habits. 🙏❤️
Oh, this sounds like you might be very interested in the work of Cynthia Li. Have you heard of her? She's written a memoir called Brave New Medicine and is now practicing integrative medicine. I just listened to a conversation between her and Michael Lerner yesterday, where they talk about the 'quantum field of healing'
On a sidenote, I read poetry to this group, as a means to reach towards emotional intelligence, and they look at me like I’m some kind of alien. They’re looking for the door, but they don’t realize it opens from the inside. It’s definitely a journey. I’m no expert.
😅 you see? That's what I mean when I say science has a hard time understanding emotions...
"They’re looking for the door, but they don’t realize it opens from the inside." Yes! What a great way of putting it!!! Science per definition looks outwards. Tries to be objective. Emotions are about the subjective experience.
You are an expert, Jamie. We are all experts at our own emotions.
Veronika, this is a fascinating exploration of emotion. I like to define "emotion" as "energy in motion." If we don't move through our emotions, good or bad, they are likely to stagnate, to get stuck in us. Thanks for your essential glossary of terms.
Jamie, wow!
"In the end, I think it comes down to -is a story telling us or are we telling the story? Emotions are definitely only messengers. The mystery is the way."
Something about this definitely resonates, but I'm not sure how to think about it - I have experienced stories "coming through me" - especially in the context of my current project, an ancestor memoir, where I channeled an experience from my grandmother, who died over 60 years ago, and whose voice I never heard in life. It has left me-to use Veronika's terms-grief-stricken on her behalf, sorrowful, and angry. Are the emotions bubbling in me hers, or mine? And do those emotions, like the stories, get passed down if we are not aware?
Could you say more about your thinking about this?
Energy in motion is a great definition. I can definitely go with that.
I totally resonate with your experience of being griefstricken on behalf of your grandmother (or her experience). If there is family trauma (= unresolved trauma being passed down through generations) then this makes perfect sense.
Thanks for that link, Veronika. I didn't know about Synchronosophy. Is that about syncing time? Will definitely check that out.
As a time traveler, I try to live into kairos, which I define as meaning "just in time." A mysterious character named Kairos in my Edge of Yesterday time-travel adventure book series, tells the story protagonist, Charley, a time-traveling 21st-century STEMinista, that he may be from the 21st century, or the 15th, or the 36th...but he always shows up to help her out of (or into) trouble. . .yes, just in time!
Synchronosophy is about observing and understanding subjective experience by looking at what happens in synchrony.
"Synchronosophy: A Rough Guide to the Feral Side of Life" is a non-fiction book I am writing in a dedicated substack. I started in January this year, took a break over the summer and will pick up the thread again some time soon. Here is a link to the 'about' page: https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/about
Oh, yes! Veronika, lovely post. This is going to be a long comment—you said great things, and I resonate with you deeply! :)
I took my time to read it slowly over a cup of tea. The first thing I wanted to mention, as a philosophy lover, is that Descartes originally said, "dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum" (I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am), but it was simplified to the version: "I think, therefore I am." He intended to convey that a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows some things, and is ignorant of many others still exists. This has been referred to as "the expanded cogito." Anyway, I understand your point!
I think science has little to do with understanding emotions—it helps us grasp the external world and its laws, the how and why—but when it comes to the internal world, there is no science. There’s intuition, dreams, poetry and the acceptance of the "good," the "bad," and everything in between. The ability to understand things as a whole "unidentified griefcase" distinguishes the adult mind from the child mind. Most adults are stuck at a certain developmental stage where emotions became difficult to process and their "rational" parents did what they know best. As you well pointed out, many parents are dismissive of emotions because they can't make sense of them.
You must make room for emotions. Since we are born as emotional beings, it is our gift, our art, and our internal world. We are afraid of ourselves, of our nature. We are made of emotions, and we can't reason them away or "heal" them—we can only integrate, give them a voice, sit with them, and allow them to exist without reason. You can't tell this to someone who is always thinking from A to B, the "correct" way. There is no "correct" way to feel. Emotions are like our fingerprints—unique.
That’s why I started studying Alchemy—Tarot, Dreams, and Astrology—because the psyche plays with its own content, and there you have it: your own life within you, ready to be understood and accessed without reason.
As a society, we live mostly in our rational minds, which is why dreams are often treated with indifference. We’re dreamers by night and rational by day, but our Ego (social persona-identities) resists dealing with the internal world during the day—it only lets us explore the unconscious and emotional side at night. Thank you for your "corage = heart" you pour in your posts, your words go inward and invite emotions to be felt!
Thank you so much, Katerina, for the elaborate response. Thank you especially for highlighting the addition to the quote attributed to Descartes, which ~ as it turns out ~ may not have been his 'famous last words' after all!?!?!
I had no idea! 🤔
"dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum" indeed makes a significant difference. If abbreviated at all, the statement should have been shortened to "dubito ergo sum", since the 'ergo cogito' insert all of a sudden becomes an appendage, an afterthought, rather than the main activity.
On further exploration we might find that Descartes perhaps didn't even say that...
'The full statement' allegedly reads as "Non posse à nobis dubitari, quin existamus dum dubitamus: at que hoc esse primum quod ordine philosophando cognoscimus."
(Official translation: "That we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt, and that this is the first knowledge we acquire when we philosophize in order.")
= a philosophical statement which would not have had the same 'viral' effect as the familiar "cogito ergo sum", I guess.
Apologies to René D., if I misquoted him ~ mea culpa ~ such is the fate of influencers, their influential words twisted and stuffed back into their mouths...
In any case, much of Western philosophy has not been built on what people actually said, but on what people in power later read into their words. This, I believe, is true for Descartes, just as it is for Charles Darwin, Justus (von) Liebig et al. So in the end, what we are quoting is not what someone actually said originally, but how their (alleged) words were used, and the long trail of their impact.
The trouble with the relationship between science and emotions is that (some) scientific attempts have been made to 'understand emotions' by creating neat boxes to fit these wild things into.
Oh god, Veronika! This is amazing! I just wrote about the same topic! Such a synchronicity. I love everything in this article and can only agree to everything. I don't even have words to describe how much I resonate with all this. Our feelings are so important and I think it is part of our human experience that we feel them all. Deeply, truly, messy, wild. Thank you!
Sounds like 'emotional baggage' are in the air, or we are in its field. I totally agree with you and look forward to reading your piece(s). Wild, messy, deep and authentic. Yes! That's what emotions are in my experience too, and they can lead us to our deepest (highest) truth, if we learn to listen.
I love how you've unpacked all the words and given us the new word of Griefcases! I especially love the photos you've curated for this post, too -- the depth, the light, the shadows.
This stands out to me: 💭 {the fact that emotions are essential fuel to stoke the fires of the creative human mind seems to be stuck in a persistent blind spot in Western human Consciousness}.
All the ang- words also stand out -- the "narrowing" I can feel in my throat and chest even as you describe the words.
For a recent book project, I came across a stunning statistic that only 10-15% of the population is actually self-aware (and the researcher only barely lumps 'aware of feelings' into the definition https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it ). I wonder what the percentage is of people who are emotionally aware?
I've seen (and I'm sure been guilty) of spiritually-bypassing negative emotions and latching onto toxic positivity when I just didn't have the capacity or courage to unpack the real emotions inside.
And my favorite line: "new discoveries are only made, when humans have the courage to explore terra incognita." YES!!
Thank you, Shelly, I love how this topic resonates with you, especially since it is closely related to one of your core topics (courage! ~ more on that next week!!)
Yes, isn't it interesting how the words themselves tell us what the emotional experience is about?
Thanks for sharing this article on self-awareness. I'm sure this is a topic I'll go into some time soon as well.
I don't know about percentages, but most people, in my experience, seem to be scared of their own emotions. I can totally understand the temptation of 'spiritual bypassing' to 'deal with' negative emotions, although it never made any sense to me personally. Having always been a highly emotional person, I think I knew instinctively that emotions can't be avoided or 'bypassed'. They exist for a good reason, and our challenge is to find out what their purpose is in any given situation.
So I stumbled into becoming an advocate for the 'inner underdogs' (= negative emotions). I see them as the internal population which have suffered tremendously for centuries, forever discriminated against, persecuted, suppressed, denied their existence etc. Unfortunately not a very popular topic... but I think the tide is slowly turning and interest is growing.
I think what plays into being scared of our emotions is being scared to feel pain. In our society we have learned in many ways that pain is something bad and needs to be avoided. When I was in hospital with an inflammation of my intestine, I realised that the doctor's only goal was to eliminate my pain. Nobody really cared about where the inflammation came from or what I can do to prevent it. They even have a poster in the hospital to scale the immensity of pain so that the doctors have an idea of how much pain you are in. I think this goes together with avoiding uncomfortable emotions, as they evoke almost physical pain. We can feel it in our bodies. As part of my training to do mindfulness with kids we have a part where we befriend our feelings. We craft little houses and welcome the feelings in. We learn that feelings come and go and that the negative feelings aren't staying that long if we don't push against them but if we are kind to them. I think this sounds so simple but it is such a good visualisation of how we can approach our feelings. If we don't feel our feelings, how do we know we are living? Our feelings are the very thing that make this human experience possible for us. I love your ending of the article, as courage was a word I have looked into as well. It means living from the heart, being authentic. What if that was "normal" and wouldn't require us to be brave? I am looking forward to the shift happening in this world.
What a great exercise, Nicole, especially for children!
The most important thing is to acknowledge emotions when they arise, because, as mentioned earlier somewhere in this conversation, emotions are not the problem, they are messengers. As soon as they are acknowledged, they already begin to subside.
Ok, perhaps sometimes, especially with small children (but also with adults) at first they need to cry, sob, or wail even louder... the emotional pain seems to get worse. There is a simple explanation when this happens: the emotional experience has most likely been suppressed earlier and is desperate to be heard!!
I could go on... but will return to it in future wordcasts (and also chapters in Synchronosophy). It's such a huge and important topic. I'm excited about all the feedback and interest here and look forward to continuing these conversations 💙🙏
The one thing I'd like to add is a perspective on the impact of living in a society that relentlessly suppresses negative emotion of all kinds. We all have chambers of dreck buried beneath halls of muck buried beneath inverted amphitheaters of roiling putrefaction. For many people, cracking open the door to any part of this can be terrifying and very destabilizing. You and I are very fortunate in having great confidence in our spelunking tools and skills (along with the support of people close to us).
But most people do not have that to lean on (yet). We are, all together, still in an early stage of this journey of emergence into consciousness and agency. We have a long way to go. I do hope that my work and yours can help us all take the next step.
Thank you so much for this feedback, Joe. You are absolutely right and I love the graphic image you are offering for the tragic collective emotional state of our so-called stuck-in-the-swamps civilisation.
Yes, we are very fortunate. We have also worked hard to unearth and forge those spelunking tools. We have practiced our skills for decades, before this work came easy (the 10'000 hours principle?)
I never say it is easy to dig out and transform those buried emotions. I say it is possible (and extremely helpful).
I also suggest that ~ since we are all working together in the one great field of Consciousness ~ it becomes easier with every step of each person who is walking on this path. In this work, everyone of us makes an important contribution.
We are at an early stage. We do have a long way to go. But you and I and everyone else who may join us makes a significant contribution not just to their personal progress but also to the shifting of the field. Therefore, I don't hope, I KNOW that our work, yours and mine, can be a springboard for human Consciousness to take a quantum leap. I know this because it's a universal principle of growing and healing.
Yes, may it be so! For me, I've been living at the edge for so long that there are times when doubt arises about my ability to land my work before I am gone. Thank you for your reminder that even if it does not "land," my work and my journey in stewarding it has already contributed to a "shifting of the field." Which puts me in touch with the truth of "dreck" etc. as pure being in disguise. I can trust the essence of life to grow, in its own way, in its own time, toward an emergent wholeness that lives beyond my understanding.
The strange thing is, strong in western culture is the belief that life has to be controlled, and can be controlled; how bizarre. The intellect is championed to do the controlling - and emotions which 'mess up' the neatly ordered 'rational' world are therefore to be eliminated. It's a simple paradigm, but like all ideologies it depends on the ends justifying the means, which leads to all manner of horrors. And also leads to ever more violence to control life springing up in unexpected ways due to the intellect's attempts at repression of same.
What if means and ends are one? And what if emotions are the perfectly logical messengers opening the way for humans to live in the (higher) truth-paradigm that means and ends are 'one-thing'? In the world of Synchronosophy, a world in which emotions are held in higher esteem than in an anthropocentric world mind-set, then opening up to emotions 'taking the lead' is (I believe) a major contributor as to how a more symbiocentric world can be brought about.
The tragic result is that the Intellect is so overwhelmed by this impossible task to 'keep the emotions under control' that he gets confused about his own rules of reason, logic and rationality.
Indeed, emotions are perfectly logical. All we need to do is learn their language and practice communicating with them.
Yes to this! I recently attended a retreat where we were learning about how we are wild by nature. Nothing in nature stays the same and can't be restricted. Yet we try to control. No wonder so many people feel depressed when we suppress who we truly are - wild.
Hi Veronika, I just love this exploration of the emotional landscape. Thank you, so much resonates and I always take away new learning reading your work. I so enjoy your exploration of language, it is enticing and what a treat. A few chuckles as I read coupled with some fist pumps when you call out what I have experienced as toxic positivity. Our human being-ness is all about the emotional space. Thank you 🙏💜
A very important essay on our emotions. Humans are the only species who not only distrust their emotions and instincts, humans also fear them. So, in steps the pharma industry to help mask said emotions and place us further from ourselves and from the natural realm, which is the true realm.
I trust my emotions and my instincts. They tell me about danger and especially dangerous humans.
I would like ro end with a story. There is a beautiful grey outdoor cat whom I have been feeding the past few weeks. He waits patiently for me early in the morning. I place the food on the ground; at first he watched from farther away.
Today, I was able to get within touching distance. But not yet. He is wary and understandably so. His instincts guide him and a feline's instincts are higher than ours. Will we become friends? My instincts say yes, but when he is ready.
Yes, our emotions are expressions of the human Instinct. Why would we want to suppress, ignore or eliminate them???
This fear of our own emotions (which I believe is caused by false theories and religions) has been used far too long as a means to manipulate people. Being in touch with your emotions is also a protection against manipulation.
I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Blaise Pascal, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”. Emotions can be terrifying things and we're not taught how to be with them. I certainly went through messy periods and I'm sure more is to come. But what a profound difference it would make in the world of "mental health" this or that if we could put down our devices and distractions and learn to understand ourselves. Wonderful post, Veronika, xo
I am certainly looking forward to that day when the "mental health" movement plucks up the courage to embrace our emotions and how to be with them quietly in a room alone ~ unplugged from social media.
Marvelous. I especially love how you framed emotions as natural resources in their raw form! What a perfect metaphor and tactile/visual reminder of the inherent potential of all that lay hidden. The word “allow” sat on my shoulder as I read this, seemingly an important key to the gates of the Symbiocene. Bowing to you and the great master of uncertainty and not understanding.
“It’s not the emotions that trouble us. It’s the stubborn belief that the Intellect must suppress, oppress, repress whatever we don’t (yet) understand...”
Thank you Kimberly! I always appreciate your feedback so much.
Yes, having worked with emotions (my own and those of fellow humans) for nearly three decades, this is probably the essence of what I've learned: 'emotions are our natural renewable resource'.
You've summed it up beautifully. And the word "allow" as a key to the gates of the Symbiocene! I love it!!
Oh Veronika. The synchronicities make me smile! Emotional intelligence is my big project right now that I am leaning into at work. I’m trying to meet the poetry of the science and the art. Or should I say the heArt. Cuore-osity. In doing so I’ve tried to introduce poetry to a bunch of type As. It’s an interesting conversation between psychologists and other healthcare clinicians. The term empath drives me crazy. Empathy is meeting somebody where they are not where we want them to be. It’s a response. Positive thinking is blown out of proportion. Resilience seems to be the gate through which wisdom arrives? There is an article on the neuroscience of resilience that somehow resonates with me the most.
I will read this a few times as I always learn so much more and trip over the truth in the spaces between your words. On an interesting note, the science is telling us “ emotional intelligence” has significantly gone down the last four years.
In the end, I think it comes down to -is a story telling us or are we telling the story? Emotions are definitely only messengers. The mystery is the way.
Thank you for sharing your gift and living into the questions! 🙏❤️
Thank you so much for your response, Jamie, especially this "The term empath drives me crazy" – I was worried I might step on some toes with this...
From what I'm seeing here on substack, real emotional intelligence is going up significantly. To me 'emotional intelligence' means communicating with your own emotions in an intelligent way, and understanding them! At last!!
Yes, I think we are preaching to the choir maybe here on Substack. I love how this little tribe is reflecting, releasing, and growing. One word at a time. Your words make a difference, and help reclaim the true meaning of what they were always intended for in the symbiocene. Science tries but there’s some thing underneath that we are leaning into so much deeper here. Keep writing. We need you. 🙏❤️
I think when it comes to emotions, we are only scratching the surface of understanding them. Emotions cannot be understood with the conventional scientific approach. I very much looking forward to deepening this conversation and hearing more about your big project!!
Yes, language cannot fully touch the ineffable. Maybe she can just hold it for a moment. My project is to have a bunch of healthcare clinicians, who are in the people business realize that we can only give away what we have cultivated ourselves. I’m trying to help them on a journey from me to We. The self part and the rituals surrounding it are often neglected. The habits are not there. We don’t rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the levels of our habits. 🙏❤️
Oh, this sounds like you might be very interested in the work of Cynthia Li. Have you heard of her? She's written a memoir called Brave New Medicine and is now practicing integrative medicine. I just listened to a conversation between her and Michael Lerner yesterday, where they talk about the 'quantum field of healing'
No I haven’t. Please send it my way. Thank you. Perfect timing. Or shall we thank the universe 😉
On a sidenote, I read poetry to this group, as a means to reach towards emotional intelligence, and they look at me like I’m some kind of alien. They’re looking for the door, but they don’t realize it opens from the inside. It’s definitely a journey. I’m no expert.
😅 you see? That's what I mean when I say science has a hard time understanding emotions...
"They’re looking for the door, but they don’t realize it opens from the inside." Yes! What a great way of putting it!!! Science per definition looks outwards. Tries to be objective. Emotions are about the subjective experience.
You are an expert, Jamie. We are all experts at our own emotions.
Indeed! Thank you!
Veronika, this is a fascinating exploration of emotion. I like to define "emotion" as "energy in motion." If we don't move through our emotions, good or bad, they are likely to stagnate, to get stuck in us. Thanks for your essential glossary of terms.
Jamie, wow!
"In the end, I think it comes down to -is a story telling us or are we telling the story? Emotions are definitely only messengers. The mystery is the way."
Something about this definitely resonates, but I'm not sure how to think about it - I have experienced stories "coming through me" - especially in the context of my current project, an ancestor memoir, where I channeled an experience from my grandmother, who died over 60 years ago, and whose voice I never heard in life. It has left me-to use Veronika's terms-grief-stricken on her behalf, sorrowful, and angry. Are the emotions bubbling in me hers, or mine? And do those emotions, like the stories, get passed down if we are not aware?
Could you say more about your thinking about this?
Energy in motion is a great definition. I can definitely go with that.
I totally resonate with your experience of being griefstricken on behalf of your grandmother (or her experience). If there is family trauma (= unresolved trauma being passed down through generations) then this makes perfect sense.
I do believe that we carry (at least partially) the unresolved emotions of our ancestors. I have written about one episode of experiencing ancestral grief in chapter 15 of my other substack Synchronosophy::: https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/p/the-sapwood-of-synchronosophy-1518
Thanks for that link, Veronika. I didn't know about Synchronosophy. Is that about syncing time? Will definitely check that out.
As a time traveler, I try to live into kairos, which I define as meaning "just in time." A mysterious character named Kairos in my Edge of Yesterday time-travel adventure book series, tells the story protagonist, Charley, a time-traveling 21st-century STEMinista, that he may be from the 21st century, or the 15th, or the 36th...but he always shows up to help her out of (or into) trouble. . .yes, just in time!
Synchronosophy is about observing and understanding subjective experience by looking at what happens in synchrony.
"Synchronosophy: A Rough Guide to the Feral Side of Life" is a non-fiction book I am writing in a dedicated substack. I started in January this year, took a break over the summer and will pick up the thread again some time soon. Here is a link to the 'about' page: https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/about
I'm curious to hear what you think... of course!
Oh, yes! Veronika, lovely post. This is going to be a long comment—you said great things, and I resonate with you deeply! :)
I took my time to read it slowly over a cup of tea. The first thing I wanted to mention, as a philosophy lover, is that Descartes originally said, "dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum" (I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am), but it was simplified to the version: "I think, therefore I am." He intended to convey that a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows some things, and is ignorant of many others still exists. This has been referred to as "the expanded cogito." Anyway, I understand your point!
I think science has little to do with understanding emotions—it helps us grasp the external world and its laws, the how and why—but when it comes to the internal world, there is no science. There’s intuition, dreams, poetry and the acceptance of the "good," the "bad," and everything in between. The ability to understand things as a whole "unidentified griefcase" distinguishes the adult mind from the child mind. Most adults are stuck at a certain developmental stage where emotions became difficult to process and their "rational" parents did what they know best. As you well pointed out, many parents are dismissive of emotions because they can't make sense of them.
You must make room for emotions. Since we are born as emotional beings, it is our gift, our art, and our internal world. We are afraid of ourselves, of our nature. We are made of emotions, and we can't reason them away or "heal" them—we can only integrate, give them a voice, sit with them, and allow them to exist without reason. You can't tell this to someone who is always thinking from A to B, the "correct" way. There is no "correct" way to feel. Emotions are like our fingerprints—unique.
That’s why I started studying Alchemy—Tarot, Dreams, and Astrology—because the psyche plays with its own content, and there you have it: your own life within you, ready to be understood and accessed without reason.
As a society, we live mostly in our rational minds, which is why dreams are often treated with indifference. We’re dreamers by night and rational by day, but our Ego (social persona-identities) resists dealing with the internal world during the day—it only lets us explore the unconscious and emotional side at night. Thank you for your "corage = heart" you pour in your posts, your words go inward and invite emotions to be felt!
Thank you so much, Katerina, for the elaborate response. Thank you especially for highlighting the addition to the quote attributed to Descartes, which ~ as it turns out ~ may not have been his 'famous last words' after all!?!?!
I had no idea! 🤔
"dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum" indeed makes a significant difference. If abbreviated at all, the statement should have been shortened to "dubito ergo sum", since the 'ergo cogito' insert all of a sudden becomes an appendage, an afterthought, rather than the main activity.
On further exploration we might find that Descartes perhaps didn't even say that...
'The full statement' allegedly reads as "Non posse à nobis dubitari, quin existamus dum dubitamus: at que hoc esse primum quod ordine philosophando cognoscimus."
(Official translation: "That we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt, and that this is the first knowledge we acquire when we philosophize in order.")
= a philosophical statement which would not have had the same 'viral' effect as the familiar "cogito ergo sum", I guess.
Apologies to René D., if I misquoted him ~ mea culpa ~ such is the fate of influencers, their influential words twisted and stuffed back into their mouths...
In any case, much of Western philosophy has not been built on what people actually said, but on what people in power later read into their words. This, I believe, is true for Descartes, just as it is for Charles Darwin, Justus (von) Liebig et al. So in the end, what we are quoting is not what someone actually said originally, but how their (alleged) words were used, and the long trail of their impact.
The trouble with the relationship between science and emotions is that (some) scientific attempts have been made to 'understand emotions' by creating neat boxes to fit these wild things into.
see "The Science of Emotion" https://online.uwa.edu/news/emotional-psychology/
Thank you for being here and for this conversation 💙🙏
Oh god, Veronika! This is amazing! I just wrote about the same topic! Such a synchronicity. I love everything in this article and can only agree to everything. I don't even have words to describe how much I resonate with all this. Our feelings are so important and I think it is part of our human experience that we feel them all. Deeply, truly, messy, wild. Thank you!
Sounds like 'emotional baggage' are in the air, or we are in its field. I totally agree with you and look forward to reading your piece(s). Wild, messy, deep and authentic. Yes! That's what emotions are in my experience too, and they can lead us to our deepest (highest) truth, if we learn to listen.
Thank you for such encouraging feedback 💙🙏
I love how you've unpacked all the words and given us the new word of Griefcases! I especially love the photos you've curated for this post, too -- the depth, the light, the shadows.
This stands out to me: 💭 {the fact that emotions are essential fuel to stoke the fires of the creative human mind seems to be stuck in a persistent blind spot in Western human Consciousness}.
All the ang- words also stand out -- the "narrowing" I can feel in my throat and chest even as you describe the words.
For a recent book project, I came across a stunning statistic that only 10-15% of the population is actually self-aware (and the researcher only barely lumps 'aware of feelings' into the definition https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it ). I wonder what the percentage is of people who are emotionally aware?
I've seen (and I'm sure been guilty) of spiritually-bypassing negative emotions and latching onto toxic positivity when I just didn't have the capacity or courage to unpack the real emotions inside.
And my favorite line: "new discoveries are only made, when humans have the courage to explore terra incognita." YES!!
Thank you, Shelly, I love how this topic resonates with you, especially since it is closely related to one of your core topics (courage! ~ more on that next week!!)
Yes, isn't it interesting how the words themselves tell us what the emotional experience is about?
Thanks for sharing this article on self-awareness. I'm sure this is a topic I'll go into some time soon as well.
I don't know about percentages, but most people, in my experience, seem to be scared of their own emotions. I can totally understand the temptation of 'spiritual bypassing' to 'deal with' negative emotions, although it never made any sense to me personally. Having always been a highly emotional person, I think I knew instinctively that emotions can't be avoided or 'bypassed'. They exist for a good reason, and our challenge is to find out what their purpose is in any given situation.
So I stumbled into becoming an advocate for the 'inner underdogs' (= negative emotions). I see them as the internal population which have suffered tremendously for centuries, forever discriminated against, persecuted, suppressed, denied their existence etc. Unfortunately not a very popular topic... but I think the tide is slowly turning and interest is growing.
Thank you so much for a lovely feedback 💙🙏
I think what plays into being scared of our emotions is being scared to feel pain. In our society we have learned in many ways that pain is something bad and needs to be avoided. When I was in hospital with an inflammation of my intestine, I realised that the doctor's only goal was to eliminate my pain. Nobody really cared about where the inflammation came from or what I can do to prevent it. They even have a poster in the hospital to scale the immensity of pain so that the doctors have an idea of how much pain you are in. I think this goes together with avoiding uncomfortable emotions, as they evoke almost physical pain. We can feel it in our bodies. As part of my training to do mindfulness with kids we have a part where we befriend our feelings. We craft little houses and welcome the feelings in. We learn that feelings come and go and that the negative feelings aren't staying that long if we don't push against them but if we are kind to them. I think this sounds so simple but it is such a good visualisation of how we can approach our feelings. If we don't feel our feelings, how do we know we are living? Our feelings are the very thing that make this human experience possible for us. I love your ending of the article, as courage was a word I have looked into as well. It means living from the heart, being authentic. What if that was "normal" and wouldn't require us to be brave? I am looking forward to the shift happening in this world.
What a great exercise, Nicole, especially for children!
The most important thing is to acknowledge emotions when they arise, because, as mentioned earlier somewhere in this conversation, emotions are not the problem, they are messengers. As soon as they are acknowledged, they already begin to subside.
Ok, perhaps sometimes, especially with small children (but also with adults) at first they need to cry, sob, or wail even louder... the emotional pain seems to get worse. There is a simple explanation when this happens: the emotional experience has most likely been suppressed earlier and is desperate to be heard!!
I could go on... but will return to it in future wordcasts (and also chapters in Synchronosophy). It's such a huge and important topic. I'm excited about all the feedback and interest here and look forward to continuing these conversations 💙🙏
That’s such a beautiful exercise with kids, Sadhbh! It reminds me of Rumi’s “The Guest House.” 🤗
Indeed.
Oooh, I love this: "inner underdogs". You are their champion! I look forward especially to next week's good word, courage. :)
Me too!
Iam listening /reading.
You're speaking my language, Veronika!
The one thing I'd like to add is a perspective on the impact of living in a society that relentlessly suppresses negative emotion of all kinds. We all have chambers of dreck buried beneath halls of muck buried beneath inverted amphitheaters of roiling putrefaction. For many people, cracking open the door to any part of this can be terrifying and very destabilizing. You and I are very fortunate in having great confidence in our spelunking tools and skills (along with the support of people close to us).
But most people do not have that to lean on (yet). We are, all together, still in an early stage of this journey of emergence into consciousness and agency. We have a long way to go. I do hope that my work and yours can help us all take the next step.
Thank you so much for this feedback, Joe. You are absolutely right and I love the graphic image you are offering for the tragic collective emotional state of our so-called stuck-in-the-swamps civilisation.
Yes, we are very fortunate. We have also worked hard to unearth and forge those spelunking tools. We have practiced our skills for decades, before this work came easy (the 10'000 hours principle?)
I never say it is easy to dig out and transform those buried emotions. I say it is possible (and extremely helpful).
I also suggest that ~ since we are all working together in the one great field of Consciousness ~ it becomes easier with every step of each person who is walking on this path. In this work, everyone of us makes an important contribution.
We are at an early stage. We do have a long way to go. But you and I and everyone else who may join us makes a significant contribution not just to their personal progress but also to the shifting of the field. Therefore, I don't hope, I KNOW that our work, yours and mine, can be a springboard for human Consciousness to take a quantum leap. I know this because it's a universal principle of growing and healing.
Yes, may it be so! For me, I've been living at the edge for so long that there are times when doubt arises about my ability to land my work before I am gone. Thank you for your reminder that even if it does not "land," my work and my journey in stewarding it has already contributed to a "shifting of the field." Which puts me in touch with the truth of "dreck" etc. as pure being in disguise. I can trust the essence of life to grow, in its own way, in its own time, toward an emergent wholeness that lives beyond my understanding.
I know the feeling.
The strange thing is, strong in western culture is the belief that life has to be controlled, and can be controlled; how bizarre. The intellect is championed to do the controlling - and emotions which 'mess up' the neatly ordered 'rational' world are therefore to be eliminated. It's a simple paradigm, but like all ideologies it depends on the ends justifying the means, which leads to all manner of horrors. And also leads to ever more violence to control life springing up in unexpected ways due to the intellect's attempts at repression of same.
What if means and ends are one? And what if emotions are the perfectly logical messengers opening the way for humans to live in the (higher) truth-paradigm that means and ends are 'one-thing'? In the world of Synchronosophy, a world in which emotions are held in higher esteem than in an anthropocentric world mind-set, then opening up to emotions 'taking the lead' is (I believe) a major contributor as to how a more symbiocentric world can be brought about.
Thank you for a great summary 💙🙏💙🙏
The tragic result is that the Intellect is so overwhelmed by this impossible task to 'keep the emotions under control' that he gets confused about his own rules of reason, logic and rationality.
Indeed, emotions are perfectly logical. All we need to do is learn their language and practice communicating with them.
Yes to this! I recently attended a retreat where we were learning about how we are wild by nature. Nothing in nature stays the same and can't be restricted. Yet we try to control. No wonder so many people feel depressed when we suppress who we truly are - wild.
Domesticated I may seem to be
but actually
I'm wild and freeee ...
Hi Veronika, I just love this exploration of the emotional landscape. Thank you, so much resonates and I always take away new learning reading your work. I so enjoy your exploration of language, it is enticing and what a treat. A few chuckles as I read coupled with some fist pumps when you call out what I have experienced as toxic positivity. Our human being-ness is all about the emotional space. Thank you 🙏💜
Oh, I'm so glad it resonates with you. Well, on some level I knew it would...
And I love this:: "Our human being-ness is all about the emotional space." ~ I'll quote you on this at some point!
Thank you, as always, for your presence and support 💙🙏
You're very welcome, and thank you 💜
A very important essay on our emotions. Humans are the only species who not only distrust their emotions and instincts, humans also fear them. So, in steps the pharma industry to help mask said emotions and place us further from ourselves and from the natural realm, which is the true realm.
I trust my emotions and my instincts. They tell me about danger and especially dangerous humans.
I would like ro end with a story. There is a beautiful grey outdoor cat whom I have been feeding the past few weeks. He waits patiently for me early in the morning. I place the food on the ground; at first he watched from farther away.
Today, I was able to get within touching distance. But not yet. He is wary and understandably so. His instincts guide him and a feline's instincts are higher than ours. Will we become friends? My instincts say yes, but when he is ready.
thanks for sharing this lovely story, Perry 💙🙏
Yes, our emotions are expressions of the human Instinct. Why would we want to suppress, ignore or eliminate them???
This fear of our own emotions (which I believe is caused by false theories and religions) has been used far too long as a means to manipulate people. Being in touch with your emotions is also a protection against manipulation.
I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Blaise Pascal, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”. Emotions can be terrifying things and we're not taught how to be with them. I certainly went through messy periods and I'm sure more is to come. But what a profound difference it would make in the world of "mental health" this or that if we could put down our devices and distractions and learn to understand ourselves. Wonderful post, Veronika, xo
Thank you Lani! 💙🙏
I am certainly looking forward to that day when the "mental health" movement plucks up the courage to embrace our emotions and how to be with them quietly in a room alone ~ unplugged from social media.
Great quote!! 💙🙏
Marvelous. I especially love how you framed emotions as natural resources in their raw form! What a perfect metaphor and tactile/visual reminder of the inherent potential of all that lay hidden. The word “allow” sat on my shoulder as I read this, seemingly an important key to the gates of the Symbiocene. Bowing to you and the great master of uncertainty and not understanding.
“It’s not the emotions that trouble us. It’s the stubborn belief that the Intellect must suppress, oppress, repress whatever we don’t (yet) understand...”
Thank you Kimberly! I always appreciate your feedback so much.
Yes, having worked with emotions (my own and those of fellow humans) for nearly three decades, this is probably the essence of what I've learned: 'emotions are our natural renewable resource'.
You've summed it up beautifully. And the word "allow" as a key to the gates of the Symbiocene! I love it!!