Session 10 May 2014

[SMM]

Thanks for the new session! A lot of food for thought indeed!

 

[lilies]

Now I understand deeper the process of soul smashing - it stuck erroneously in my memory as some literal, weaponized smashing attack timed at the Wave arrival. The amplification of uncleanness & Wetiko clusters inside acquired during Life and not neutralized, makes a lot more sense. Even more reason to Work to be able to get on board of the Ark.

 

[Ennio]

Q: (L) Okay, so the next question is: We have numerous activities that are creative for people to be able to release some of their pent up emotions about all of the things that are happening in the world that make everybody unhappy. They can get on SOTT, they can write commentary, they can work on the forum, they can write things on the forum, they can have exchanges, they can have meetings with other people. There are many things that people could be doing, but it's like the excuse always comes down to, "Oh, the frequency fence. I can't do anything because I'm depressed, or I'm this, or I'm that or the other thing." You're saying that they've won half the battle, but it seems to me that it's harder than that. There is something else. How to get over that initial resistance?

A: Taking the bull by the horns is always fearful in the imagination, but when you approach the beast, he usually lays down and submits.

Q: (L) That doesn't answer my question. Okay, what constitutes "approaching the beast"? Since that seems to be where everybody gets stuck...

A: As Yoda said, no try, just do, if only a little. That will break the logjam. Butterfly wings and all that.

Along these lines there is a very interesting piece on SoTT that speaks to some of these issues:

http://www.sott.net/article/279066-When-feeling-anxiety-dont-try-to-calm-down-get-excited

Faced with performance anxiety, the counsel we usually give ourselves and others is to relax. But new research (pdf) by Brooks suggests that's the wrong approach. After all, as anyone who's tried it can attest, calming oneself down before a big test, interview, or performance is pretty futile and why "Keep Calm and Carry On" seems comical. Brooks suggests a better way: Transmute your nervous energy into excitement.

In a series of studies, Brooks had subjects perform stress-inducing tasks such as singing karaoke, giving a speech, and taking a math test. She had them say out loud, beforehand, either "I am calm" or "I am excited" (in some studies was also a group that said neither). As far as manipulations go, this may not sound like much, but it was enough to create an effect. The test subjects who told themselves they were excited reported, after the fact, feeling more excited. And, more strikingly, they performed better at the stressful tasks they were called on to do. The excited subjects outperformed those who had told themselves they were calm and those who hadn't told themselves anything. Test subjects who convinced themselves they were excited sang better - more in tune, more in rhythm - they received higher marks from listeners on their speeches, and they scored higher on the math tests.

Brooks's explanation for this is that we can trick ourselves into perceiving anxiety, at least partially, as excitement. While calm feels nothing like anxiety, excitement feels sort of like it. Calm is a low arousal state; anxiety and excitement are high-arousal states. As a result, changing anxiety into calm requires flipping both the intensity (high to low) and the valence (negative to positive). Changing anxiety into excitement just requires one of those flips. The two emotions are, as Brooks puts it, "arousal contingent." Those butterflies in your stomach? That's not apprehension; it's anticipation. Interestingly, Brooks found that subjects who psyched themselves up didn't feel any less anxious; they just felt excited in addition, and that seems to have drowned out the nerves.

Why would excitement lend a performance edge? Brooks suggests it changes the way we see stressful tasks. She found that subjects who psyched themselves up rather than tried to calm themselves down were more likely to see evaluative situations as opportunities rather than threats, a mindset that in other research has correlated with better performance.

If Brooks is right, it's not just football players and boxers who should prepare themselves for high-stakes challenges by whipping themselves up. Concert pianists, quiz bowl participants, surgeons, and PowerPoint jockeys alike should prepare themselves by embracing the buzz of their jangling nerves, not trying to quiet them. Her findings about the mutability of emotional valence could also come in handy in wrestling with other negative emotions. She suggests, for example, that boredom might be amenable to a similar approach. When we're bored, we tend to try to rouse ourselves into excitement. That's essentially the reverse of trying to calm anxiety. A better approach, she suggests, might be to try to convince ourselves we're feeling a positive but similarly low-arousal emotion: calm.

So if someone is faced with some anxiety about Doing something ie. don't want to screw up, I'm not smart enough, etc., this cognitive-behavioral approach may do the trick. Just tell yourself you're Excited!!!

 

[Silveryblue]

Thanks for all of the latest sessions but this one in particular - really relevant to me.
I have been struggling with inertia in getting things done & especially feeling this creating blockage or clutter in my life.
I am trying to work through the list of things that I am behind on by following advice I have given others in the past:
Every day try to do just one thing for yourself, one thing for the home and one thing for the job, even if its only 10 minutes. Full time employment obviously takes the lions share of my time, but am really trying to promote some balance so me & home don't get neglected. Baby steps.

Great to see more groups joining via skype too! :D

 

[Cosmos]

Q: (L) Okay, so the next question is: We have numerous activities that are creative for people to be able to release some of their pent up emotions about all of the things that are happening in the world that make everybody unhappy. They can get on SOTT, they can write commentary, they can work on the forum, they can write things on the forum, they can have exchanges, they can have meetings with other people. There are many things that people could be doing, but it's like the excuse always comes down to, "Oh, the frequency fence. I can't do anything because I'm depressed, or I'm this, or I'm that or the other thing." You're saying that they've won half the battle, but it seems to me that it's harder than that. There is something else. How to get over that initial resistance?

A: Taking the bull by the horns is always fearful in the imagination, but when you approach the beast, he usually lays down and submits.

Q: (L) That doesn't answer my question. Okay, what constitutes "approaching the beast"? Since that seems to be where everybody gets stuck...

A: As Yoda said, no try, just do, if only a little. That will break the logjam. Butterfly wings and all that.

Along these lines there is a very interesting piece on SoTT that speaks to some of these issues:

http://www.sott.net/article/279066-When-feeling-anxiety-dont-try-to-calm-down-get-excited

Faced with performance anxiety, the counsel we usually give ourselves and others is to relax. But new research (pdf) by Brooks suggests that's the wrong approach. After all, as anyone who's tried it can attest, calming oneself down before a big test, interview, or performance is pretty futile and why "Keep Calm and Carry On" seems comical. Brooks suggests a better way: Transmute your nervous energy into excitement.

In a series of studies, Brooks had subjects perform stress-inducing tasks such as singing karaoke, giving a speech, and taking a math test. She had them say out loud, beforehand, either "I am calm" or "I am excited" (in some studies was also a group that said neither). As far as manipulations go, this may not sound like much, but it was enough to create an effect. The test subjects who told themselves they were excited reported, after the fact, feeling more excited. And, more strikingly, they performed better at the stressful tasks they were called on to do. The excited subjects outperformed those who had told themselves they were calm and those who hadn't told themselves anything. Test subjects who convinced themselves they were excited sang better - more in tune, more in rhythm - they received higher marks from listeners on their speeches, and they scored higher on the math tests.

Brooks's explanation for this is that we can trick ourselves into perceiving anxiety, at least partially, as excitement. While calm feels nothing like anxiety, excitement feels sort of like it. Calm is a low arousal state; anxiety and excitement are high-arousal states. As a result, changing anxiety into calm requires flipping both the intensity (high to low) and the valence (negative to positive). Changing anxiety into excitement just requires one of those flips. The two emotions are, as Brooks puts it, "arousal contingent." Those butterflies in your stomach? That's not apprehension; it's anticipation. Interestingly, Brooks found that subjects who psyched themselves up didn't feel any less anxious; they just felt excited in addition, and that seems to have drowned out the nerves.

Why would excitement lend a performance edge? Brooks suggests it changes the way we see stressful tasks. She found that subjects who psyched themselves up rather than tried to calm themselves down were more likely to see evaluative situations as opportunities rather than threats, a mindset that in other research has correlated with better performance.

If Brooks is right, it's not just football players and boxers who should prepare themselves for high-stakes challenges by whipping themselves up. Concert pianists, quiz bowl participants, surgeons, and PowerPoint jockeys alike should prepare themselves by embracing the buzz of their jangling nerves, not trying to quiet them. Her findings about the mutability of emotional valence could also come in handy in wrestling with other negative emotions. She suggests, for example, that boredom might be amenable to a similar approach. When we're bored, we tend to try to rouse ourselves into excitement. That's essentially the reverse of trying to calm anxiety. A better approach, she suggests, might be to try to convince ourselves we're feeling a positive but similarly low-arousal emotion: calm.

So if someone is faced with some anxiety about Doing something ie. don't want to screw up, I'm not smart enough, etc., this cognitive-behavioral approach may do the trick. Just tell yourself you're Excited!!!

What is the right german translation for excitement in this case?

In the german language there a number of different meanings for excitement, which are quite different:

http://www.dict.cc/?s=excitement

For example there is "Aufregung", "Begeisterung" and "Spannung" that are some of the translations from "excitement" into german, but have quite different meanings.

So I'm not sure which german word really fits the "excitement" of which they talk about in that study. I would really like to know because otherwise I'm not able to really understand or practise it rightly...

 

[Laura]

What is the right german translation for excitement in this case?

In the german language there a number of different meanings for excitement, which are quite different:

http://www.dict.cc/?s=excitement

For example there is "Aufregung", "Begeisterung" and "Spannung" that are some of the translations from "excitement" into german, but have quite different meanings.

So I'm not sure which german word really fits the "excitement" of which they talk about in that study. I would really like to know because otherwise I'm not able to really understand or practise it rightly...

Type into google english "define: excitement" (without quotes) and you get this:

a feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness.

synonyms: exhilaration, elation, animation, enthusiasm, eagerness, anticipation, feverishness, fever, delirium, agitation, emotion, fire, fieriness, intensity, zeal, zest

something that arouses a feeling of excitement.
plural noun: excitements
"the excitements of the previous night"

synonyms: thrill, thrilling sensation, exciting sensation, adventure, treat; More
pleasure, delight, joy;
informal: pep, vim, zing, spark
informal: kick, buzz, high;
"the excitement of seeing a leopard in the wild"
sexual arousal.
synonyms: arousal, sexual arousal, passion, fire, glow;

You could have done that yourself. Or used a German-English dictionary.

 

[Ekios]

Session Date: May 10th 2014
Q: (ankhepiphan) Okay, I have one more question. My question is am I totally lost [???]

A: You still think you can think your way out of your problems and issues. You can't. When are you going to give up your FEAR and ANGER?

Q: (ankhepiphan) Fear and anger for what?

A: For life not being the way you want it to be.

Have been a silent reader for I don't know, maybe a year, but that last part striked me harder than anything else in a while.

So : Thank you.

 

[Gwenllian]

For all those SOTT editors who haven't been posting, and any potential SOTT editors, maybe think about it this way. If everyone were to just post ONE article a day, SOTT would have more daily articles than it currently does. It's that easy. Once you're familiar with the system, that means 5-10 minutes a day to put up a high-quality article, maybe with a comment. But editing SOTT is so fun, it's hard to just post one article! Picture in your mind how awesome SOTT currently is. Now imagine how much awesomer it could be!

Yep, and even if it may take you more than 10 minutes to think about a creative title or to look for appropriate quotes for the comments, it's still ok. Maybe it will leave you time for only one article, but that's ok too, since what is important is quality, not quantity through mechanical posting. Energy that comes from dedication and attentiveness is never wasted. But it IS important to be consistent, if only for a reason that it keeps your mind sharp when it comes to spotting the signs.

Also, C's said: "As Yoda said, no try, just do, if only a little. That will break the logjam." It means that if you are hesitant, have all kind of thought loops, fears, etc., just open the SOTT page, hit the new article button and start typing. That's it. :)

Putting up my hand here, I would like to join the group of SOTT editors, although I have to warn you. I am a bit slow. :P Not sure how much I would be able to contribute, but practice probably makes perfect.

 

[Martina]

Hi! thanks a lot for the session. It helps me being motivated and reminds me not to be so selfish.
I'm downloading Wetiko podcast, and the dissertation I'm working on might turn into some article one day :).
I have a question about songs. What do you sing and what effect it has?

 

[Minas Tirith]

"Aufregung", "Begeisterung" and "Spannung" that are some of the translations from "excitement" into german, but have quite different meanings. So I'm not sure which german word really fits the "excitement" of which they talk about in that study. I would really like to know because otherwise I'm not able to really understand or practise it rightly...

Aufregung = if you use the positive side, yes, but it can also indicate something negative, better would be "angeregt"

Spannung = too neutral

Begeisterung comes closest :)

To describe it, Erfreute Angeregtheit/Erregtheit, something like that ...

Americans use "to be psyched" a lot, I think it's a little more than excitement, but comes close, so you might want to check that as well.

M.T.

 

[yayan]

Thank you for sharing the sessions..

As with others, the topic discussed is relevant to me personally.

I didn't know that there are so many SOTT editors (+100). Is it an open positions or only for FOTCM members?
Is there any requirements to be one of the editors?

Thanks..

 

[Cosmos]

"Aufregung", "Begeisterung" and "Spannung" that are some of the translations from "excitement" into german, but have quite different meanings. So I'm not sure which german word really fits the "excitement" of which they talk about in that study. I would really like to know because otherwise I'm not able to really understand or practise it rightly...

Aufregung = if you use the positive side, yes, but it can also indicate something negative, better would be "angeregt"

Spannung = too neutral

Begeisterung comes closest :)

To describe it, Erfreute Angeregtheit/Erregtheit, something like that ...

Americans use "to be psyched" a lot, I think it's a little more than excitement, but comes close, so you might want to check that as well.

M.T.

Thanks.

The exact translation is a bit tricky, but I also guess that "Begeisterung" might be the most fitting one.

And yes it did not occur to me to search for the english definition of "excitement"

 

[Renaissance]

So if someone is faced with some anxiety about Doing something ie. don't want to screw up, I'm not smart enough, etc., this cognitive-behavioral approach may do the trick. Just tell yourself you're Excited!!!

This reminds me of a book a read a while back called A Sense of Urgency by John Kotter. It's a business book on how to achieve organizational change among complacency. Some of the techniques are manipulative, but I think his main point is really solid about how important it is to utilize crisis to drive urgency and get things accomplished. We can do this in a very real way since crisis is all around us. We block it out through normalcy bias, but if we try to maintain a focus on world events (by reading SOTT) we can step out of complacency and see just how bad things are and it will create a natural urgency to work on things, and I think the sense can be similar to excitement. Kind of relates to Laura's old signature by Samuel Johnson, "when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

 

[Dirgni]

Thank you for sharing the sessions..

As with others, the topic discussed is relevant to me personally.

I didn't know that there are so many SOTT editors (+100). Is it an open positions or only for FOTCM members?
Is there any requirements to be one of the editors?

Thanks..

Hi yanz, maybe you are interested in these threads:

Help with creating (and proofreading) transcripts of SOTT Talk Radio shows
Calling All Aspiring Writers (or just those who have an ax to grind!)

 

[Cleo]

Thank you for posting the session and for all the work that goes into it.

Interesting the connection that is made between the frequency fence and the Wetiko Virus. Helps to understand how the Wetiko Virus may be operating or showing up in my life. Feeling a sense of inertia lately, experiencing negative thought loops and the like. Will be reading up more about the frequency fence.

Was also wondering how to find out more information about ways to contribute, so thanks Dirgni for posting the links.