What are feelings? What is thinking? The prison of conditioning.

I'm in the midst of a, to me, amazing, project
and have not much time to devote to this
and
this is so huge
that I wanted to get some
starting ideas/ understandings out
there
and see what they might stimulate.

What are feelings? What is thinking?
The prison of our conditioning.

1. Very few pure E-motions out there.

a.The mother bear, dog, person, skunk
perceives a threat to her young,
inner mobilization flashes up,
something like anger,
she goes into action to repel the threat

b. We are the one she is chasing.
Fear could be the name
for our inner mobilization
and getting the hell out of there.

2. Most, so called "feelings"
are far, far more murky,
often no action, just some tendency
to action,
a combination of inner sensations
and a bunch of words in our heads.
(the first two, "pure" emotions,
where pretty word free).

That our feelings combine sensations,
often unpleasant in ways we don't directly
pay attention to
and a "story" which we often obsess
over offers many
ways out of feeling traps,
and I won't go into these now.

3. THE FROWN EXAMPLE

SOMEONE, OUR LOVER, MATE, FRIEND
WALKS INTO THE ROOM
WITH A FROWN ON THEIR FACE

We have some internal reaction,
or not,
but the story possibilities are huge.

a. We tell ourselves the "they are angry" story.

From here, we can go off with the "they are always
getting angry" story, go into a being angry at them
story.

We can go into the "they are angry and I'd better watch
out" fear kind of story.

We can go into a "they are angry and I'd better attack
before attacked" story.

We can go into a "this is so hard always putting up
with this story."

And more.

b. We can tell ourselves a "they are sad" story.

And "feel sorry" for them, wonder what we can do.

A "feel burdened" story, as we "always have to take
care of them.

An "angry" story: "Why don't they get it together
and stop bring that sadness around."

A sad story, "they are right, I forgot, but now
I remember how hard life is."

Another sad story: "they are thinking about our troubles,
and now I feel bad, too."

A weary story: Oh dear, prop up time.

And so on.

Cheerful even: "Oh, goody, fixing them time."

c. We could have more neutral responses:

Curious: what's up.

Concerned without baggage: is something bothering you, can I help.

Amused: you are so cute when you frown.

Loving: I love all your shades and colors. This frown thing
is just one more wonderful aspect.


d. Feelings and reality:

the frown might have been, from their point
of view: anger or sadness

then again in might have been a stomach ache,
or worry about their work,
or an experiment in facial muscles

4. Thinking is what?

Are any collection of words in our head
"thinking"

Moshe has some interesting things to say about thinking:

As in, most people never have real thinking.

Most thinking is just mental masturbation.

Looking at the reactions to the frown,
and say it was just stomach gas,
we can see that the mental abilities
weren't put to very good use.

What would real thinking be?

5. So:
What is feeling?
What is thinking?

A lot of unclarity,
and oh yeah,
this bit to add to the stew

to place "feelings" as nouns:

I am angry
I have sadness

rather than verbs:

I am angry-ing
I am sad-ing

turns them into something therapists can
live off of for years,
but cut us off from the sort of
dynamic change and experimentation
that this work opens up for us.

6. Back to:
What are feelings?
What is thinking?

The lack of clarity,
shows for me, how well Moshe was
"thinking" in his beginning chapters in
Awareness Through Movement
about the stuckness of humanity,
and improving moving being the quickest
and most clear way
to get people out of being the same,
the same as everyone else
and the same
as they always have been.

A longish start,
but it's been mulling since I
had the "not enough time to write"
story..


Ciao
Chris