29 Jun The five ingredients of our emotions

But before talking about emotions, I want to tell you something about ingredients. And I will do so by using the example of baking a cake.
A chocolate cake of course – my favorite!

How do you bake a cake?
You need a list of the ingredients.
And the required amounts.
And the sequence.
And the intensity and duration of the baking itself.
Because only if you do it all right, you will get a chocolate cake.

You just don’t throw everything in one bowl and tada magic happens.
You need flour. And all the other ingredients. In certain quantities.
And some things go together in a separate bowl.
Then there is a sequence that needs to be followed.
If the quantities are wrong, or the sequence is wrong, or the oven is too hot, and you put it in too short, you will not get the desired outcome. In this example a chocolate cake.

So, if you use other ingredients or if you mix up the sequence, you mess up the recipe.

Our experiences are also made up of ingredients.
Our 5 senses are the ingredients.
So experiences are built from what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste.
Also referred to as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory.

I found there are certain things I always do when I am in an unresourceful state, like stressed:
I look down. In my mind’s eye I see what goes wrong. Or can go wrong.
I don’t hear others a lot. Instead, I hear my inner critic talking to me: ohoh, what should I do now?
My chest is forward. My breath is high in my chest and shallow. My shoulders are up and forward. My head hangs down. My knees are locked. And my feet are pointing straight ahead.
Can you make the picture of what that looks like?

There are also certain things I do when I am in a resourceful state, like relaxed:
My shoulders are relaxed, low and back. My head is up. My eyes are open. My breath comes from my belly, and is sow. My knees are loose. My toes are pointing slightly outwards. I can wiggle. I am centered, flexible. It’s like a dance.
I hear myself saying: you got this, whatever happens, you know you will find a way.
In my mind’s eye I see options and possibilities.
Can you envision me doing that?

You will notice that both examples have the ingredients visual (V; see), auditory (A; hear) and kinesthetic (K; feel).
No smell and taste this time 😉
But the sequence is different: for stressed it is V-A-K, and for relaxed, it is K–A–V.

And the ‘trick’ to be able to go from stressed to relaxed, is to become aware what I am doing (because I recognize how it actually feels in my body).
And then to take a deep breath, which allows me to sort of automatically transition to relaxed.

Try it for yourself:
What are your ingredients for stress?
And what is then your recipe?
Same for relaxed: what are your ingredients? And what is the recipe?
And what one thing can you change to mess up the ‘stressed recipe’ and go to the ‘relaxed recipe’?

ps This is not only the case for when we are stressed, this works for all cases where we are ‘stuck’!

Much health,
Maaike

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