SlideShare a Scribd company logo

Superhuman

•
•
B
Benjamin Scherer

This document provides background information on emotions, feelings, and moods. It discusses how the brain, nervous system, endocrine system, and other body systems interact to produce various emotional states. Emotions are defined as goal-oriented feelings directly regulated by the brain to achieve goals in interactions with the environment. Feelings are described as involuntary endocrine responses to stimuli that trigger changes in mood and emotion. Moods are influenced by hormones from the entire body and endocrine system and can dampen emotions and feelings over time. The document presents diagrams illustrating these concepts and the interrelationships between various biological and psychological factors that shape emotional experiences.

1 of 142
Download to read offline
Superhuman Uncovering the hidden life of our strongest internal superpower: emotions. # probably the most bizarre book on emotions ever written Universe . Brains S S
Why this presentation? Emotions are not really understood ▪ Schools don’t teach emotion ▪ Life doesn’t teach emotion equally ▪ Psychology is rather in infancy on the topic ▪ Almost no really good overview on how it really operates and is woven into life and biographies. Approach in this book: ▪ Selected scientific frameworks ▪ Lots of life experience ▪ Lots of creative frameworks ▪ Daring hypothesis ▪ Most importantly: Actionable insights ▪ As an economist and former entrepreneur lots of material covers problems from the macro view and problems in leading teams or dealing with cultural issues in organizations. Use Cases of the frameworks covered ▪ Culture design, leadership and hiring for entrepreneurs ▪ Self-reflection, Analysis and ▪ Curious people who want to learn how to look at emotions ▪ Parents trying to understand development dimensions and risk factors in their children’s life ▪ Relationship improvements Who this presentation is not for ▪ People who don’t like abstract frameworks ▪ People who don’t want to read this from start to end to understand all the links between the subjects ▪ People who need many examples to transfer theory to their daily life situations ▪ People who want to read only proven scientific evidence ▪ People who do not like googling if some topic is interesting
Prerequisites / Foundation Concepts
Basic Anatomy related to Emotions
Background: Our body systems in a simplified overview Brain Central Nervous System Sensory Organs / Somatic System “You can feel them” Autonomic System 1. “You can not feel it” 2. Autonomous from brain Sympathetic System Arouses the body, e.g. the fight or flight system. Heart rate increase Parasympathic System Relaxes the body and de- creases the heart rate The autonomic nervous system and endocrine system regulate mood The nervous system is the big signal processor that moves signals and information to and from the brain . The brain reacts with macro-behaviours (movement) as well as hormones responses (endocrine system)
Background: Our body systems in a simplified overview Endocrine System ▪ Hormones ▪ Chemical Balances ▪ Triggered via neural stimulation Types of Activators ▪ Anabolic Insulin, testosterone, ▪ Catabolic Cortisol, progesterone Origin Hormones Function Hypothalamus Stimulators, Inhibitors Pituitary hormone regulation Pituitary, anterios ACTH, FSH, Growh, Prolactin, LH,TSH Adrenal Control, Gonad regulation, Growth regulation and milk production, Thyroid control Pituitary, posterior ADH, Oxytocin Water conversation, uterus contraction, milk ejection Thyroid Thyroxine Metabolic Rate control Parathyroid PT, Calcitonin Calcium regulation Gut Gut hormones Food digestion Pancreas Insulin, Glocagon Nutrient metabolism; bloog glucose levels Adrenals Cortisul, Audiosterone, Epinephrine, Adrenaline Body preservation, Salt conservation, Stress Response; sensitivity of the nervous system Ovaries Estradiol, Progesterone Female characteristics Testicles Testosterone Male Characteristics The endocrine system regulates various factors and includes: ▪ Excitement levels of nervous system / how many signals reach the brain / focus ▪ Energy levels and metabolic rate / speed of burning energy ▪ General body biochemistry and hormones, triggering moods and feelings ▪ Neurochemical biochemistry triggering emotions The endocrine system / hormones is do not directly communicate with the nervous system and have effects on how different organs function and energy / chemical processes are operating on cells. The reaction of macro-units is however picked back up by the brain and produces e.g. moods, feelings and emotions,
Background: From cell activity to consciousness decisions At any point in time, Thousands of processes Run in the body. - Chemical reactions - Electricity charges - Energetic processes “Escalation levels” 1. Complete autonomy - Intra cell behaviour - Isolate cell groups 2. Sufficient “activity” to shock a key system - Endocrine shock: e.g. to liver, to heart, etc. - Nervous system / sensory shock: - Whole body shock (e.g. loss of oxygen level) Paths to the brain 1. Nervous system => direct signal patterns, e.g. “seeing green” 2. Body chemistry => e.g. mood turns depressed / Vitamin depletion 3. Neurochemistry => e.g. fear triggered and emotions affected Stage 1 Body To the Brain Escalation Physics and Chemistry Many different processes hit the brain at any time and it has to decide what to do. 1. Wait for treshhold (intra cell communic.) 2. React to treshhold If treshhold is reached: Option 1: Hyperfire => “Push to consciousness” Option 2: Activate habit => “Subconsciousness Stage 2 Brain To Awareness Escalation Biology and Medicine If reaching Consciousness Decide priority: 1. Focus on this 2. Focus on other stuff Stage 3 Reaction Settings Psychology A B C A B C ▪ Brain does this mostly by itself ▪ We can study psychology or medicine to understand what happens and change our behaviour to influence this (e.g. food) ▪ We can explore experiences that increase the treshholds of certain functions (e.g. stress) to elevate it to level B. AN example in literature is “Qi”. ▪ This is subconscious. Our brain constantly learns to react to certain processes and patterns w.o. letting us know. ▪ Mediation does not help here. But again, we can look for external knowledge from science or in experience to trigger a response that leads to elevation of consciousness. E.g. “sound isolation” and suddenly we can hear our pulse very clear. An example in literatre is the “It” or Uber It ▪ This is the world of awareness training. Our body may tell us we are stressed, but we keep doing what we are doing. Until we collapse. ▪ We can use mediation and focus to find all the emotional, mood and thoughts processes that reach an intensity level where they are addressable by our concisciousness. ▪ It is very unlikely that this small part brings us to “Nirvana”. Buddhism is far to individualistic ;) Culture and Society only works with this
Background: From cell activity to consciousness decisions Autonomic System and Endocrine System “Intellectual Capacity / Memory Bank” Patterns / Expressions / Habits “Patterns” and Sensory Processing The moment / Now, Learning and Emotions Boring body functions Language and Sensory Classification Im/Ex-Pression and Interaction I/O Interaces Memory and Clusters Now we talked a lot about the brain, how does it work: - Temporal Lobe (normal stuff/consciousness) and Brain Stem (real time system, subconsciousness) are the core of processing - Parietal lobe learns is the flexible and adaptive “algorithm” collection => This is where the thinkers evolve - A special unit is just for interaction (occipital lobe) that we use also for binding with others on emotions, the in/out interface - And our psyche mostly rests in the frontal lobe. With all the memory of actual memories, beliefs and subconcious habits - Another heavy processing system that only esoterics talk about is the cerebellum. Usually traind by practice and in charge of putting resources into our coordination Of course, this doesn’t really help. But understanding that we understand our brain like a computer is at least an insight.
Background: From cell activity to consciousness decisions A bit more interesting is that our brain also is not symmetric. We have one area dedicated for mental stuff and one for emotion and intuition - Our brain likes to work with only one part in any period of time. That is not just an interesting fact, but it has a very deep meaning when looking at how people design their lives. Something we look at in part 3. But this antagonism is not a trivial side observation, but something really crucial. - Our society is organized around the left brain. We can call this a “systemic right brain discrimination” similar to systemic racism. The structures that we have built to create our society are there and in essence low- EQ. No matter how much we talk about it, the structure implies we need to function on the left brain which doesn’t care about ecology or emotion. Becoming more right- brain requires different concepts of society. And yes even Marxism does not provide an alternative to this. - Back of your head
Defining Emotions, Feelings and Moods
Emotions
Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Hormones • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemical mechanisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) Abstract view on the interlinks of biochemistry and nervous system and conscious experience Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts Emotion: Goal-oriented “feeling” Feeling: Involuntary expression Mood: Dampens Emotions/Feelings
Emotions At its core, emotions are represented by a biochemical balance in a set of emotions directly regulated by the brain. The brain operates in an always current representation of the world in the temporal lobe. It has to regulate physical activity (right brain) and emotion activity (left brain). Emotions have an impact both on how the endocrinal system operates and functions as well as a special impact on how we form relationships with other living beings. Goals Actions Intents Prediction Right Brain Thought Left Brain Emotion Emotions are mainly directly controlled by the brain as to achieve certain goals In the interaction with the environment. They follow brain directions rather than being dictated by the endocrinal system. Emotions interfere directly with motoric behaviours (e.g. facial expressions) as well as the endocrine system to reveal emotion to other humans. They also impact behavioural strategies (right brain) and how others read our motives They govern relationships and personality and connect us to other people.
Feelings
Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Hormones • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemical mechanisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) Abstract view on the interlinks of biochemistry and nervous system and conscious experience Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts Emotion: Goal-oriented “feeling” Feeling: Involuntary expression Mood: Dampens Emotions/Feelings
Feelings Sunlight triggering an endocrine response Attractive person triggering a hormonal / endocrine response Tiger inducing a fight or flight adrenaline response Quality relationship time inducing relaxation response Feelings are all about situational involuntary endocrine responses when hit with certain stimuli Hormonal / Endocrine Response (involuntarily) Brain focus re-adjusted and interacts quickly Emotion Mood Slow Process Fast Process Cognitive Framing The consciously experienced change on emotion and mood is called “feeling” Given our Mood And emotional state Feelings trigger state changes and can also serve regulation of our mood state. Both our brain and the real world can create stimuli that impact our feelings
Feelings Sunlight triggering an endocrine response Attractive person triggering a hormonal / endocrine response Tiger inducing a fight or flight adrenaline response Quality relationship time inducing relaxation response Feelings are all about situational involuntary endocrine responses when hit with certain stimuli How do humans control their negative feelings? Training A daily fight with a tiger under controlled circumstances reduces the endocrine response Exposure With habits that induce a hormonal response to deplete all chemical elements needed for the hormone, we hinder the ability for such hormones to fire when a stimulus happens. This impacts mood and leads to fatigue, depression and burnout Hormone Depletion Framing Reframing Training our ability to overwrite the endocrine response with emotions and interpretations helps us prevent the feeling. This is done by training and collecting good experiences. e.g. “I was not humiliated, but a good joke was made” Rationalization Hurting or abusing others can be reframed as something necessary and hence the natural emotional response is overwritten by a new emotional response. We overwrite the emotion, not the feeling. Or we reframe a bad partner as a good one. By eating better, improving our recovery processes and overall becoming stronger, we can also train the recovery instead of inhibiting the stimulus response. This gives “Confidence” Optimization of Response Dissociation We also have the ability to dissociate our endocrine and emotional responses from our mental / intellectual processing and hence dissociate it from our identity to avoid trauma.
Feelings Sunlight triggering an endocrine response Attractive person triggering a hormonal / endocrine response Tiger inducing a fight or flight adrenaline response Quality relationship time inducing relaxation response Feelings are all about situational involuntary endocrine responses when hit with certain stimuli How do humans control their positive feelings? Habit If the sun is good to us, we try to get more sun into our daily habits. Same works for nutrients, sleep, exercise, etc. Exposure If we understand rewards from a certain stress ful activity, we will use our negative feelings coping mechanisms to reduce the cost of getting the reward. And become more risk tolerant. More adventurous. Risk Tolerance Creation Goal / Setting Given two choices, once we realize that there are better choices, we try to reset our goals and concept of the world to avoid the bad choice and increase the good choice. Imagination If we know of something good but we are not able to get it, we start to build a mental representation and use our imagination and dreams to “virtualize” the experience. Instagram, TV shows and drugs are examples. If we have many good things and we run into coordination problems, we try to invent things or become faster at getting the maximum out of all the good things. Inventions & Optimization Dissociation If nothing good seems to be possible and living the virtual reality dream is not possible, we might create parallel worlds and live in their.
Moods
Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Mood • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemicall mechaisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) Review: Emotions are fine-grained neuro-processes that interact with consciousness. Moods are primal body functions Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts
Moods: Workout / Muscle Stress Fight / Flight Situation and Stress Insuline Shocks and bad eating habits Lack of movement / usage => Atrophy Lack of nutrients depletes mood stabilization cycle Mental Fatigue and Exhaustion Body Stress and Recovery Insufficiency and Atrophy Emotional Stress Chemical Stress Biological Stress Hormonal Balance - Dictated by organ states - Brain fails at regulating the balance until organ recovered Emotion Mood Tries to regulate but fails due to strong influence of endocrine processes Slow Process Fast Process Moods are feelings that stem from stronger hormone responses that the brain can not directly control. The hormonal response interacts and interferes with emotional and feeling processes. Stressors trigger hormonal response
Moods are triggered by body / endocrine pain that is shocking the emotional system Workout / Muscle Stress Fight / Flight Situation and Stress Insuline Shocks and bad eating habits Lack of movement / usage => Atrophy Lack of nutrients depletes mood stabilization cycle Mental Fatigue and Exhaustion Body Stress and Recovery Insufficiency and Atrophy Emotional Stress Chemical Stress Biological Stress
The way to cope with moods (and actually live more healthy) is to build habits about common stressors in life Workout / Muscle Stress Fight / Flight Situation and Stress Insuline Shocks and bad eating habits Lack of movement / usage => Atrophy Lack of nutrients depletes mood stabilization cycle Mental Fatigue and Exhaustion Body Stress and Recovery Insufficiency and Atrophy Emotional Stress Chemical Stress Biological Stress Sleep, Food Cardio / Running Socialize & Meditate Activity & Training Healthy Food Habits Rich Food Consumpti ons Focus on People Avoid bad habits and drugs Recovery and Care Remedies for stressors help to stabilize moods.
Mastering Time: A sample Day Structure that incorporates all ingredients for a healthy life style 6:30 7:30 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 0:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 8:00 14:00 15:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 16:00 22:00 23:00 STAGE A: RISE – Carbs and Water -> Kickstart Metabolism Step 1: Replenish (3 m) - Drink (0.5 Liter) - Carbs + Fat (rice, bread, banana) - Restroom Step 2: Stretch (5 m) - (wait for carbs to be processed) STAGE B: WAKE AND GROW – Stress Muscles (Cardio + Other) Step 1: Warm-Up 10 Minute Walk 10 Minute Run Step 2: Stress 40 Minute Training Muscle Groups OR 40 Minute Training Cardio / Anerobiic STAGE C: MEDITATE / PREPARE + STRETCH Step 1: Focus Focus on now, drop mind Step 2: Process Process past day, anticipate current day, plan Step 3: Get ready Be present STAGE D: SOCIAL LIFE / PEOPLE (“Emotions”) Step 1: Be there Family: Take care of kids / wife Business: Make early calls with network Friends: Call your friends to see how they are STAGE E: Information / “Mind” / “Focus” News: Read newspaper Calls: Get updates from network and employees Mediation: If you skipped it and need it, here is time Work: Organization – 1 hour + reflection - Office hour calls to clients and key stakeholders - Get organized (E-Mail, Schedule, Tasks, Activities) Work: Execution – 2 hours - Focused work on tasks and project milestones - “Full presence” in meetings and engagement in complex setting Work: Organization + Emotion - Check of tasks + check new emails - Have conversations and engage with clients, bosses, peers Health: Food, Emotion, Networks - Check of tasks + check new emails - Have conversations and engage with clients, bosses, peers Work: Execution – 2.5 hours - “Full presence” in meetings - “Max Focus” in getting things done - “Collaboration” and joints progress Socialize and “Emotion” - Touch down with others. How do they feel? What is bothering - See if you can help at work or in private life - Make promises outside of official work Work: Execution – 1 Hour – Deadline Oriented - Full push of responsibility to others with intent to follow up - Wrap-up of daily tasks - Getting things done that need to be done Work: Orga – Wrap Up - Get next day prepared, check all checklists, etc. Health: High Intensity Exercise - Get rid of all toxins and stress from work and shift into private mode Socialize: Full attention on personal life and network - Get rid of all toxins and stress from work and shift into private mode Socialize: Bodily / Exercise activity with family, friends - Shopping, Walking, Biking, anything related to being “active” This is an open space / buffer space. 1. Can include household, kids, groceries 2. Can be the “this is you” space if you go to sports clubs / events 3. Can be phone calls, socializing, happy time, anything.- This is you and the space for your brain and other body parts to work: 1. Watch movie / read a book => “train empathy, clean bad emotions” 2. Do puzzles / challenges => Train logic 3. Music / painting => Be creative 4. Read non-fiction => Education, courses Recovery Body Social Goal Seeking Focus Brain / Self LEGEND
Mastering Time: Explanation of key elements 6:30 7:30 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 0:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 8:00 14:00 15:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 16:00 22:00 23:00 Sleep is absolutely key ▪ Sleep deeply ▪ Sleep undisturbed ▪ Sleep with enough REM / deep sleep Goals: ▪ Fresh and cold air is key ▪ Silence and calmness (sounds) ▪ Enough space ▪ Good bed and matrace ▪ Sleep clean in clean sheets The morning routine is critical! ▪ Replenish the body fast with water and food ▪ Muscles are recovered. Best time to stress them ▪ This is the time for carbs to kickstart metabolism ▪ Drive up your metabolic rate by intensity sports ▪ Take the time to wake up and cleanse your body ▪ Be sure to finish it before everyone wakes up and is available for the morning social Socialize : Morning Gold ▪ Everybody is in good mood in the morning. Nobody is in a busy schedule. Train your network to accept calls in the morning while you walk or have free time. ▪ Spend as much time as you can on quality relationships ▪ Sales and everything is best done in the morning. Getting mentally started ▪ Every “issue” that existed yesterday and was caused by a less reflected person will continue this day. Use meditation to get your strategy in order to help the person recover from stress ▪ Make really sure all you do is focused and you are not lost in the past of future. Focus yourself in the morning so nothing can can really affect your life negatively during the day ▪ Don’t bother in the morning with chores and household. You need to be ready and awake for the challenges of the day Make sure you drink at least every 90 minutes and eat at least every 120 minutes. This keeps your metabolism working and active. ▪ Run a 90 minute timer to remind you of drinking and have drinks ready. Use the time to stand up, stretch, walk around and refocus ▪ Be sure you always have some very healthy food next to you so you do not run out of carbs and high quality energy that keeps you focused. Include food with good fats, minor proteins and a very flat energy curve (veggies). Make sure you never run out of social time at work or outside of work even during the day. Staying in touch and connected is critical for managing relationships and being present in other people’s mind. As well as in your own emotional household. Nobody lives just to “function” like a robot. Make sure people you want to reach know about your schedule and are also able to make up time in these slots. This increases the benefit for everyone and brings the relationship closer. Switch Gears In the morning, there is not enough energy to fully run a cardio routine. You are also relaxed. In the evening, running a high intensity exercise does wonders of cleansing stress, allowing you to “switch off” work and be ready for the more emotionally intense afternoon that needs your full attention and empathy. This is the time for a 30 minute run. 3-4 hours of social time Depending on your life style you might study, go to gym, or go shopping or plan vacations. The important part now is that you drank and ate well and have good energy, you cleansed the body with high intensity training. And you have ideally done your body stress work out in the morning. Now it is all about getting stuff done, connecting to people, living an active life style and not skipping the evening meal that is the core resource for “protein” that your body needs over night to rebuild your muscles and destroyed fibres. People who use a diet that restricts their intake typically skip the morning meal and the evening meal. If you have to do this, then make sure you eat a lot of good protein and fats in the evening that last until you fall asleep and allow the night to do its job. The final hours There are two things the day did not include. 1) You. 2) Your brain. Your brain also needs training if it wants to learn new things. While work, exercise and relationships keep your brain busy, if you want to learn beyond that, this is the time. This is also the time to be you. If you need to express yourself to remain healthy, this is the time. Before bedtime. When the kids are in bed. But be sure to mediate or relax, as you need to come down for sleep in this time.
Emotion versus Mood Mood Dislikes toxicity in form of drugs, chemical toxins (radiation, bad water, bad air/allergies) and stress. Emotion Requires to be in toxic places (cities) and to consume toxic substances (alcohol, cocaine) to fit into social fabric Dislikes sleep deprivation and lack of exercise for the body to avoid atrophy and bodily functions. Enjoys long nights out and dislikes “wasting” time and the “stressful feeling” of going to bed early, eating healthy and doing exercie Dislikes sleep deprivation and lack of exercise for the body to avoid atrophy and bodily functions. Enjoys long nights out and dislikes “wasting” time and the “stressful feeling” of going to bed early, eating healthy and doing exercise BODY = We are a billion of cells that want to survive MIND = We are a soul that wants to experience short life to the fullest BRAIN Is an agent of our mind Supports emotions and builds “rationalizations” by finding reasons for the behaviour of the emotional need. But is completely ignorant to the impact to our body and mood and how this affects long-term outlook. Is a foe to the body Does not like the body and its needs and tries to over-write any signal from the body. Tests how far it can go. Wants to control and master the body. Turns into a “pain body” to fight the natural body needs. The entire neuro-chemistry exists to “block” the endocrine system reaction. In order to function socially. (This is a biological assumption) Can create serious issues If the body counter-attacks the brain and fires signals and alert responses to a situation, this leads to trauma. Trauma is ignored or “overwritten” by the brain and moves to sub- consciousness. This is already schizophrenic but turns to personality disorder if the BODY starts to force a MIND split. HABITS = A way to force the brain to accept routine as fact and build “rationalizations” that accept reality of habit as fact. The brain tendency to reduce cognitive dissonance does this.
Part 1 : Emotions
UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS
Introduction ▪ Emotions are powerful and dominant in how our body interacts with our brain and mind ▪ They shape psychology, psychology shapes relationships, relationships shape identities and lifepaths ▪ To understand all this, one needs to understand the links Our language and discourse sometimes makes it hard to understand what emotions are when comparing them to moods, feelings, motives and instincts. But this does not need to be the case. We know a lot of things today about emotions and what they are and how they interact as a filter and influencer against our thinking. But emotions are far more than just emotions. 1. Emotions not only come from our body, they also regulate our body. They have a profound influence on our stress level and our (neurochemical) balance. And by doing so, they impact how our body and mind reacts to certain situations. It also defines how different functions of the body work and grow or recede. 2. Emotions shape personality. Not simply because they are dominant in our every day life. But because the people we meet, connect with and interact with judge us and calibrate their relationships based on our emotions. Over mid- to long-term periods, our emotions shape our relationships and our relationships shape personality. In this first section, we look at some fundamental aspects behind or related to emotions. How they fit into our body and our general functioning. How they can be triggered and regulated by doing different things. And how they can be used to win for example political conflicts in social environments. The goal is not to give any practicable advice on how to deal with emotions, but to explain some mechanisms that are worth knowing and that help us reflect who we are.
Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Hormones • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemical mechanisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) A 360° view on how the body connects to our perceived emotion and how different terms and concepts link to each other Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts Emotion: Goal-oriented “feeling” Feeling: Involuntary expression Mood: Dampens Emotions/Feelings
Emotion = Neurococktail Mood = Hormones from body parts / Endokrine System Memory & Experience Tension / Stress = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro State Coloration Of Present Historic Coloration Of Present Events Base Emotion (Neuro) “Feeling I” Emotion + Mood + Tension = Visual Emotion (“Feeling II”) Attributed trait / personality level = Acting Emotion (“Feeling III”) Outer Level implies behavior of our surrounding Intent and action causes inner state which triggers outer layers In essence, all that happens can be translated into a neurochemical cocktail that maps to what we know as emotions All this “emotional” stuff inside our body maps to 3 layers of emotions we call “feelings” here. 1. Feeling 1: The base emotions are sad, bad, happy, etc. and derive from the chemistry 2. Feeling 2: By adding our brain, we link base emotions to situations and judge the emotion 3. Feeling 3: By showing and acting on the emotion, others are able to judge our motives. This is the layer of emotion in relation to someone else. Although this is a very simplified mapping, it shows how basic emotions and action related to it when we are in a situation with external actors or facts, we start to communicate about ourselves and allow our own brain and that of others to judge us.
Why is this interesting and helpful? 1. Nobody exactly knows how many memories, body functions and other factors actually lead to a certain emotion and why some people react to a certain circumstance or to events in a certain way. 2. But the mechanism is really simple and relies on a very small set of neurochemicals. And each one can be manipulated by a defined set of actions (bottom right). Which means no matter what generates a bad emotion, we can overwrite it with basic activities that regulate the neurochemical cocktail. The ability to do just that is called “resilience.” Forming habits and knowledge about how to change bad reactions. 3. Even more important is that nobody can see the reason for the emotion or what is really going on. The fact that we only know and can name so many emotions means means all interprations and options to influence us are based on these emotions. If we are easily influenced and not able to change or hide emotions, people can make us look angry for example and we can lose our connection to or reputation in a group. But we can also use this information to understand where others want to lead our emotions (usually with a certain goal and motive in mind) How taking care of the body – nutrition, activity, recovery – shapes emotions Link of Neurochemicals and Emotions Activities to regulate Neurochemicals Being Human, Connected, Good Stress, Activity and Relaxation Food, Enjoyment, Positive Energy Activity, Goals, achievements
Identifying emotions as drivers of behaviour of others : Motive & Motivation is related to emotional state and psychology The Outer Layer : Reflection Points Working with the outer boundary ▪ We are typically able to attribute any behaviour to one of the oute layer emotions in us or others: 1. In any point of time, out of several options of action, everyone has to choose one option Humans can identify all available options and then find reasons why they are taken. 2. Over several points of time, repeated action clearly infers emotion, motive and relationship. T=1 T=2 T=3 Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 ▪ Given the action and emotion, we can scan in the shared past experience what might have triggered this emotion. From then on, we can decide to: - Reflection: Cooperate and Communicate to resolve e.g. a bad action - Strategic Action: Strategically change without cooperation the behaviour of the other (or ourselves) - Sabotage: Actively make a trap out of this behaviour for s.o. else or just block ability to act this way ▪ Our ability in controlling the bad emotion via identifying it, reflecting it and inducing corrective action is key to managing relationships well. Methods used are: - Display positive reaction / “love bomb” - Offer reflection and coaching to change the trigger and behaviour - Guide about utility of another behaviour and help cope with the emotion - Coerce or threaten the other to stop the behaviour directly - Build traps that exploit the behaviour of the other to induce group dynamics that hurt this person The critical point here is : behind any such emotion is motive, interpretation/reflection and intent. We can change our own behaviour or that of others by employing different strategies just out of reading the proper emotion and offering a way out into a better world. Unless we or the other person is too lost and toxic to heal and change this person in which case we have to love/accept/embrace it or leave it.
Example Interaction Chains Relationships: 1. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person tries to change the angry person to happy. Without avail, the angry person stays angry. But the happy person does stay with the angry person. But the happy person never turns angry. The happy person is resilient, but also blindly naïve in trying to change the angry person who does not want to change. 2. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person tries to change the angry person to happy. The angry person realizes it is angry and wants to change. And after a while with both working on this, the happy person and the angry person are happy. Happy end. 3. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person wants to change the angry person. The angry person wants to be changed. But then the happy person turns angry, too. And now both are angry persons. The happy person lacked resilience and the angry person the ability to change. 4. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person wants to change the angry person. The angry person wants to change the happy person. The happy person turns angry. The angry person wins and had malicious intent, resilience and does not want to be happy, but to pull others down. The happy person was not resilient and not determined and naïve. 5. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person wants to change the angry person. The angry person tries to change the happy person. The happy person walks away. Mostly, the unhappy person will not walk away. The happy person was wise. Social Groups: 1. A happy person joins a group full of happy persons. But then suddenly one happy person says something that makes the happy person sad in front of the group. Now the entire group this the happy person is a sad person. And many other happy persons start making the happy person sad. In this group, nobody was a happy person, but everybody lied. And their goal was to find a victim to display it was easily influenced. 2. Am angry person meets a group of happy persons and is rejected by the group for not being happy. But someone in the group tries to protect the angry person and tries to change the angry person. The angry person stays. Little by little, the angry person makes everyone in the group angry. And the former protector is chased out of the group. The morale of the story is that emotions play a key role in relationships and group dynamics and it is very easy to observe intent by just observing who is staying and who is leaving and who is changing emotions from A to B. Because so many people are unaware about this, even the social group case 2 was a boon for the banished former protector, because the angry person revealed that everyone was underneath an angry person. Long term friendships and relationships synchronize on their true emotions. Politics and influence in groups also focuses on changing emotion which is typically not something very conscious for people in the group. The attention and awareness towards these emotion games define how much freedom for emotional manipulation exists in the group and how toxic a group can become if the “pecking order” is threatened.
Emotions and Stress ▪ Our competitive culture oftentimes uses stress to outcompete others ▪ Understanding how stress and emotions interact and affect behaviour and performance is key ▪ Supporting employees in building up resilience against stress and regulating (political) behaviour that causes is helps In management literature, there is something called “managing someone out”. If a person can not be forced to leave a company but is not wanted, the way to make this person to decide to leave is making his life miserable. We will run through this exercise on theoretical level because it shows how emotions can be turned negative, negative emotions can lead to social isolation and both can lead to intense levels of stress which then start to destroy various bodily functions from attention, to empathy to the ability to sleep, regenerate body functions and it can also lead to heart attacks and traumas. We also talk about the stress ladder which is a concept used in interrogations. By increasing someone’s stress level (adrenaline and cortisol responses over long periods of time), humans can be driven to lose their ability to use empathy to read a situation and even lose their ability to use their brain in full function as to tell lies or remember past lies. This is why it is used in interrogations: it destroys the ability of complex thinking and to tell consistent lies. The key takeaway is however that emotions do matter quite a lot. Not only to how we feel on a day to day basis, but how we are able to successfully interact with others and be accepted in groups. Even more importantly, emotions can lead to our muscles receding, our memory function being depleted, our emotional life becoming numb and empty and far more things. This is still linked more to resilience than to emotional intelligence, but it is well worth knowing.
Happy, confident and normal people. Charismatic leadership figures and sales people. Malicious narcissists in their daily routine in pretending to be good people (integrity and consistency matters) Typical traits activated by a group to “shame” someone People who attempt to undermine others. (e.g. Bankers, Consultants, Bosses) Weak characters who try to stay strong and cope by putting others downs. Also linked to the managing out process described later Weak Character Traits or a typical “loser” or “outsider” or “loner” in a Hollywood movie. Bad / Assassinated Character or typical culprit in a Hollywood movie Dominant emotions in different characters in everyday life The recurring cycle of specific 2nd and 3rd layer emotions can give us a deeper understanding of where this individual is currently at in his / her life. It also tells a convincing story on how able such person is able to handle emotions given a specific context. And if such context is bad, it helps us to identify there is a problem, the root needs to be identified and ideally corrected.
Leadership Traits / “Good” Shameful People / Victims / “Different” Attackers / Underminers / “Aggressive” Weak Character Traits / “Depressed” Bad / Assassinated Character / “Destroyed” Stress Ladder (cortisol level and stressing of the biochemical balance and nervous system) death Morning Productive Stressed Hyper Stressed Extreme Stress Collapse 1 2 3 4 5 6 How: Behaviours and Personality Traits (right) Correlate with stress (left) 1 2 3 2 3 4 5 In social groups, leaders, managers and political rivals use stress to change the behavior of individuals in the group to position them in the social architecture of the group.
Stress Ladder (cortisol level and stressing of the biochemical balance and nervous system) death Morning Productive Stressed Hyper Stressed Extreme Stress Collapse 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 Very relaxed morning situation Little drive or anxiety, very friendly and social Average productivity and work-mode stress level Full capacity of human skills, but slightly more focused Before deadlines or when things do not go well. More tired, easy to be angered, lower EQ, full intellect EQ and intellect drop, pain systems start to appear. Still not aggressive, but tense and ready to defend position Aggression, issues with heartrate and blood pressure Low EQ, low IQ. Mostly habits survive. Click and Wirr reactions. Very hard to lie in this stage or think tactically Fight, Flight or : Freeze. The entire body shuts down. No real thinking possible. Very primal instincts, habits, or even lack of speech or functioning. ▪ Ability to function with specific emotions and moods depending on stress level ! ▪ Stress level – psychological process impacting it, so depends on interpretation - follows staircase model ▪ The higher the stress level – or cortisol level – the stronger suppression of capacitities leading to good moods and emos ▪ Over time, the high stress level produces bad personality traits – as others see it – and re-inforced bad traits.
Mental Drain during Burnout process Emotional Social Cognitive Physical ▪ https://docplayer.org/14916981-Stressmanagement-als-bestandteil-der-unternehmensfuehrung.html ▪ https://www.gesunde-schulen-zuerich.ch/globalassets/gesundeschulenzuerich/tagung-2014/workshop_ruckstuhl.pdf Escalation levels of increased stress levels as individuals lose key competencies of their personality. # Description In Group ( Job External Spillover 1 Low excitement, feeling “low”, “everything is too much” Lower participation and status Social isolation, receding contacts 2 Hopeless – loss of vision; desperate – no coping-skill; depression – emptiness Starting isolation, network loss Friend loss; partnership tension 3 Abuse – drugs, sleep, nutrition, health; depression; shut-down, “freezing” Isolation, avoidance, victim Loss of all relationships, loneliness 4 Unable to function emotionally, hostile, empty, existential despair Termination Prison, Homeless, Drug Addict 1 Seclusion; social “drain”; emptiness around others; being annoying to others Less warm, more conflict Status loss; anxiety; less liked 2 “Am I still myself?” ; Others no longer of interest; more selfish Conflict, status issues Perceived change in personality 3 Paranoia; Aggression; Envy/jealousy; Threatening Severe conflict; loss of allies Isolation and Distancing 4 Choleric or completely dysfunctional – Fight or Freeze Isolation and Termination Complete isolation 1 Loss of creativity, mental flexibility, memory and general cognitive ability Less contributions and impact Less status; less “attraction” 2 Loss of concentration, harder to focus, less effective, hyperactive, tense First signs of underperformance Perceived as tense and odd 3 Loss of coherent thought, lost in thought, unable to keep train of thought Low performer and PIP Loss of ability to talk and connect 4 Blank mind, purely driven by impulse, habit; aggression, desperation Unemployable, termination Obscure character, isolation 1 Low energy, chronic fatigue; sleep deprivation Lower status and appeal Less active, loss of social life 2 Lower immune function; getting sickly, weakly; metabolism low Loss of status, perceived “issues” Needs more care, neediness 3 Headaches, digestion issues, backpain, tinnitus Perceived as overworked, sad Unable to participate in events 4 Heart attack; Internal bleeding; severe migraines; loss of voice of movement Malfunctioning Sever care taking required
Stressors Catastrophic (External) Personal (Core Attack) Background Stressors ▪ https://docplayer.org/14916981-Stressmanagement-als-bestandteil-der-unternehmensfuehrung.html ▪ https://www.gesunde-schulen-zuerich.ch/globalassets/gesundeschulenzuerich/tagung-2014/workshop_ruckstuhl.pdf 1. Sickness, severe health issues 2. Birth or death cases in close relations 3. Loss of job, loss of life focus and so forth 1. Natural Desaster, Pandemics, War, Terror Attacks 2. Loss of belief, feeling of doom, dystopic outlook 3. Anxiety, despair, depression 1. Social tensions with friends, families, colleagues 2. Political conflict and fight at workplace 3. Not able to cope with school, work, social problems Workplace Modes of Operation in Highly Hostile Environments: ▪ Target profile is screened during hiring: e.g. high stress in all dimensions but strong achievement makes good “worker” managed by fear ▪ Onboarding focused on stress elevation: job start needs cognitive dissonance and stress to anchor the “boss” authority. Uses these. ▪ Managing employee: clear understanding and map of individual possible used to create stress and get individual to yield to authority Typical stress vectors to probe for when root causing stress level: Yes, the same works on a cultural level when “shocking” a society with proganda and collective trauma
Bad Tired Stressed Bored Fearful Scared Anxious Surprised Confused Startled Fearful Stage 2 Rejected Threatened Angry Mad Aggressive Awful Guilty Vulnerable Frustrated Distant Desperate Disgusted ▪ Stress Levels high ▪ Isolation and Antagonizing ▪ Slow feed of negative attributes ▪ Waiting for madness and guilt ▪ Kill joy, freedom, success ▪ Deplete energy and eagerness ▪ Undermine hope and thankfulness ▪ Undermine confidence, respect - + “Managing someone out” : How behavioural change is triggered at work to isolate and exit an employee Escalation of stress and increased hostility from top to bottom engineered by a campaign of stress. Increase workload, add boring tasks, set impossible objectives. Create sense of possible loss: e.g. job loss, social isolation, loss of reputation and merit within organization Information control to create exclusion and loss of understanding of what is going on Stir conflict with others, e.g. rivals, former peers, To increase sense of being rejected Create public humility events where individual has to perform in front of audience. Ensure peak stress and create “fight/flight/freeze” moment. Individual has to break with its own values and destroy reputation by “suicide”. Social Dynamics does the rest, individual starts to lose control. Gaslighting, shaming, humiliation and social isolation after the person stopped with defensive reactions.
Building Resilience: How to prevent stress activation and how to survive the wear and tear of competitive environments Body is foundation and key for all resilience Almost all stress environment or hostile environments try to destroy the foundation here. Sleep, nutrition, and movement and exercise. Belief in the trustworthiness of ones intuition and the ability to maximize effectiveness and joy in presence is key to step-by-step development. With a birth-given general potential, this allows to give an outlook on what is possible in ones life. Attacks against individual always focus On these three elements, presence and intuition being attacked most. Potential and opportunity gives direction for purpose and long-term goals aligned with a reason to follow them. The values must be consistent with the purpose and are used to dissect options that are viable with such that need to be avoided. Character attacks focused on motive do attack the values and purpose of ones actions and try to invalidate them. The ability to use stress-mitigating techniques - called meditation – and the ability to craft, tell and have accepted by others stories that are aligned with the values, purpose and merit of ones person are key to sanity. Hostile environments create stress and prevent mitigation. Stories are destroyed by the use of cognitive dissonance in an attempt to create authority and dominance over someone else. Building resilience by focusing on building strong defenses and avoiding any attempt to undermine them is key. The rest is a focus on harmony and active stress management.
Resilience – Based on Sources of Stressors Catastrophic (External) Personal (Core Attack) Background Stressors 1. Focus on nutrition, recovery and exercise as part of lifestyle; avoiding stressors 2. Avoiding social stressors – e.g. bad milieu, characters, abusers 3. Hedging personal risk – not excessively focused on children, or job, or dreams - balance 1. Avoiding life in catastrophic environments via migration to better world (even described in Nitishastra of Chanakya) 2. Understanding social risks and plan for it while keeping positive and focused outlook 3. Planful and goal-oriented planning of life to avoid anxiety; while also nurturing a healthy attitude towards life to avoid resentment and depression 1. Social tensions with friends, families, colleagues 2. Political conflict and fight at workplace 3. Not able to cope with school, work, social problems Coping with Workplace Modes of Operation in Highly Hostile Environments: ▪ Avoid hostile environments by intelligent probing and thorough due diligence and background research ▪ Understand the mode of operation and deceive to a level that steady state in relationship is reached without being compromised ▪ Carefully guard any information that might be used to generate stress and attack vectors for colleagues or bosses, craft a ficticuos character that provides no entry point for an attack if need be and liase with partner to confirm story in case there is an overlap. While this might look deceptive, it is a reasonable approach to avoid being targeted by a Dark Triad personality in case of conflict. Models of generating resilience
Managing Stress and Emotions : Resilience In this small section we look into some aspects of resilience that are not focused on the body and its functioning but about how the brain can be used to make the body endure pain and stress levels that appear “superhuman”. This is especially relevant to understand some critical aspects of our cultural life. Because it appears that pain and resilience belong to highly desired traits that also correlate with income and influence. This part is jumping a bit. The connection graphic we explain in the next part on networks. Body resilience is discussed more in the general part two when talking about moods.
Resilience via Consciousness: Changing the effect of events on our body Not all stress management needs to be done by performing activities to regulate the neurochemical reaction. A lot can be done by eliminating the link between external events that trigger emotions and the actual emotion triggered. There are in essence two principal ways to do this. One comes more from the philosophical realm that focuses on reducing the impact of our brain and thinking on interpreting the relevance of certain situations. Another one comes from management and is focusing on clearly separating the self and identity from the role people are playing. Bankers and Consultants: One central element of banking and consulting culture is constant abuse. Abuse by superiors and abuse by peers. There is a reason these industries are called “shark tanks”. But it is indeed not the case that a good banker or consultant is traumatized and emotionally broken individual or that all bankers run marathons and eat healthy to build this form of resilience. A good banker understands that the abuse is after all just a game. A game that is part of the culture and is extremely valuable in being successful in negotiations later. Because the banker is not only allowed to learn to isolate the abuse from his emotions and inner self, but also allowed to abuse others, he essentially learns the mechanics of how people can use aggression to win in very tough negotiations against others.a Abuse basically works by having a weaker opponent that can not run away and that is fed the idea that he has a lot to lose, he has to perform, it is impossible to keep up with the work and that punishment for non performance is very high. The goal is paranoia and exhaustion to get the opponent high on the stress level. As we explained, this makes the opponent weaker and reduces mental capacity and increases errors. serious. Our brain uses the past to assign fear triggers to situations in the now that might not really have any meaning. And the fear we have is based on our projection on the outcome and long-term outlook of the current moment’s activity, which might be completely wrong and far too narrow-minded. By ignoring the past and the future and focusing on he moment, we reduce fear and all those stressful emotional triggers. And last, but not least, Buddhism and Stoicism also tell us that most we fear is loss of something we expect and desire in the future although the value of this desire is completely irrelevant. We should not desire the complex things, but focus on the simple things. Our ambition and blind belief in things we want that need approval of others to become a reality are often false prophets and just by reducing our desire, we have less fear. And hence a more stable emotional life. We are more resilient. Warriors and Sportsmen – Practice Based Resillience: Of course, a final practice of resilience is teaching the body that some pain has absolutely no relevance by practicing over and over again to a level of exhaustion. This will not stop the pain, but reduces the fear reaction from the pain experienced. It unlinks how our “brain” links the existence of a certain pain with imagining a potential bad outcome. Examples include for bodily pain: boxing and martial arts; extreme weather endurance and sports; “steeling” (e.g. by breaking over and over again) body parts in dance and martial arts; “hyperstressing” like rock climbing and gym; or sleep and food deprivation training Other practice based resilience training: as described banking, meditation and reflection, sales and pick up artistry. To a minor form, puberty is all about testing limits and building resilience to certain situations. What bankers and consultants know in these situations is how to use a tone in the voice that starts the limbic system of the opponent. It sounds “confident”, but it really is an animalistic way of triggering resentment, aggression and fear from the opponent to make emotions take over the entire relationship. On top, the level of confidence, assertiveness and constant blaming – deadlines, error, not being serious – is increasing the tension for the other party. The pace is increased, the deadlines are shorter, the information gets more and impossible to process, errors and paranoia are everywhere and then the interaction is full of arrogance, signals of humiliation and that voice that is triggering fear and resentment all the time. This is what bankers learn. To use these weapons of abuse without moral judgement and to expect it and accept it in a negotiation of others do it. People not trained in this always take the short stick in the negotiation by for example changing a very aggressive but hard to spot term in a 5000 page termsheet before the PR event next day at 4 am at night when all bankers are on cocaine and in their best of mind and the opponent is close to heart collapse. These skills are later transferred to management positions in start-ups and corporates and they simply work. But all it takes to build resilience is to call the bluff and just ignore all the noise created by such individuals and focus on the facts. This works at work and in real life. Separate the action from reality and assume everyone is only acting as a game with an intent you do not share. That is a key skill to learn in life. The fears people trigger in these games oftentimes are not real. The Buddhist approach: But what if the fears are real? Then there comes the buddhist approach that tells us that all fear on how a situation will change our future life is due to a failure of our brain taking itself too
Resilience and Income Normal Person Intellectuals / Engineers / Doctors Entrepreneur & Salesman Bankers, Lawyers, Consultants Top Executives & Politicians Satanic Wizards, Cult Leaders, Billionaires, Dictators < 60.000 USD < 250.000 USD < 600.000 USD < 1.500.000 USD < 50.000.000 USD ??? Some can not even endure studying and getting a degree And get distressed from a bad colleague Disliike abuse and avoid it Usually able to discipline themselves and get a degree Medium masters in office group dynamics and politics Not used to systemic abuse and not trained in it High discipline and work ethic, resilience to rejection High influencing and sales skills. More “positive” side. Endure negativity Know abuse and how to avoid it or use it to manage teams Extreme high resilience to stress, abuse and violence High influencing skills on “negative” side with some skill in sales / “positive” Very trained in abusing and being abused High resilience, no pull effect from external stress. Poker face Ability to switch to any influencing skill required without being “caught” Skillful in use and highly resilient in dealing with abuse / attacks Pure focus on manipulating others in very complex settings Ability to shape personalities with long-lasting manipulation campaigns. Unaffected by others Typically destroy any attacker with all their might and skills Pain Level (Ability to endure abuse, ability to abuse, resilience, amorality) Influencing skills A strange cultural connection of resilience and income ▪ With the dominance of money in our society, many types of people try to end up where money can be made. The competition is high. ▪ Unfair tactics, violence, manipulation and strategic skills all mingle in the struggle over influence, reputation, power and performance ▪ This requires increased levels of resilience to cope with ever more complex interactions focusing on abuse as the pay scales increase
Resilience and Dissociations We talked about bankers and their ability to consider their daily life as a game that they have to master. They are protecting their self-image and identity from the emotional push and pull of the situation and learn to increase the level of emotional tension between them and their peers without suffering. But the deeper method behind this is what psychologists call dissociation. Dissocation has many forms. A child born into a terrible circumstance with little hope of success can dissociate from the situation by creating a dream, a vision for its future and learning to endure and navigate the daily life while striving for a goal. Just like the banker, such a child needs to dissociate from how the current environment and the emotions the environment create affect the inner functioning of decision making, behaviour and habits. But this comes at the cost of the connection breaking with the people around it. And merely “performing” the emotion – of fear, of joy, of agreeing and disagreeing. Coming back to bankers, they do not dream a better world in which they can endure the pain. The environment actively prevents people from drifting off internally and they need to be present in the environment at all time. Instead, the dissociation is aiming to operate like sociopathically or psychopathically. In some cases, of course, the trauma and abuse also can lead to the actual social disorder, although such traumas usually are more common in childhood and environments where a very strong emotional binding exists and the means to protect from the trauma are not yet fully developed. In all cases, dissociation means either cutting the emotional connection or cutting the connection between the emotion and the psyche. By creating a psychological split. Which is a neurological approach to resilience. It is therefore different from the resilience concept that we describe in part two when looking at moods and coping mechanisms or the ones we highlighted earlier when talking about stress management. A dream dissociation is typically one where the emotional connection moves from individuals to imaginary beings, a future or inner self, and sometimes very selective individuals outside of the normal routine that have a highly positive influence. But even then, it depends on how well the individual is able to truly isolate from the environment before the belief in the process of dissociation is broken. In that case, people experience trauma and may develop dissociative disorders. Another strategy of dissociation affects life style itself and is common among artists, scientists and intellectuals as well as business people. They start to decide to break the connection to their environment and either do not associate with anyone – and go into seclusion or isolation – or merely tread others as objects that they have to strategically and tactically maneuvre. Classic models of personality disorders know two cases. Where an individual completely loses the ability to use empathy or the biochemical binding with others and has to merely mimic and perform physical cues that lead to emotional binding of others, which is called psychopathy. Or the empathy mechanism is still in place and the person can generate a good emotion that is then naturally transferred to someone else in order to manipulate this person; but there is no internal meaning of the emotion due to strong dissociation with the psyche. This called sociopathy.
Resilience and Self Castration in Buddhism A new look at the buddhist way It is well known that Buddhism teaches the letting go of the pain. For almost anyone feeling pain, that is a noble thing to do. But depending on the specific teaching and practice, this can also be destructive. As the primary concern, one can assume that all teachings accept the fact that we can not solve all our internal traumas and subconscious issues with thinking. The mildest form of Buddhism teaching to solve this problem is mediation and the increase of awareness of ones emotions, moods and the patterns in which they show, the triggers that create them. To carefully assess them. Another worldly form of Buddhism that is found in the martial arts sects is aiming to combine this with strengthening of our body by enduring physical pain. In the hope of making our body in general less sensitive, more trained in dealing with pain and regulating self-control and moods. Something we look more into in part 2. But this is already destroying sensitivity and receptability of some bodily functions and hence reduces our ability to fully be human. With the goal of reaching a state that makes us more resilient. It starts to become more dangerous when buddhist starts teaching to let go of wants, desires, dreams and earthly goals. It is then when our ability of using dissociation to cope with a certain environment is put on the forbidden chair. If it is forbidden to have dreams and imagination, then we are not only no longer to transcend ourselves beyond our daily habits and life and the forces that we endure. This sort of teaching is more cult-like. The self-castration and extreme focus on routine and disicipline and the letting go of dreams and desires is merely a form of isolating and locking in individuals to take away their most natural tendency of connecting to other people and being part of society. The last and strictest version of Buddhism is aiming at killing off emotions in general. By becoming more and more sensitive in meditation when they form and how they flow through our body and learning – like the mountain climber learns to control muscle tension and blood flow – to build subconscious routines the suppress the excitement of any emotion. Hence if any emotion – maybe any other than happiness – is forming due to a chemical process generating a new balance of neurochemicals, a trained mental muscle is breaking up the reaction and pushes the emotion down. While it is true that these methods help us avoid pain, it appears highly dubious to belief that this serves any spiritual goal. It looks rather than complete hybris to think that working against millions of years of biological evolution is the step forward in achieving humanity. The truth being that such trainings are good to build out soldiers that can be activated in war that have little fear and are willing to die for whatever purpose is injected into their brain. But is it human spirituality? I doubt it.
When things do wrong: When pressure and lack of resilience creates dissociation and trauma When things go wrong Not every resilience training really works and does what it is supposed to do. If a young martial arts student tries to smash a brick, it is more likely the hand is broken if the too much force is exerted in the weaker muscle. An over enthusiastic gym user mike strain a muscle, destroy a joint or otherwise impair his body if going too hard. The very same is true for other scenarios. Not eating for a few days can lead to collapse. Running a marathon without training can lead to a heart attack and death. Enduring extreme weather can lead to freezing to death or skin burns. And a free climber can lose muscle tension and fall into death. But the same is true for emotional stress. A child being abused too strong can become traumatized or face a dissociative personality disorder. A child constantly trained in being deprived of sleep, love or support can lose faith and confidence and even recede mentally and turn permanently impaired. A person hearth broken or in exteme pain from loss can stop functioning in society completely and turn away from society, depressed and even choose to die. What is the take away When thinking about resilience and other topics explored in this presentation, you have to think about which people, environments and circumstances might have the intention or possibility to traumatize you. And it is only natural to focus your presence and attention to avoiding such a scenario and in the ideal case you just leave this environment or relationship. The problem in any and all cases is that the body did not learn to do something that we do not know it is doing. To have the permanent tension for rock / free climbing the climber not only must learn to not be influenced by his brain to trigger fear and excitement – to overshoot mental functions -, but also the body needs to learn how to household with the energy and supply of nutrients that keep the muscles working under tight conditionts during the climbing exercise. This is a bio-chemical habit that needs to be formed and mastered as the climber practices. A person that endures abuse or even torture needs very trained mechanisms in his body that regulate the reaction of key body processes that regulate fear, thoughts, indocrine response (e.g. no fight/flight/freeze state) and that allow the body to produce feel good chemicals that overwrite the intended feel bad processes that generate potentially life threatening stress levels. More often than not the body must also be able to overwrite any process that would generate a certain mood or emotion that would yield a certain facial expression that would guide the abuser or torturer in deciding his next actions. So in any and all cases practice makes perfect and the practice generates sub-conscious routines of how different cells that interact with muscles, nervous system and total energy regulation to cope with the external events.
EMOTIONS & NETWORKS
Humans as networks Emotions are inter-personal binders among people In this chapter we explore how we are connected on emotional level with people around us. To really understand our emotions and how they influence our personality, relationships and evolution in life, we have to understand that we are not in fact individuals that can be looked at in isolation. In this chapter we look how emotions in groups shape experiences and habits and how this forms character and personality which then again shape new relationships and desires and goals. The key element to understand is the emotional connection and experience of emotions in relation to others that are in our relationship graph or network. We introduce an interesting theory on the biological foundations of group formation from Robert Dunbar and talk about Dunbar networks a lot. The fact that relationships need time to form and take time to end creates a form of emotional environment that is oftentimes more stable than the psychological and intellectual environment that is harder to communicate and share in groups. After all, we have only a limited set of emotions and connecting emotionally is fairly easy in groups if interaction is intense, authentic and frequent. Thoughts and ideas are as complex and manifold as they can be and are far harder to align in groups. That is why emotions also play such a critical role in social environments. They are simple. They are oftentimes easy to understand and read. And they are more often than not honest. With the notable exception among individuals with personality or social disorders. We look into some of those as well. In the last section on groups and identity crisis we also learned that living as member of a group rather than as individual, we have to abandon the concept that our inner self is something special. But very luckily, the concept of Dunbar circles which we explore soon is resolving this issue a bit again.
Dunbar Circles: A quick intro ▪ People do not fall onto the earth at any given point. They all come with a long history. ▪ The history of relationships explains a lot about trauma, stress, ego and emotions in the current moment ▪ Many dysfunctional behaviours can be healed by coaching people through their own emotional history ▪ The model by Dunbar on the intensity of our relationships is a really powerful tool to work on this We talked a lot about emotions, stress and how this all relates to situations and our ability to perform within a setting and social environment (or in groups). But we did not discuss the personality aspect of this yet. What comes now is the long-term intertemporal dynamics of emotions and our “network”, or people we spent a lot of time with. To understand this concept, we start with a very well established model by a guy called Robert Dunbar. His work says how our mental capacity and the time we have in our days relates to our ability and limits to have meaningful relationships with n number of people. The work focused on the meaningful size of social (online) networks, but it reveals a deeper truth. You can not have 500 friends that you interact every day with. If you sleep for 8 hours, work for 8 hours, do household and self-care for 2 hours, you have 6 hours for socializing. That is less than 1 minute for every person every day and given that everyone lives a day of 16 hours a day, that is not enough to stay connected. So his work focuses on how this all affects how many people we can have relationships with on a certain level of depth ranging from partner and family to close friends, good friends, to coworkers and so forth. But if we only have a certain amount of people we can spent a specific amount of time with and have certain types of relationships ; and if what we share and talk about and experience with these people and how we feel with and around these people ; then we can look at how the people in these different circles (we call them Dunbar Circles) affect our personal development, our emotions and our identity.
Understanding Dunbar Circles 1 2 3 4 5 Intimate Relationships - Daily touchpoints and interaction (30 Minutes to 5 hours) - Strong co-dependency and joint development - Symbiotic in different aspects of life - E.g. Partner, children, family Best Friends - Multiple touchpoints per week (30 Minutes to 4 hours per week) - No co-dependency, but strong liking and affiliation - Shared time, emotion, memory, experience - E.g. very best friends, family members, dates Good Friends - Touchpoints at least once a month, remote or real (< 4 hours/month) - Interesting conversations, regular joint experiences - Interest in each other, joyful time spent together, advice - E.g. people we like and cherish, but cannot accommodate deeper Friends - Touchpoints in month, quarter or annual range (<10 hours/quarter) - We “know” or “hear” about their life sometimes and stay updated - Meet up when in town or go to parties and birthdays, talk well Acquaintances - People we meet from daily to annually, that are “part of our life” - Not necessarily inclined to talk to or share thoughts with - Interaction is managed and distant and professional Our cognitive ability and the time available in our life to bond defines bands of bonding and proximity that Robin Dunbar analysed. It underlies organizational principles in organization and life. https://de.slideshare.net/EXCCELessex/robin-dunbar-has-the-internet-changed-our-social-world Note: The hours here focus on “personal shared experience” first and “meaningful goal-intertwined interaction” second. Not time sitting in the same room.
Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Workaholic 1 0 0 10 20 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Girlfriend is only best friend. - Will not marry, since no social life and overburdened - Clear risk of “father” being not available for children - Lack of friends and family in life provide no backup support - Unclear if sanity or personality is stable or can be understood Essentially no friends - Might have the feeling of being close to some core friends - Commitment and time spend on relationship not sufficient to have a mutual understanding of the friendship - Exceptions are if both friends are in same situations and deceive themselves of being good friend. - Likely no support in crisis. So not real friends. Colleagues are “friend replacements” - Excessive need to build bonds with colleagues - Makes more vulnerable from attacks and deceit - Helps others in organization understand that isolation can be used to elevant stress level to extreme level to beat individual - Individual more open to be extortet by threat of loss of reputation, job or position and responsibility in the job “Shift in Network” - Individual understands “friend” colleagues as good friends. - Understands acquaintances as “friends”. - Misunderstands equity of relationship and perceives as “naïve” - Has to strategically manage the network without ability to use relationship to pull in a favour This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Low Esteem Person 3 6 10 20 20 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Intimate relationship with low-ball peers - Controllable girlfriend, punshing below one’s weight - Same with friends. Low growth of group and focused on past - Very low outlook and likely lots of tension from being mediocre Friends below ones weight, too - Lots of time spend with “friends” in social activity - Most social activity not enriching or emotionally relevant - “wasting time” with “social activity” that is considered “good” - Nobody truly happy or willing to care and give in the ecosystem Colleagues are “tolerated friends” - Colleagues are managed more maturely as tolerated friends - The set-up in 1 – 3 however makes individual the lower weight in peers - Low ability to demand status and influence outside of being “nice” - Hence less likely to be an active player in the political theatre Very low exposure to higher level acquaintances - Unable to control circles 1 – 4, the level 5 is already not part of the managed theatre - People in this circle come and go and have little tactical advantage This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Balanced Mature Person 5 8 25 120 250 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Fully intact Intimate Circle - Good relationships with partner and family members - Shared activities, memories, stories and caretaking - Individual clearly has a focus on its family base and growing it Best Friends in tact - Clearly has best friends with deep emotional connection - Friends relay information about wider shared network - Deep experiences and caring and trust is part of relationship - Help each other out, help grow and reflect circle 1 issues, etc. (Companion) Friends mix colleagues and people from past - Circle 2 – 3 help remaining connecting with past people in circle 4 - Individual knows how to create meaningful moments with diverse set of individuals that have developed into different strands of life - Ability used to bond deeply and personally with key colleagues and work contacts by allowing them into outer circle. Acquaintances are a well managed ecosystem - All members in circle 2 – 4 join in managing the ecosystem of acqu. - Acquitances are added to the 2- 4 circles and withdrawn - Information flow and shared insights allows good management and tactical navigation also at work. - This circle becomes a resource for achieving goals without any affect to personal well-being, but while also possible bonded with effectively Good Circle of Good Friends - Phone calls, summer vacations, lunches, parties, birthday parties - Gifts are exchanged, stories are told and updated, values shared - Similar lifestyle, milieu and values and true commitment makes a rich - Friend circle and increases resilience of the core personality and outlook This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Professional Mature Person 5 15 50 150 100 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Fully intact Intimate Circle - Good relationships with partner and family members - Shared activities, memories, stories and caretaking - Maybe 1-2 professional contacts jointly strategizing for success Best Friends of strategic relevance - “emotional comfort” is given in circle 1 and is sufficient. - Circle 2 is a tool to build strong bonds with strategically relevant individuals to be used for advancement of career - E.g. “Harvard grad peers from wealthy families or in politics” Tactical short- to mid-term assets as “friends” - People who can be deployed as workers or assets are added to the “friends” list. Relationship is built and abandoned based on objectives and the result generated. - Transactional level of friendship; own network and friend position must give leverage to the other in order to be controlled. Tactical Elements that are controlled via circle 4 -5 - Acquaintances include people that are de facto within the sphere of influence of the individual, whether desired or not - Goal is storategically manveurer with or against these assets using the circles 2 – 4. - The people that need to be dealt with are always mimized. Anyone not relevant is simply ignored or pushed out. The power circle of good Friends - Strategic assets in circle 1 and 2 support managing circle 3 - Circle 3 is full of networkers and influencers that help broker power - All relationships are carefully managed and kept alive and steady flow of value from and to the network is key aspect. This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
Understanding Dunbar Circles – Dunbar Quality What is Dunbar Quality? It does not only matter how many people we are involved in. It also matters what kind of people are involved in (depending on goals and lifestyle). Type Dunbar 5 Dunbar 15 Dunbar 50 Dunbar 150 Dunbar 500 Comment Founder Hometurf, Helpers, Stepping Stones Family, Co-Founder, Other Founders Investors, Advisors, Top Team Employees, Top Clients, Advisors, Industry leaders Clients, Investors, Industry Leaders, Professional Network Potential Hires, Potential Investors, Other Entrepreneur, Influencers Mostly “taker” relationship of whoever trusts and helps Billionaire Inner Circle, Return on Investment Family, Secretary, Mentor Trusted Advisor, Top Executives Competitors, Top Executives, Advisors, Investors, Mentors Shareholders, Customers, Key employees, Professional Network, Lobby Employees, Stakeholders, Regulators, Spies/Information, trusted “get things done” Strategic relationships with very few insiders who support success Family Person Love, Growth, Responsibility Family, Best Friends, Partner Neighbor, Best Friends, Extended Family, Friends Interesting Peers, Trusted Friends, Coworkers, boss, children teachers, friends, banker, tax advisor, mentor, old bosses, old friends and colleagues Coworkers, future employers, professional network, neighborhood, parents of childrens best friends, etc. Clear focus on quality relationships and achieving goals while living good life. High awareness State President Paranoid / Performance Low trust level, hence no Dunbar 5 Partner, Parents, maybe an old trusted friend Advisors, Other Senior Politicians, Loyal Subordinates, Children Advisors, Experts, Lobby, Other Politicians, Party network, Powerful who own favors, useful fools/footsoldiers, press, etc. Highly paranoid and strategic Drug Addict No relationships Drug addict partner Other drug addicts Support Group Almost no social group Normal Person Wasting Time Parents, Partner, Children “Friends” Co-Workers, Acquaintances Acquaintances, people needed in “admin” life Mostly stuffed socially with bad relationships Workaholic Obscure co-dependency Family, Boss Co-Workers / Peers Friends, Co-Workers Acquaintances Mixed up relationship levels and high co- depedency
Personality Development and Dunbar ▪ Key aspect: anything humans do or do not do strengthens (builds) or weakens (atrophy) their abilities in this sector ▪ The intensity, frequency and quality of experiences is what drives habits, brain structure / intellectual capacity ▪ Choices and chance define relationships early on and relationships encode habits via mimicry and adaptation. ▪ Relationships define character. Character defines relationships. So far we introduced the Dunbar Circle model. But what really makes it interesting is to trace who the people are in the different circles in our own lives as we grow older and who the people are in other people’s lives. Bad or traumatic parents which typically sit in Dunbar 5 can have a profoundly bad influence. But also bad friends in school who sit in Dunbar 15 instead of Dunbar 50 (we spent too much time on them and do not “manage” them like acquintances, but trust them as friends) can have traumatic effects. So when we look at a person today and we listen to their story of the past and who was in which Dunbar circle when who who had which traits, we can map the personality traits of this person to the influences in their past life. A person who can not trust had likely many people in Dunbar 5 to Dunbar 15 for a long period of time that betrayed this person and should have been in Dunbar 50 or 150. A person who had barely anyone in Dunbar 5 or 15 for a long period will be more immature than a person with a rich set of people. But if we only have a certain amount of people we can spent a specific amount of time with and have certain types of relationships ; and if what we share and talk about and experience with these people and how we feel with and around these people ; then we can look at how the people in these different circles (we call them Dunbar Circles) affect our personal development, our emotions and our identity. By understanding these frameworks and how they shape someone’s life choices can help us understand where people are coming from emotionally and what type of relationships and experiences leads them to the character and lifestyle that is visible today. This can be relevant for hiring and cultural management in organizations as well in navigating relationships.
Mapping Dunbar Networks over time and development stages People do not simply appear and disappear in our Dunbar circles. The composition of who is in which circle is a process over time combining randomness and choice on commitment. A framework for analyzing one’s own personality or that of others is seen below. If every square in the grid is filled with a name of a person (here the red means a bad influence), then one can discuss or talk about who this person was and infer what kind of influence this person had on the personality (the emotions, beliefs, behaviors, mindsets) of the person describing his life in this framework. Our habits, beliefs, emotions are often an imprint of the people joining our lives in different Dunbar Circles. Some of which we choose, some of which we endure. 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13 Year 14 Year 15 Y Dunbar 5 - No 1 Dunbar 5 - No 2 Dunbar 5 - No 3 Dunbar 5 - No 4 Dunbar 5 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 1 Dunbar 15 - No 2 Dunbar 15 - No 3 Dunbar 15 - No 4 Dunbar 15 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 6 Dunbar 15 - No 7 Dunbar 15 - No 8 Dunbar 15 - No 9 Dunbar 15 - No 10 Mom Toxic Tony Casey Can Do Mediocre Marvin Pre School Primary School Middle School S V ▪ Dunbar 5 Toxic Tony talked bad about person in early school time and then drifted away leaving behind trust Trauma. ▪ Casay Cando inspired dance and music and imprinted passion for years to come from Dunbar 15 ▪ Mediocre Marvin attaches to Person for the next years in Dunbar 15.
Artificial examples of how early age Dunbar configuration affects emotions and maturity 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13 Year 14 Dunbar 5 - No 1 Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Grandma Dunbar 5 - No 2 Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Tony Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Dad Dunbar 5 - No 3 Sister Sister Sister Sister Sister Kyle Sara Sara Sara Sara Sara Kyle Dunbar 5 - No 4 Grandma Grandma Grandma Tony Tony Sara Jörn Jörn Jörn Jörn Jörn Jörn Dunbar 5 - No 5 Grandpa Grandpa Grandpa Dunbar 15 - No 1 Grandpa Grandpa Sister Tony Tony Tony Tony Tony Sara Dunbar 15 - No 2 Grandma Grandma Dad Sister Sister Sister Sister Sister Dunbar 15 - No 3 Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Dunbar 15 - No 4 Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Dunbar 15 - No 5 Jose Jose Jose Jose Jose Dunbar 15 - No 6 Dunbar 15 - No 7 Pre School Primary School Middle School Example 1: Individual grows up with healthy relationships and high emotional connection ▪ Produces more Oxytocin (see next slide) and learns social behavior faster 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13 Year 14 Dunbar 5 - No 1 Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Grandma Dunbar 5 - No 2 Dunbar 5 - No 3 Dunbar 5 - No 4 Tobi Tobi Tobi Tobi Dunbar 5 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 1 Dunbar 15 - No 2 Tobi Tobi Tobi Tobi Dunbar 15 - No 3 Dunbar 15 - No 4 Dunbar 15 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 6 Dunbar 15 - No 7 Pre School Primary School Middle School Example 2: Individual grows up with one parent and in front of TV. Rarely any relationships ▪ Low development of emotional skills and safety net. Experiences more unhealthy individuals In Dunbar 15 Mimicry, experimentation and socialization is likely far different from example 2. Individual has a wide range of experiences and learns to trust and rely on others. This has effect on the emotions felt and neurochemistry, which is then stabilizing in habits and be- haviours which help anchor the psychological profile for long time to come. Mimicry, experimentation is focused on being alone and interacting in imaginary world. While this is safe, it does not guarantee ability to influence and live real relationships with their daily push and pull of emotions. The development might lead to high level of naivity or very high level of distrust and antagonism to outsiders.
Atrophy / Regression Activity / Development Long-term impact on lifestyle and life goals can be seen in this overview: A case for Oxytocin rich relationships ▪ A person full of great relationships, caring and love will have strong oxytocin levels constantly. ▪ Habits for creating dopamine will be focused on oxytocin-strengthening ones and around the social circle. ▪ The groups will seek to obtain good levels of serotonin by being active, mindful and going into the sun ▪ The shared experiences and the natural levels of all other neuro- transmitters will also lead to larger endorphine levels which gives the group the confirmation of the right life style. ▪ A person that does not have any good relationships will have low oxytocin. ▪ The dopamine will require individual actions and creates habits that foster more isolation. ▪ Most natural suppliers of endorphine will be reduced which will lead to less stress tolerance. ▪ This will lead to the need to generate more actively serotonin via activity. Which also isolates the individual. But this cycle will prevent the individual from understanding and caring for the relationships that can change this dynamic. Happy persons will find it hard to accept a rather exhausted incomplete human that does not place high focus on care and the human interaction. And the person will mingle with others that have the same problems and the cycle does complete. In its perfect “worker” form, the individual has no oxytocin but very strong longing for it, which gives rise to “co-dependency” issues and opens for being exploitable and driven by external factors of “reward”. The endorphins only work via exercise and in its cheapest form “entertainment”. Endorphine become a “reward and punishment” system that is highly transactional and also leads to higher risk of abusing drugs and engaging in aggressive sexual behaviour where partners are treated as objects for endorphine. The human becomes cynic and amoral as everything is transactional. The human needs to do a lot of exercise to keep serotonin levels high. A low one meaning self-hatred, a high one meaning more aggression towards others. The transactional view, the co-dependency, the aggression generate aggressive worker bees. With dopamine now tied to ambitious and grandiouse goals, the worker is perfect. Completely negating his Humanness (Oxytocin) and being trapped in a cycle of pain and ever stronger scheduling of the body. The whole human The incomplete human The Aggressively Ambitious Worker Family and Past Friends and Shared Destiny Group Partner Light relationship with Family and Past Light Relationship with Partner Hostile Work and Friend Zone Hostile Work and Friend Zone Objectified Partner Lost Family and Past
Long-term impact on lifestyle and life goals can be seen in this overview: A case for Oxytocin rich relationships Family and Past Friends and Shared Destiny Group Partner Light relationship with Family and Past Light Relationship with Partner Hostile Work and Friend Zone Hostile Work and Friend Zone Objectified Parter Lost Family and Past Pure Relationship Model ▪ Relationships are primary goal of life ▪ Nurturing and caring environment ▪ External factors such as security, career, individualism come second after relationship The individual does not care what external goals exist. The individual does not move away from the rooted environment, it does not strive to exist and grow outside of its relationships. All focus equally on growing together as friends and as one strong group in life. Individidualism ▪ Primary focus on security, career, individualism ▪ Ability to have one or two true relationships in life with focus on building at least a light nurture ▪ Little or no support in daily struggle from old relationships ▪ Career and goals over co-workers and friends makes relationships competitive and hostile Typically, individual has moved and left its original habitat and lost relationships, but still cherises new relationships and nurturing them. Oftentimes the desire for individualism and growth is so energy – consuming that Failed Individual ▪ Sole focus is external growth, career, success and compensating measures of life ▪ All relationships are objectified and competitive, individual needs to perform and manage ▪ Often past friendships and relationship to family is poor, making the individual very lonely
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman

Recommended

The healthy brain
The healthy brainThe healthy brain
The healthy brain
Brenda McCreight
 
Emotion and heuristics
Emotion and heuristicsEmotion and heuristics
Emotion and heuristicsSaurabh Chauhan
 
Emotion
EmotionEmotion
Emotion
Verma25
 
The mind brain relationship
The mind brain relationshipThe mind brain relationship
The mind brain relationship
Other Mother
 
Processing Emotions - Happiness
Processing Emotions - HappinessProcessing Emotions - Happiness
Processing Emotions - Happiness
Nicolae Sfetcu
 
Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind
Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind
Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind
kbolinsky
 
APPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDES
APPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDESAPPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDES
APPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDESkimappel
 
Chapter 3
Chapter 3Chapter 3
Chapter 3
kbolinsky
 

Recommended

The healthy brain
The healthy brainThe healthy brain
The healthy brain
Brenda McCreight
 
Emotion and heuristics
Emotion and heuristicsEmotion and heuristics
Emotion and heuristicsSaurabh Chauhan
 
Emotion
EmotionEmotion
Emotion
Verma25
 
The mind brain relationship
The mind brain relationshipThe mind brain relationship
The mind brain relationship
Other Mother
 
Processing Emotions - Happiness
Processing Emotions - HappinessProcessing Emotions - Happiness
Processing Emotions - Happiness
Nicolae Sfetcu
 
Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind
Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind
Ch.2 The Biology of the Mind
kbolinsky
 
APPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDES
APPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDESAPPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDES
APPEL PSY 150 403 Chapter 3 SLIDESkimappel
 
Chapter 3
Chapter 3Chapter 3
Chapter 3
kbolinsky
 
Psychology Chapter 7
Psychology Chapter 7Psychology Chapter 7
Psychology Chapter 7
Jeremy Rinkel
 
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
MrAguiar
 
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mindManas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
JAYAKRISHNAN K
 
Psychology photo album
Psychology photo albumPsychology photo album
Psychology photo albumekawa10
 
Biological basis of human behavior
Biological basis of human behaviorBiological basis of human behavior
Biological basis of human behaviorNursing Path
 
Psychology Chapter 6
Psychology Chapter 6Psychology Chapter 6
Psychology Chapter 6
Jeremy Rinkel
 
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktop
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktopTeresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktop
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktopAnne-Marie Young
 
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhDNatural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Rick Hanson
 
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhDPaper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Rick Hanson
 
Unit 2 biology of behaviour
Unit 2 biology of behaviourUnit 2 biology of behaviour
Unit 2 biology of behaviour
Tejal Virola
 
History i and ii ss
History i and ii ssHistory i and ii ss
History i and ii ssMrAguiar
 
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNALINTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
CEO. CENTER FOR WELLNESS. ISTE. AMAZON AUTHOR. ELIADEMY ACADEMY
 
Unit 3 consciousness power point
Unit 3 consciousness power pointUnit 3 consciousness power point
Unit 3 consciousness power point
Timothy Bradley
 
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible LearningUrban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Morgan Appel
 
Psych comprehensive photo album
Psych comprehensive photo albumPsych comprehensive photo album
Psych comprehensive photo albumkmaguire322
 
Sleep AP Psych
Sleep AP PsychSleep AP Psych
Sleep AP Psych
jmclaugh813
 
Steadying the Mind
Steadying the MindSteadying the Mind
Steadying the Mind
Rick Hanson
 
Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Annata on my Mind (Brain)Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Rick Hanson
 
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
Morgan Appel
 
History and Development of Psychology
History and Development of PsychologyHistory and Development of Psychology
History and Development of Psychology
Margaret Templeton
 
body mind relationship
body mind relationship body mind relationship
body mind relationship
AronChristy1
 
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptxBODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
VivekSingh586414
 

More Related Content

What's hot

Psychology Chapter 7
Psychology Chapter 7Psychology Chapter 7
Psychology Chapter 7
Jeremy Rinkel
 
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
MrAguiar
 
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mindManas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
JAYAKRISHNAN K
 
Psychology photo album
Psychology photo albumPsychology photo album
Psychology photo albumekawa10
 
Biological basis of human behavior
Biological basis of human behaviorBiological basis of human behavior
Biological basis of human behaviorNursing Path
 
Psychology Chapter 6
Psychology Chapter 6Psychology Chapter 6
Psychology Chapter 6
Jeremy Rinkel
 
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktop
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktopTeresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktop
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktopAnne-Marie Young
 
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhDNatural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Rick Hanson
 
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhDPaper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Rick Hanson
 
Unit 2 biology of behaviour
Unit 2 biology of behaviourUnit 2 biology of behaviour
Unit 2 biology of behaviour
Tejal Virola
 
History i and ii ss
History i and ii ssHistory i and ii ss
History i and ii ssMrAguiar
 
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNALINTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
CEO. CENTER FOR WELLNESS. ISTE. AMAZON AUTHOR. ELIADEMY ACADEMY
 
Unit 3 consciousness power point
Unit 3 consciousness power pointUnit 3 consciousness power point
Unit 3 consciousness power point
Timothy Bradley
 
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible LearningUrban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Morgan Appel
 
Psych comprehensive photo album
Psych comprehensive photo albumPsych comprehensive photo album
Psych comprehensive photo albumkmaguire322
 
Sleep AP Psych
Sleep AP PsychSleep AP Psych
Sleep AP Psych
jmclaugh813
 
Steadying the Mind
Steadying the MindSteadying the Mind
Steadying the Mind
Rick Hanson
 
Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Annata on my Mind (Brain)Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Rick Hanson
 
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
Morgan Appel
 
History and Development of Psychology
History and Development of PsychologyHistory and Development of Psychology
History and Development of Psychology
Margaret Templeton
 

What's hot (20)

Psychology Chapter 7
Psychology Chapter 7Psychology Chapter 7
Psychology Chapter 7
 
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
Aguiar ap consciousness sleep and dreams 2014 2015
 
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mindManas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
Manas the ayurvedic and modern concept of human mind
 
Psychology photo album
Psychology photo albumPsychology photo album
Psychology photo album
 
Biological basis of human behavior
Biological basis of human behaviorBiological basis of human behavior
Biological basis of human behavior
 
Psychology Chapter 6
Psychology Chapter 6Psychology Chapter 6
Psychology Chapter 6
 
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktop
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktopTeresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktop
Teresa ppt pd 2.18.14 desktop
 
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhDNatural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
Natural contentment - Rick Hanson, PhD
 
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhDPaper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
Paper Tiger Paranoia - Rick Hanson, PhD
 
Unit 2 biology of behaviour
Unit 2 biology of behaviourUnit 2 biology of behaviour
Unit 2 biology of behaviour
 
History i and ii ss
History i and ii ssHistory i and ii ss
History i and ii ss
 
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNALINTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
INTERNAL ORGAN THERAPY WITH LASER ACUPUNCTURE. LASER PARTNER JOURNAL
 
Unit 3 consciousness power point
Unit 3 consciousness power pointUnit 3 consciousness power point
Unit 3 consciousness power point
 
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible LearningUrban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
Urban Discovery Academy: Brain-Compatible Learning
 
Psych comprehensive photo album
Psych comprehensive photo albumPsych comprehensive photo album
Psych comprehensive photo album
 
Sleep AP Psych
Sleep AP PsychSleep AP Psych
Sleep AP Psych
 
Steadying the Mind
Steadying the MindSteadying the Mind
Steadying the Mind
 
Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Annata on my Mind (Brain)Annata on my Mind (Brain)
Annata on my Mind (Brain)
 
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
It's All About That Brain: Essentials of Developmental Neuroscience for Careg...
 
History and Development of Psychology
History and Development of PsychologyHistory and Development of Psychology
History and Development of Psychology
 

Similar to Superhuman

body mind relationship
body mind relationship body mind relationship
body mind relationship
AronChristy1
 
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptxBODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
VivekSingh586414
 
10. emotions and health
10. emotions and health10. emotions and health
10. emotions and healthMadhumita Sen
 
Brain
BrainBrain
Brain
JAMESMATHEW51
 
defense mechanism.pdf
defense mechanism.pdfdefense mechanism.pdf
defense mechanism.pdf
ssuserdeaeaf
 
Emotion Introduction
Emotion IntroductionEmotion Introduction
Emotion Introduction
Sumitava Mukherjee
 
Life improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-Revolutions
Life improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-RevolutionsLife improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-Revolutions
Life improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-Revolutions
PersonalRevolutions
 
Spring Blitz
Spring BlitzSpring Blitz
Spring Blitz
Robert Rhoton
 
Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhD
Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhDBuddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhD
Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhD
Rick Hanson
 
11. emotions 07-08
11. emotions 07-0811. emotions 07-08
11. emotions 07-08Nasir Koko
 
OT 537 Session 1A
OT 537 Session 1AOT 537 Session 1A
OT 537 Session 1A
Stephanie Lancaster
 
controlandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdf
controlandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdfcontrolandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdf
controlandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdf
065JEEVASREEMCSE
 
Control and coordination
Control and coordinationControl and coordination
Control and coordination
Auroshis Sahoo
 
Nervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptx
Nervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptxNervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptx
Nervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptx
MaamKatrynTan
 
psychology
psychologypsychology
psychology
kamranilahi
 
AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015
AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015
AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015Ann-Cathrin Jöst
 
Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...
Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...
Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...
Rick Hanson
 
Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)
Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)
Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)
state college of nursing
 

Similar to Superhuman (20)

body mind relationship
body mind relationship body mind relationship
body mind relationship
 
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptxBODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
BODY MIND RELATIONSHIP.pptx
 
Synaptic self
Synaptic selfSynaptic self
Synaptic self
 
10. emotions and health
10. emotions and health10. emotions and health
10. emotions and health
 
Brain
BrainBrain
Brain
 
defense mechanism.pdf
defense mechanism.pdfdefense mechanism.pdf
defense mechanism.pdf
 
Emotion Introduction
Emotion IntroductionEmotion Introduction
Emotion Introduction
 
Life improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-Revolutions
Life improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-RevolutionsLife improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-Revolutions
Life improvement workshop - Self-development - Personal-Revolutions
 
Spring Blitz
Spring BlitzSpring Blitz
Spring Blitz
 
Life improvement-workshop-1f
Life improvement-workshop-1fLife improvement-workshop-1f
Life improvement-workshop-1f
 
Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhD
Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhDBuddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhD
Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Inner Peace - Rick Hanson, PhD
 
11. emotions 07-08
11. emotions 07-0811. emotions 07-08
11. emotions 07-08
 
OT 537 Session 1A
OT 537 Session 1AOT 537 Session 1A
OT 537 Session 1A
 
controlandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdf
controlandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdfcontrolandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdf
controlandcoordination-150817152923-lva1-app6891 (1).pdf
 
Control and coordination
Control and coordinationControl and coordination
Control and coordination
 
Nervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptx
Nervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptxNervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptx
Nervous System Parts and Functions Grade 10 Science.pptx
 
psychology
psychologypsychology
psychology
 
AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015
AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015
AnnCathrin Joest, Professional Product. 9.6.2015
 
Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...
Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...
Use Your Mind to Change Your Brain: Tools for Cultivating Happiness, Love and...
 
Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)
Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)
Unit 2 (biological basis of human behavior)
 

More from Benjamin Scherer

Mental and Identity Disintegration Models
Mental and Identity Disintegration ModelsMental and Identity Disintegration Models
Mental and Identity Disintegration Models
Benjamin Scherer
 
Salestech Market Size
Salestech Market SizeSalestech Market Size
Salestech Market Size
Benjamin Scherer
 
Sales and Marketing Technology
Sales and Marketing TechnologySales and Marketing Technology
Sales and Marketing Technology
Benjamin Scherer
 
Shaping culture
Shaping cultureShaping culture
Shaping culture
Benjamin Scherer
 
Venture Capital Operating Model
Venture Capital Operating ModelVenture Capital Operating Model
Venture Capital Operating Model
Benjamin Scherer
 
Fundraising process
Fundraising process Fundraising process
Fundraising process
Benjamin Scherer
 
Venture Capital as an Asset Class
Venture Capital as an Asset ClassVenture Capital as an Asset Class
Venture Capital as an Asset Class
Benjamin Scherer
 

More from Benjamin Scherer (7)

Mental and Identity Disintegration Models
Mental and Identity Disintegration ModelsMental and Identity Disintegration Models
Mental and Identity Disintegration Models
 
Salestech Market Size
Salestech Market SizeSalestech Market Size
Salestech Market Size
 
Sales and Marketing Technology
Sales and Marketing TechnologySales and Marketing Technology
Sales and Marketing Technology
 
Shaping culture
Shaping cultureShaping culture
Shaping culture
 
Venture Capital Operating Model
Venture Capital Operating ModelVenture Capital Operating Model
Venture Capital Operating Model
 
Fundraising process
Fundraising process Fundraising process
Fundraising process
 
Venture Capital as an Asset Class
Venture Capital as an Asset ClassVenture Capital as an Asset Class
Venture Capital as an Asset Class
 

Recently uploaded

Senior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdf
Senior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdfSenior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdf
Senior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdf
Jim Smith
 
SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....
SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....
SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....
juniourjohnstone
 
Case Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of Management
Case Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of ManagementCase Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of Management
Case Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of Management
A. F. M. Rubayat-Ul Jannat
 
一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证
一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证
一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证
gcljeuzdu
 
Training- integrated management system (iso)
Training- integrated management system (iso)Training- integrated management system (iso)
Training- integrated management system (iso)
akaash13
 
W.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest Experience
W.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest ExperienceW.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest Experience
W.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest Experience
William (Bill) H. Bender, FCSI
 
TCS AI for Business Study – Key Findings
TCS AI for Business Study – Key FindingsTCS AI for Business Study – Key Findings
TCS AI for Business Study – Key Findings
Tata Consultancy Services
 
Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...
Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...
Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...
CIOWomenMagazine
 
Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)
Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)
Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)
Amir H. Fassihi
 
Leadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact Plan
Leadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact PlanLeadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact Plan
Leadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact Plan
Muhammad Adil Jamil
 

Recently uploaded (10)

Senior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdf
Senior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdfSenior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdf
Senior Project and Engineering Leader Jim Smith.pdf
 
SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....
SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....
SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGY FACULTY OF NURSING.....
 
Case Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of Management
Case Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of ManagementCase Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of Management
Case Analysis - The Sky is the Limit | Principles of Management
 
一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证
一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证
一比一原版杜克大学毕业证(Duke毕业证)成绩单留信认证
 
Training- integrated management system (iso)
Training- integrated management system (iso)Training- integrated management system (iso)
Training- integrated management system (iso)
 
W.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest Experience
W.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest ExperienceW.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest Experience
W.H.Bender Quote 65 - The Team Member and Guest Experience
 
TCS AI for Business Study – Key Findings
TCS AI for Business Study – Key FindingsTCS AI for Business Study – Key Findings
TCS AI for Business Study – Key Findings
 
Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...
Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...
Oprah Winfrey: A Leader in Media, Philanthropy, and Empowerment | CIO Women M...
 
Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)
Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)
Founder-Game Director Workshop (Session 1)
 
Leadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact Plan
Leadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact PlanLeadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact Plan
Leadership Ethics and Change, Purpose to Impact Plan
 

Superhuman

  • 1. Superhuman Uncovering the hidden life of our strongest internal superpower: emotions. # probably the most bizarre book on emotions ever written Universe . Brains S S
  • 2. Why this presentation? Emotions are not really understood ▪ Schools don’t teach emotion ▪ Life doesn’t teach emotion equally ▪ Psychology is rather in infancy on the topic ▪ Almost no really good overview on how it really operates and is woven into life and biographies. Approach in this book: ▪ Selected scientific frameworks ▪ Lots of life experience ▪ Lots of creative frameworks ▪ Daring hypothesis ▪ Most importantly: Actionable insights ▪ As an economist and former entrepreneur lots of material covers problems from the macro view and problems in leading teams or dealing with cultural issues in organizations. Use Cases of the frameworks covered ▪ Culture design, leadership and hiring for entrepreneurs ▪ Self-reflection, Analysis and ▪ Curious people who want to learn how to look at emotions ▪ Parents trying to understand development dimensions and risk factors in their children’s life ▪ Relationship improvements Who this presentation is not for ▪ People who don’t like abstract frameworks ▪ People who don’t want to read this from start to end to understand all the links between the subjects ▪ People who need many examples to transfer theory to their daily life situations ▪ People who want to read only proven scientific evidence ▪ People who do not like googling if some topic is interesting
  • 4. Basic Anatomy related to Emotions
  • 5. Background: Our body systems in a simplified overview Brain Central Nervous System Sensory Organs / Somatic System “You can feel them” Autonomic System 1. “You can not feel it” 2. Autonomous from brain Sympathetic System Arouses the body, e.g. the fight or flight system. Heart rate increase Parasympathic System Relaxes the body and de- creases the heart rate The autonomic nervous system and endocrine system regulate mood The nervous system is the big signal processor that moves signals and information to and from the brain . The brain reacts with macro-behaviours (movement) as well as hormones responses (endocrine system)
  • 6. Background: Our body systems in a simplified overview Endocrine System ▪ Hormones ▪ Chemical Balances ▪ Triggered via neural stimulation Types of Activators ▪ Anabolic Insulin, testosterone, ▪ Catabolic Cortisol, progesterone Origin Hormones Function Hypothalamus Stimulators, Inhibitors Pituitary hormone regulation Pituitary, anterios ACTH, FSH, Growh, Prolactin, LH,TSH Adrenal Control, Gonad regulation, Growth regulation and milk production, Thyroid control Pituitary, posterior ADH, Oxytocin Water conversation, uterus contraction, milk ejection Thyroid Thyroxine Metabolic Rate control Parathyroid PT, Calcitonin Calcium regulation Gut Gut hormones Food digestion Pancreas Insulin, Glocagon Nutrient metabolism; bloog glucose levels Adrenals Cortisul, Audiosterone, Epinephrine, Adrenaline Body preservation, Salt conservation, Stress Response; sensitivity of the nervous system Ovaries Estradiol, Progesterone Female characteristics Testicles Testosterone Male Characteristics The endocrine system regulates various factors and includes: ▪ Excitement levels of nervous system / how many signals reach the brain / focus ▪ Energy levels and metabolic rate / speed of burning energy ▪ General body biochemistry and hormones, triggering moods and feelings ▪ Neurochemical biochemistry triggering emotions The endocrine system / hormones is do not directly communicate with the nervous system and have effects on how different organs function and energy / chemical processes are operating on cells. The reaction of macro-units is however picked back up by the brain and produces e.g. moods, feelings and emotions,
  • 7. Background: From cell activity to consciousness decisions At any point in time, Thousands of processes Run in the body. - Chemical reactions - Electricity charges - Energetic processes “Escalation levels” 1. Complete autonomy - Intra cell behaviour - Isolate cell groups 2. Sufficient “activity” to shock a key system - Endocrine shock: e.g. to liver, to heart, etc. - Nervous system / sensory shock: - Whole body shock (e.g. loss of oxygen level) Paths to the brain 1. Nervous system => direct signal patterns, e.g. “seeing green” 2. Body chemistry => e.g. mood turns depressed / Vitamin depletion 3. Neurochemistry => e.g. fear triggered and emotions affected Stage 1 Body To the Brain Escalation Physics and Chemistry Many different processes hit the brain at any time and it has to decide what to do. 1. Wait for treshhold (intra cell communic.) 2. React to treshhold If treshhold is reached: Option 1: Hyperfire => “Push to consciousness” Option 2: Activate habit => “Subconsciousness Stage 2 Brain To Awareness Escalation Biology and Medicine If reaching Consciousness Decide priority: 1. Focus on this 2. Focus on other stuff Stage 3 Reaction Settings Psychology A B C A B C ▪ Brain does this mostly by itself ▪ We can study psychology or medicine to understand what happens and change our behaviour to influence this (e.g. food) ▪ We can explore experiences that increase the treshholds of certain functions (e.g. stress) to elevate it to level B. AN example in literature is “Qi”. ▪ This is subconscious. Our brain constantly learns to react to certain processes and patterns w.o. letting us know. ▪ Mediation does not help here. But again, we can look for external knowledge from science or in experience to trigger a response that leads to elevation of consciousness. E.g. “sound isolation” and suddenly we can hear our pulse very clear. An example in literatre is the “It” or Uber It ▪ This is the world of awareness training. Our body may tell us we are stressed, but we keep doing what we are doing. Until we collapse. ▪ We can use mediation and focus to find all the emotional, mood and thoughts processes that reach an intensity level where they are addressable by our concisciousness. ▪ It is very unlikely that this small part brings us to “Nirvana”. Buddhism is far to individualistic ;) Culture and Society only works with this
  • 8. Background: From cell activity to consciousness decisions Autonomic System and Endocrine System “Intellectual Capacity / Memory Bank” Patterns / Expressions / Habits “Patterns” and Sensory Processing The moment / Now, Learning and Emotions Boring body functions Language and Sensory Classification Im/Ex-Pression and Interaction I/O Interaces Memory and Clusters Now we talked a lot about the brain, how does it work: - Temporal Lobe (normal stuff/consciousness) and Brain Stem (real time system, subconsciousness) are the core of processing - Parietal lobe learns is the flexible and adaptive “algorithm” collection => This is where the thinkers evolve - A special unit is just for interaction (occipital lobe) that we use also for binding with others on emotions, the in/out interface - And our psyche mostly rests in the frontal lobe. With all the memory of actual memories, beliefs and subconcious habits - Another heavy processing system that only esoterics talk about is the cerebellum. Usually traind by practice and in charge of putting resources into our coordination Of course, this doesn’t really help. But understanding that we understand our brain like a computer is at least an insight.
  • 9. Background: From cell activity to consciousness decisions A bit more interesting is that our brain also is not symmetric. We have one area dedicated for mental stuff and one for emotion and intuition - Our brain likes to work with only one part in any period of time. That is not just an interesting fact, but it has a very deep meaning when looking at how people design their lives. Something we look at in part 3. But this antagonism is not a trivial side observation, but something really crucial. - Our society is organized around the left brain. We can call this a “systemic right brain discrimination” similar to systemic racism. The structures that we have built to create our society are there and in essence low- EQ. No matter how much we talk about it, the structure implies we need to function on the left brain which doesn’t care about ecology or emotion. Becoming more right- brain requires different concepts of society. And yes even Marxism does not provide an alternative to this. - Back of your head
  • 12. Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Hormones • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemical mechanisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) Abstract view on the interlinks of biochemistry and nervous system and conscious experience Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts Emotion: Goal-oriented “feeling” Feeling: Involuntary expression Mood: Dampens Emotions/Feelings
  • 13. Emotions At its core, emotions are represented by a biochemical balance in a set of emotions directly regulated by the brain. The brain operates in an always current representation of the world in the temporal lobe. It has to regulate physical activity (right brain) and emotion activity (left brain). Emotions have an impact both on how the endocrinal system operates and functions as well as a special impact on how we form relationships with other living beings. Goals Actions Intents Prediction Right Brain Thought Left Brain Emotion Emotions are mainly directly controlled by the brain as to achieve certain goals In the interaction with the environment. They follow brain directions rather than being dictated by the endocrinal system. Emotions interfere directly with motoric behaviours (e.g. facial expressions) as well as the endocrine system to reveal emotion to other humans. They also impact behavioural strategies (right brain) and how others read our motives They govern relationships and personality and connect us to other people.
  • 15. Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Hormones • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemical mechanisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) Abstract view on the interlinks of biochemistry and nervous system and conscious experience Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts Emotion: Goal-oriented “feeling” Feeling: Involuntary expression Mood: Dampens Emotions/Feelings
  • 16. Feelings Sunlight triggering an endocrine response Attractive person triggering a hormonal / endocrine response Tiger inducing a fight or flight adrenaline response Quality relationship time inducing relaxation response Feelings are all about situational involuntary endocrine responses when hit with certain stimuli Hormonal / Endocrine Response (involuntarily) Brain focus re-adjusted and interacts quickly Emotion Mood Slow Process Fast Process Cognitive Framing The consciously experienced change on emotion and mood is called “feeling” Given our Mood And emotional state Feelings trigger state changes and can also serve regulation of our mood state. Both our brain and the real world can create stimuli that impact our feelings
  • 17. Feelings Sunlight triggering an endocrine response Attractive person triggering a hormonal / endocrine response Tiger inducing a fight or flight adrenaline response Quality relationship time inducing relaxation response Feelings are all about situational involuntary endocrine responses when hit with certain stimuli How do humans control their negative feelings? Training A daily fight with a tiger under controlled circumstances reduces the endocrine response Exposure With habits that induce a hormonal response to deplete all chemical elements needed for the hormone, we hinder the ability for such hormones to fire when a stimulus happens. This impacts mood and leads to fatigue, depression and burnout Hormone Depletion Framing Reframing Training our ability to overwrite the endocrine response with emotions and interpretations helps us prevent the feeling. This is done by training and collecting good experiences. e.g. “I was not humiliated, but a good joke was made” Rationalization Hurting or abusing others can be reframed as something necessary and hence the natural emotional response is overwritten by a new emotional response. We overwrite the emotion, not the feeling. Or we reframe a bad partner as a good one. By eating better, improving our recovery processes and overall becoming stronger, we can also train the recovery instead of inhibiting the stimulus response. This gives “Confidence” Optimization of Response Dissociation We also have the ability to dissociate our endocrine and emotional responses from our mental / intellectual processing and hence dissociate it from our identity to avoid trauma.
  • 18. Feelings Sunlight triggering an endocrine response Attractive person triggering a hormonal / endocrine response Tiger inducing a fight or flight adrenaline response Quality relationship time inducing relaxation response Feelings are all about situational involuntary endocrine responses when hit with certain stimuli How do humans control their positive feelings? Habit If the sun is good to us, we try to get more sun into our daily habits. Same works for nutrients, sleep, exercise, etc. Exposure If we understand rewards from a certain stress ful activity, we will use our negative feelings coping mechanisms to reduce the cost of getting the reward. And become more risk tolerant. More adventurous. Risk Tolerance Creation Goal / Setting Given two choices, once we realize that there are better choices, we try to reset our goals and concept of the world to avoid the bad choice and increase the good choice. Imagination If we know of something good but we are not able to get it, we start to build a mental representation and use our imagination and dreams to “virtualize” the experience. Instagram, TV shows and drugs are examples. If we have many good things and we run into coordination problems, we try to invent things or become faster at getting the maximum out of all the good things. Inventions & Optimization Dissociation If nothing good seems to be possible and living the virtual reality dream is not possible, we might create parallel worlds and live in their.
  • 19. Moods
  • 20. Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Mood • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemicall mechaisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) Review: Emotions are fine-grained neuro-processes that interact with consciousness. Moods are primal body functions Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts
  • 21. Moods: Workout / Muscle Stress Fight / Flight Situation and Stress Insuline Shocks and bad eating habits Lack of movement / usage => Atrophy Lack of nutrients depletes mood stabilization cycle Mental Fatigue and Exhaustion Body Stress and Recovery Insufficiency and Atrophy Emotional Stress Chemical Stress Biological Stress Hormonal Balance - Dictated by organ states - Brain fails at regulating the balance until organ recovered Emotion Mood Tries to regulate but fails due to strong influence of endocrine processes Slow Process Fast Process Moods are feelings that stem from stronger hormone responses that the brain can not directly control. The hormonal response interacts and interferes with emotional and feeling processes. Stressors trigger hormonal response
  • 22. Moods are triggered by body / endocrine pain that is shocking the emotional system Workout / Muscle Stress Fight / Flight Situation and Stress Insuline Shocks and bad eating habits Lack of movement / usage => Atrophy Lack of nutrients depletes mood stabilization cycle Mental Fatigue and Exhaustion Body Stress and Recovery Insufficiency and Atrophy Emotional Stress Chemical Stress Biological Stress
  • 23. The way to cope with moods (and actually live more healthy) is to build habits about common stressors in life Workout / Muscle Stress Fight / Flight Situation and Stress Insuline Shocks and bad eating habits Lack of movement / usage => Atrophy Lack of nutrients depletes mood stabilization cycle Mental Fatigue and Exhaustion Body Stress and Recovery Insufficiency and Atrophy Emotional Stress Chemical Stress Biological Stress Sleep, Food Cardio / Running Socialize & Meditate Activity & Training Healthy Food Habits Rich Food Consumpti ons Focus on People Avoid bad habits and drugs Recovery and Care Remedies for stressors help to stabilize moods.
  • 24. Mastering Time: A sample Day Structure that incorporates all ingredients for a healthy life style 6:30 7:30 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 0:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 8:00 14:00 15:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 16:00 22:00 23:00 STAGE A: RISE – Carbs and Water -> Kickstart Metabolism Step 1: Replenish (3 m) - Drink (0.5 Liter) - Carbs + Fat (rice, bread, banana) - Restroom Step 2: Stretch (5 m) - (wait for carbs to be processed) STAGE B: WAKE AND GROW – Stress Muscles (Cardio + Other) Step 1: Warm-Up 10 Minute Walk 10 Minute Run Step 2: Stress 40 Minute Training Muscle Groups OR 40 Minute Training Cardio / Anerobiic STAGE C: MEDITATE / PREPARE + STRETCH Step 1: Focus Focus on now, drop mind Step 2: Process Process past day, anticipate current day, plan Step 3: Get ready Be present STAGE D: SOCIAL LIFE / PEOPLE (“Emotions”) Step 1: Be there Family: Take care of kids / wife Business: Make early calls with network Friends: Call your friends to see how they are STAGE E: Information / “Mind” / “Focus” News: Read newspaper Calls: Get updates from network and employees Mediation: If you skipped it and need it, here is time Work: Organization – 1 hour + reflection - Office hour calls to clients and key stakeholders - Get organized (E-Mail, Schedule, Tasks, Activities) Work: Execution – 2 hours - Focused work on tasks and project milestones - “Full presence” in meetings and engagement in complex setting Work: Organization + Emotion - Check of tasks + check new emails - Have conversations and engage with clients, bosses, peers Health: Food, Emotion, Networks - Check of tasks + check new emails - Have conversations and engage with clients, bosses, peers Work: Execution – 2.5 hours - “Full presence” in meetings - “Max Focus” in getting things done - “Collaboration” and joints progress Socialize and “Emotion” - Touch down with others. How do they feel? What is bothering - See if you can help at work or in private life - Make promises outside of official work Work: Execution – 1 Hour – Deadline Oriented - Full push of responsibility to others with intent to follow up - Wrap-up of daily tasks - Getting things done that need to be done Work: Orga – Wrap Up - Get next day prepared, check all checklists, etc. Health: High Intensity Exercise - Get rid of all toxins and stress from work and shift into private mode Socialize: Full attention on personal life and network - Get rid of all toxins and stress from work and shift into private mode Socialize: Bodily / Exercise activity with family, friends - Shopping, Walking, Biking, anything related to being “active” This is an open space / buffer space. 1. Can include household, kids, groceries 2. Can be the “this is you” space if you go to sports clubs / events 3. Can be phone calls, socializing, happy time, anything.- This is you and the space for your brain and other body parts to work: 1. Watch movie / read a book => “train empathy, clean bad emotions” 2. Do puzzles / challenges => Train logic 3. Music / painting => Be creative 4. Read non-fiction => Education, courses Recovery Body Social Goal Seeking Focus Brain / Self LEGEND
  • 25. Mastering Time: Explanation of key elements 6:30 7:30 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 0:00 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 8:00 14:00 15:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 16:00 22:00 23:00 Sleep is absolutely key ▪ Sleep deeply ▪ Sleep undisturbed ▪ Sleep with enough REM / deep sleep Goals: ▪ Fresh and cold air is key ▪ Silence and calmness (sounds) ▪ Enough space ▪ Good bed and matrace ▪ Sleep clean in clean sheets The morning routine is critical! ▪ Replenish the body fast with water and food ▪ Muscles are recovered. Best time to stress them ▪ This is the time for carbs to kickstart metabolism ▪ Drive up your metabolic rate by intensity sports ▪ Take the time to wake up and cleanse your body ▪ Be sure to finish it before everyone wakes up and is available for the morning social Socialize : Morning Gold ▪ Everybody is in good mood in the morning. Nobody is in a busy schedule. Train your network to accept calls in the morning while you walk or have free time. ▪ Spend as much time as you can on quality relationships ▪ Sales and everything is best done in the morning. Getting mentally started ▪ Every “issue” that existed yesterday and was caused by a less reflected person will continue this day. Use meditation to get your strategy in order to help the person recover from stress ▪ Make really sure all you do is focused and you are not lost in the past of future. Focus yourself in the morning so nothing can can really affect your life negatively during the day ▪ Don’t bother in the morning with chores and household. You need to be ready and awake for the challenges of the day Make sure you drink at least every 90 minutes and eat at least every 120 minutes. This keeps your metabolism working and active. ▪ Run a 90 minute timer to remind you of drinking and have drinks ready. Use the time to stand up, stretch, walk around and refocus ▪ Be sure you always have some very healthy food next to you so you do not run out of carbs and high quality energy that keeps you focused. Include food with good fats, minor proteins and a very flat energy curve (veggies). Make sure you never run out of social time at work or outside of work even during the day. Staying in touch and connected is critical for managing relationships and being present in other people’s mind. As well as in your own emotional household. Nobody lives just to “function” like a robot. Make sure people you want to reach know about your schedule and are also able to make up time in these slots. This increases the benefit for everyone and brings the relationship closer. Switch Gears In the morning, there is not enough energy to fully run a cardio routine. You are also relaxed. In the evening, running a high intensity exercise does wonders of cleansing stress, allowing you to “switch off” work and be ready for the more emotionally intense afternoon that needs your full attention and empathy. This is the time for a 30 minute run. 3-4 hours of social time Depending on your life style you might study, go to gym, or go shopping or plan vacations. The important part now is that you drank and ate well and have good energy, you cleansed the body with high intensity training. And you have ideally done your body stress work out in the morning. Now it is all about getting stuff done, connecting to people, living an active life style and not skipping the evening meal that is the core resource for “protein” that your body needs over night to rebuild your muscles and destroyed fibres. People who use a diet that restricts their intake typically skip the morning meal and the evening meal. If you have to do this, then make sure you eat a lot of good protein and fats in the evening that last until you fall asleep and allow the night to do its job. The final hours There are two things the day did not include. 1) You. 2) Your brain. Your brain also needs training if it wants to learn new things. While work, exercise and relationships keep your brain busy, if you want to learn beyond that, this is the time. This is also the time to be you. If you need to express yourself to remain healthy, this is the time. Before bedtime. When the kids are in bed. But be sure to mediate or relax, as you need to come down for sleep in this time.
  • 26. Emotion versus Mood Mood Dislikes toxicity in form of drugs, chemical toxins (radiation, bad water, bad air/allergies) and stress. Emotion Requires to be in toxic places (cities) and to consume toxic substances (alcohol, cocaine) to fit into social fabric Dislikes sleep deprivation and lack of exercise for the body to avoid atrophy and bodily functions. Enjoys long nights out and dislikes “wasting” time and the “stressful feeling” of going to bed early, eating healthy and doing exercie Dislikes sleep deprivation and lack of exercise for the body to avoid atrophy and bodily functions. Enjoys long nights out and dislikes “wasting” time and the “stressful feeling” of going to bed early, eating healthy and doing exercise BODY = We are a billion of cells that want to survive MIND = We are a soul that wants to experience short life to the fullest BRAIN Is an agent of our mind Supports emotions and builds “rationalizations” by finding reasons for the behaviour of the emotional need. But is completely ignorant to the impact to our body and mood and how this affects long-term outlook. Is a foe to the body Does not like the body and its needs and tries to over-write any signal from the body. Tests how far it can go. Wants to control and master the body. Turns into a “pain body” to fight the natural body needs. The entire neuro-chemistry exists to “block” the endocrine system reaction. In order to function socially. (This is a biological assumption) Can create serious issues If the body counter-attacks the brain and fires signals and alert responses to a situation, this leads to trauma. Trauma is ignored or “overwritten” by the brain and moves to sub- consciousness. This is already schizophrenic but turns to personality disorder if the BODY starts to force a MIND split. HABITS = A way to force the brain to accept routine as fact and build “rationalizations” that accept reality of habit as fact. The brain tendency to reduce cognitive dissonance does this.
  • 27. Part 1 : Emotions
  • 29. Introduction ▪ Emotions are powerful and dominant in how our body interacts with our brain and mind ▪ They shape psychology, psychology shapes relationships, relationships shape identities and lifepaths ▪ To understand all this, one needs to understand the links Our language and discourse sometimes makes it hard to understand what emotions are when comparing them to moods, feelings, motives and instincts. But this does not need to be the case. We know a lot of things today about emotions and what they are and how they interact as a filter and influencer against our thinking. But emotions are far more than just emotions. 1. Emotions not only come from our body, they also regulate our body. They have a profound influence on our stress level and our (neurochemical) balance. And by doing so, they impact how our body and mind reacts to certain situations. It also defines how different functions of the body work and grow or recede. 2. Emotions shape personality. Not simply because they are dominant in our every day life. But because the people we meet, connect with and interact with judge us and calibrate their relationships based on our emotions. Over mid- to long-term periods, our emotions shape our relationships and our relationships shape personality. In this first section, we look at some fundamental aspects behind or related to emotions. How they fit into our body and our general functioning. How they can be triggered and regulated by doing different things. And how they can be used to win for example political conflicts in social environments. The goal is not to give any practicable advice on how to deal with emotions, but to explain some mechanisms that are worth knowing and that help us reflect who we are.
  • 30. Signal Filtering & Treshhold Composition of “whole signal” State Change “Complex Signal” Processing Threat Assessment Attention Adjustment Observe Complex Signal Over Time - Threat Assessment - Object Recognition - Memory Activation - Become conscious Memory Impact - Known object / person - Good or bad emotion - Good or bad expectation Emotion = Neurococktail Lymbic System response Direct Response Conscious Visual Experience Mood Stimmung • Mood Mood • Feeling Perceived Hormones • Emotion Attributed to situation • Affekt A change in mood and emotion known to be caused by Situation • Laune Part of Mood and Feeling known not to change with Situation Conscious Experience Experience over time T: - Emotion over time - Feeling over time - Mood over time Impacts experience and memories of situations Mood = Hormones from All body / Endokrine System Endocrine Recovery Sleep & Rest Sex & Activity Nutrition / Hydration Biostimuli (Sun, etc.) Memory & Experience Tension = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro High Stress Hurts Hormone Functions Hormone Function Failure Increases Tension Tension dampens functioning of Neuro- chemical mechanisms Neurochemistry shapes experience and increases/reduces Tension Joint impact of Emotion, Mood and Tension creates colored experience which will later on impact experience. (Memory imprint) A 360° view on how the body connects to our perceived emotion and how different terms and concepts link to each other Endocrine Stressors Stress / Negative Thoughts Drugs, Bad Nutrition Noise, Pollution, Sickness Deprivation (food, water, sun, etc.) What we see and what is filtered can already be part of our psyche The goal is to filter “relevant” signals and excite our body to create a reaction. Before the brain works, our body deconstructs and re-builds raw signals into routing signals to different brain areas Pre-Brain Stuff = vegetative nervous system already reacts Emotion: Goal-oriented “feeling” Feeling: Involuntary expression Mood: Dampens Emotions/Feelings
  • 31. Emotion = Neurococktail Mood = Hormones from body parts / Endokrine System Memory & Experience Tension / Stress = Entire Body Hormone + Neuro State Coloration Of Present Historic Coloration Of Present Events Base Emotion (Neuro) “Feeling I” Emotion + Mood + Tension = Visual Emotion (“Feeling II”) Attributed trait / personality level = Acting Emotion (“Feeling III”) Outer Level implies behavior of our surrounding Intent and action causes inner state which triggers outer layers In essence, all that happens can be translated into a neurochemical cocktail that maps to what we know as emotions All this “emotional” stuff inside our body maps to 3 layers of emotions we call “feelings” here. 1. Feeling 1: The base emotions are sad, bad, happy, etc. and derive from the chemistry 2. Feeling 2: By adding our brain, we link base emotions to situations and judge the emotion 3. Feeling 3: By showing and acting on the emotion, others are able to judge our motives. This is the layer of emotion in relation to someone else. Although this is a very simplified mapping, it shows how basic emotions and action related to it when we are in a situation with external actors or facts, we start to communicate about ourselves and allow our own brain and that of others to judge us.
  • 32. Why is this interesting and helpful? 1. Nobody exactly knows how many memories, body functions and other factors actually lead to a certain emotion and why some people react to a certain circumstance or to events in a certain way. 2. But the mechanism is really simple and relies on a very small set of neurochemicals. And each one can be manipulated by a defined set of actions (bottom right). Which means no matter what generates a bad emotion, we can overwrite it with basic activities that regulate the neurochemical cocktail. The ability to do just that is called “resilience.” Forming habits and knowledge about how to change bad reactions. 3. Even more important is that nobody can see the reason for the emotion or what is really going on. The fact that we only know and can name so many emotions means means all interprations and options to influence us are based on these emotions. If we are easily influenced and not able to change or hide emotions, people can make us look angry for example and we can lose our connection to or reputation in a group. But we can also use this information to understand where others want to lead our emotions (usually with a certain goal and motive in mind) How taking care of the body – nutrition, activity, recovery – shapes emotions Link of Neurochemicals and Emotions Activities to regulate Neurochemicals Being Human, Connected, Good Stress, Activity and Relaxation Food, Enjoyment, Positive Energy Activity, Goals, achievements
  • 33. Identifying emotions as drivers of behaviour of others : Motive & Motivation is related to emotional state and psychology The Outer Layer : Reflection Points Working with the outer boundary ▪ We are typically able to attribute any behaviour to one of the oute layer emotions in us or others: 1. In any point of time, out of several options of action, everyone has to choose one option Humans can identify all available options and then find reasons why they are taken. 2. Over several points of time, repeated action clearly infers emotion, motive and relationship. T=1 T=2 T=3 Option 1 Option 2 Option 3 ▪ Given the action and emotion, we can scan in the shared past experience what might have triggered this emotion. From then on, we can decide to: - Reflection: Cooperate and Communicate to resolve e.g. a bad action - Strategic Action: Strategically change without cooperation the behaviour of the other (or ourselves) - Sabotage: Actively make a trap out of this behaviour for s.o. else or just block ability to act this way ▪ Our ability in controlling the bad emotion via identifying it, reflecting it and inducing corrective action is key to managing relationships well. Methods used are: - Display positive reaction / “love bomb” - Offer reflection and coaching to change the trigger and behaviour - Guide about utility of another behaviour and help cope with the emotion - Coerce or threaten the other to stop the behaviour directly - Build traps that exploit the behaviour of the other to induce group dynamics that hurt this person The critical point here is : behind any such emotion is motive, interpretation/reflection and intent. We can change our own behaviour or that of others by employing different strategies just out of reading the proper emotion and offering a way out into a better world. Unless we or the other person is too lost and toxic to heal and change this person in which case we have to love/accept/embrace it or leave it.
  • 34. Example Interaction Chains Relationships: 1. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person tries to change the angry person to happy. Without avail, the angry person stays angry. But the happy person does stay with the angry person. But the happy person never turns angry. The happy person is resilient, but also blindly naïve in trying to change the angry person who does not want to change. 2. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person tries to change the angry person to happy. The angry person realizes it is angry and wants to change. And after a while with both working on this, the happy person and the angry person are happy. Happy end. 3. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person wants to change the angry person. The angry person wants to be changed. But then the happy person turns angry, too. And now both are angry persons. The happy person lacked resilience and the angry person the ability to change. 4. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person wants to change the angry person. The angry person wants to change the happy person. The happy person turns angry. The angry person wins and had malicious intent, resilience and does not want to be happy, but to pull others down. The happy person was not resilient and not determined and naïve. 5. A happy person meets an angry person. The happy person wants to change the angry person. The angry person tries to change the happy person. The happy person walks away. Mostly, the unhappy person will not walk away. The happy person was wise. Social Groups: 1. A happy person joins a group full of happy persons. But then suddenly one happy person says something that makes the happy person sad in front of the group. Now the entire group this the happy person is a sad person. And many other happy persons start making the happy person sad. In this group, nobody was a happy person, but everybody lied. And their goal was to find a victim to display it was easily influenced. 2. Am angry person meets a group of happy persons and is rejected by the group for not being happy. But someone in the group tries to protect the angry person and tries to change the angry person. The angry person stays. Little by little, the angry person makes everyone in the group angry. And the former protector is chased out of the group. The morale of the story is that emotions play a key role in relationships and group dynamics and it is very easy to observe intent by just observing who is staying and who is leaving and who is changing emotions from A to B. Because so many people are unaware about this, even the social group case 2 was a boon for the banished former protector, because the angry person revealed that everyone was underneath an angry person. Long term friendships and relationships synchronize on their true emotions. Politics and influence in groups also focuses on changing emotion which is typically not something very conscious for people in the group. The attention and awareness towards these emotion games define how much freedom for emotional manipulation exists in the group and how toxic a group can become if the “pecking order” is threatened.
  • 35. Emotions and Stress ▪ Our competitive culture oftentimes uses stress to outcompete others ▪ Understanding how stress and emotions interact and affect behaviour and performance is key ▪ Supporting employees in building up resilience against stress and regulating (political) behaviour that causes is helps In management literature, there is something called “managing someone out”. If a person can not be forced to leave a company but is not wanted, the way to make this person to decide to leave is making his life miserable. We will run through this exercise on theoretical level because it shows how emotions can be turned negative, negative emotions can lead to social isolation and both can lead to intense levels of stress which then start to destroy various bodily functions from attention, to empathy to the ability to sleep, regenerate body functions and it can also lead to heart attacks and traumas. We also talk about the stress ladder which is a concept used in interrogations. By increasing someone’s stress level (adrenaline and cortisol responses over long periods of time), humans can be driven to lose their ability to use empathy to read a situation and even lose their ability to use their brain in full function as to tell lies or remember past lies. This is why it is used in interrogations: it destroys the ability of complex thinking and to tell consistent lies. The key takeaway is however that emotions do matter quite a lot. Not only to how we feel on a day to day basis, but how we are able to successfully interact with others and be accepted in groups. Even more importantly, emotions can lead to our muscles receding, our memory function being depleted, our emotional life becoming numb and empty and far more things. This is still linked more to resilience than to emotional intelligence, but it is well worth knowing.
  • 36. Happy, confident and normal people. Charismatic leadership figures and sales people. Malicious narcissists in their daily routine in pretending to be good people (integrity and consistency matters) Typical traits activated by a group to “shame” someone People who attempt to undermine others. (e.g. Bankers, Consultants, Bosses) Weak characters who try to stay strong and cope by putting others downs. Also linked to the managing out process described later Weak Character Traits or a typical “loser” or “outsider” or “loner” in a Hollywood movie. Bad / Assassinated Character or typical culprit in a Hollywood movie Dominant emotions in different characters in everyday life The recurring cycle of specific 2nd and 3rd layer emotions can give us a deeper understanding of where this individual is currently at in his / her life. It also tells a convincing story on how able such person is able to handle emotions given a specific context. And if such context is bad, it helps us to identify there is a problem, the root needs to be identified and ideally corrected.
  • 37. Leadership Traits / “Good” Shameful People / Victims / “Different” Attackers / Underminers / “Aggressive” Weak Character Traits / “Depressed” Bad / Assassinated Character / “Destroyed” Stress Ladder (cortisol level and stressing of the biochemical balance and nervous system) death Morning Productive Stressed Hyper Stressed Extreme Stress Collapse 1 2 3 4 5 6 How: Behaviours and Personality Traits (right) Correlate with stress (left) 1 2 3 2 3 4 5 In social groups, leaders, managers and political rivals use stress to change the behavior of individuals in the group to position them in the social architecture of the group.
  • 38. Stress Ladder (cortisol level and stressing of the biochemical balance and nervous system) death Morning Productive Stressed Hyper Stressed Extreme Stress Collapse 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 Very relaxed morning situation Little drive or anxiety, very friendly and social Average productivity and work-mode stress level Full capacity of human skills, but slightly more focused Before deadlines or when things do not go well. More tired, easy to be angered, lower EQ, full intellect EQ and intellect drop, pain systems start to appear. Still not aggressive, but tense and ready to defend position Aggression, issues with heartrate and blood pressure Low EQ, low IQ. Mostly habits survive. Click and Wirr reactions. Very hard to lie in this stage or think tactically Fight, Flight or : Freeze. The entire body shuts down. No real thinking possible. Very primal instincts, habits, or even lack of speech or functioning. ▪ Ability to function with specific emotions and moods depending on stress level ! ▪ Stress level – psychological process impacting it, so depends on interpretation - follows staircase model ▪ The higher the stress level – or cortisol level – the stronger suppression of capacitities leading to good moods and emos ▪ Over time, the high stress level produces bad personality traits – as others see it – and re-inforced bad traits.
  • 39. Mental Drain during Burnout process Emotional Social Cognitive Physical ▪ https://docplayer.org/14916981-Stressmanagement-als-bestandteil-der-unternehmensfuehrung.html ▪ https://www.gesunde-schulen-zuerich.ch/globalassets/gesundeschulenzuerich/tagung-2014/workshop_ruckstuhl.pdf Escalation levels of increased stress levels as individuals lose key competencies of their personality. # Description In Group ( Job External Spillover 1 Low excitement, feeling “low”, “everything is too much” Lower participation and status Social isolation, receding contacts 2 Hopeless – loss of vision; desperate – no coping-skill; depression – emptiness Starting isolation, network loss Friend loss; partnership tension 3 Abuse – drugs, sleep, nutrition, health; depression; shut-down, “freezing” Isolation, avoidance, victim Loss of all relationships, loneliness 4 Unable to function emotionally, hostile, empty, existential despair Termination Prison, Homeless, Drug Addict 1 Seclusion; social “drain”; emptiness around others; being annoying to others Less warm, more conflict Status loss; anxiety; less liked 2 “Am I still myself?” ; Others no longer of interest; more selfish Conflict, status issues Perceived change in personality 3 Paranoia; Aggression; Envy/jealousy; Threatening Severe conflict; loss of allies Isolation and Distancing 4 Choleric or completely dysfunctional – Fight or Freeze Isolation and Termination Complete isolation 1 Loss of creativity, mental flexibility, memory and general cognitive ability Less contributions and impact Less status; less “attraction” 2 Loss of concentration, harder to focus, less effective, hyperactive, tense First signs of underperformance Perceived as tense and odd 3 Loss of coherent thought, lost in thought, unable to keep train of thought Low performer and PIP Loss of ability to talk and connect 4 Blank mind, purely driven by impulse, habit; aggression, desperation Unemployable, termination Obscure character, isolation 1 Low energy, chronic fatigue; sleep deprivation Lower status and appeal Less active, loss of social life 2 Lower immune function; getting sickly, weakly; metabolism low Loss of status, perceived “issues” Needs more care, neediness 3 Headaches, digestion issues, backpain, tinnitus Perceived as overworked, sad Unable to participate in events 4 Heart attack; Internal bleeding; severe migraines; loss of voice of movement Malfunctioning Sever care taking required
  • 40. Stressors Catastrophic (External) Personal (Core Attack) Background Stressors ▪ https://docplayer.org/14916981-Stressmanagement-als-bestandteil-der-unternehmensfuehrung.html ▪ https://www.gesunde-schulen-zuerich.ch/globalassets/gesundeschulenzuerich/tagung-2014/workshop_ruckstuhl.pdf 1. Sickness, severe health issues 2. Birth or death cases in close relations 3. Loss of job, loss of life focus and so forth 1. Natural Desaster, Pandemics, War, Terror Attacks 2. Loss of belief, feeling of doom, dystopic outlook 3. Anxiety, despair, depression 1. Social tensions with friends, families, colleagues 2. Political conflict and fight at workplace 3. Not able to cope with school, work, social problems Workplace Modes of Operation in Highly Hostile Environments: ▪ Target profile is screened during hiring: e.g. high stress in all dimensions but strong achievement makes good “worker” managed by fear ▪ Onboarding focused on stress elevation: job start needs cognitive dissonance and stress to anchor the “boss” authority. Uses these. ▪ Managing employee: clear understanding and map of individual possible used to create stress and get individual to yield to authority Typical stress vectors to probe for when root causing stress level: Yes, the same works on a cultural level when “shocking” a society with proganda and collective trauma
  • 41. Bad Tired Stressed Bored Fearful Scared Anxious Surprised Confused Startled Fearful Stage 2 Rejected Threatened Angry Mad Aggressive Awful Guilty Vulnerable Frustrated Distant Desperate Disgusted ▪ Stress Levels high ▪ Isolation and Antagonizing ▪ Slow feed of negative attributes ▪ Waiting for madness and guilt ▪ Kill joy, freedom, success ▪ Deplete energy and eagerness ▪ Undermine hope and thankfulness ▪ Undermine confidence, respect - + “Managing someone out” : How behavioural change is triggered at work to isolate and exit an employee Escalation of stress and increased hostility from top to bottom engineered by a campaign of stress. Increase workload, add boring tasks, set impossible objectives. Create sense of possible loss: e.g. job loss, social isolation, loss of reputation and merit within organization Information control to create exclusion and loss of understanding of what is going on Stir conflict with others, e.g. rivals, former peers, To increase sense of being rejected Create public humility events where individual has to perform in front of audience. Ensure peak stress and create “fight/flight/freeze” moment. Individual has to break with its own values and destroy reputation by “suicide”. Social Dynamics does the rest, individual starts to lose control. Gaslighting, shaming, humiliation and social isolation after the person stopped with defensive reactions.
  • 42. Building Resilience: How to prevent stress activation and how to survive the wear and tear of competitive environments Body is foundation and key for all resilience Almost all stress environment or hostile environments try to destroy the foundation here. Sleep, nutrition, and movement and exercise. Belief in the trustworthiness of ones intuition and the ability to maximize effectiveness and joy in presence is key to step-by-step development. With a birth-given general potential, this allows to give an outlook on what is possible in ones life. Attacks against individual always focus On these three elements, presence and intuition being attacked most. Potential and opportunity gives direction for purpose and long-term goals aligned with a reason to follow them. The values must be consistent with the purpose and are used to dissect options that are viable with such that need to be avoided. Character attacks focused on motive do attack the values and purpose of ones actions and try to invalidate them. The ability to use stress-mitigating techniques - called meditation – and the ability to craft, tell and have accepted by others stories that are aligned with the values, purpose and merit of ones person are key to sanity. Hostile environments create stress and prevent mitigation. Stories are destroyed by the use of cognitive dissonance in an attempt to create authority and dominance over someone else. Building resilience by focusing on building strong defenses and avoiding any attempt to undermine them is key. The rest is a focus on harmony and active stress management.
  • 43. Resilience – Based on Sources of Stressors Catastrophic (External) Personal (Core Attack) Background Stressors 1. Focus on nutrition, recovery and exercise as part of lifestyle; avoiding stressors 2. Avoiding social stressors – e.g. bad milieu, characters, abusers 3. Hedging personal risk – not excessively focused on children, or job, or dreams - balance 1. Avoiding life in catastrophic environments via migration to better world (even described in Nitishastra of Chanakya) 2. Understanding social risks and plan for it while keeping positive and focused outlook 3. Planful and goal-oriented planning of life to avoid anxiety; while also nurturing a healthy attitude towards life to avoid resentment and depression 1. Social tensions with friends, families, colleagues 2. Political conflict and fight at workplace 3. Not able to cope with school, work, social problems Coping with Workplace Modes of Operation in Highly Hostile Environments: ▪ Avoid hostile environments by intelligent probing and thorough due diligence and background research ▪ Understand the mode of operation and deceive to a level that steady state in relationship is reached without being compromised ▪ Carefully guard any information that might be used to generate stress and attack vectors for colleagues or bosses, craft a ficticuos character that provides no entry point for an attack if need be and liase with partner to confirm story in case there is an overlap. While this might look deceptive, it is a reasonable approach to avoid being targeted by a Dark Triad personality in case of conflict. Models of generating resilience
  • 44. Managing Stress and Emotions : Resilience In this small section we look into some aspects of resilience that are not focused on the body and its functioning but about how the brain can be used to make the body endure pain and stress levels that appear “superhuman”. This is especially relevant to understand some critical aspects of our cultural life. Because it appears that pain and resilience belong to highly desired traits that also correlate with income and influence. This part is jumping a bit. The connection graphic we explain in the next part on networks. Body resilience is discussed more in the general part two when talking about moods.
  • 45. Resilience via Consciousness: Changing the effect of events on our body Not all stress management needs to be done by performing activities to regulate the neurochemical reaction. A lot can be done by eliminating the link between external events that trigger emotions and the actual emotion triggered. There are in essence two principal ways to do this. One comes more from the philosophical realm that focuses on reducing the impact of our brain and thinking on interpreting the relevance of certain situations. Another one comes from management and is focusing on clearly separating the self and identity from the role people are playing. Bankers and Consultants: One central element of banking and consulting culture is constant abuse. Abuse by superiors and abuse by peers. There is a reason these industries are called “shark tanks”. But it is indeed not the case that a good banker or consultant is traumatized and emotionally broken individual or that all bankers run marathons and eat healthy to build this form of resilience. A good banker understands that the abuse is after all just a game. A game that is part of the culture and is extremely valuable in being successful in negotiations later. Because the banker is not only allowed to learn to isolate the abuse from his emotions and inner self, but also allowed to abuse others, he essentially learns the mechanics of how people can use aggression to win in very tough negotiations against others.a Abuse basically works by having a weaker opponent that can not run away and that is fed the idea that he has a lot to lose, he has to perform, it is impossible to keep up with the work and that punishment for non performance is very high. The goal is paranoia and exhaustion to get the opponent high on the stress level. As we explained, this makes the opponent weaker and reduces mental capacity and increases errors. serious. Our brain uses the past to assign fear triggers to situations in the now that might not really have any meaning. And the fear we have is based on our projection on the outcome and long-term outlook of the current moment’s activity, which might be completely wrong and far too narrow-minded. By ignoring the past and the future and focusing on he moment, we reduce fear and all those stressful emotional triggers. And last, but not least, Buddhism and Stoicism also tell us that most we fear is loss of something we expect and desire in the future although the value of this desire is completely irrelevant. We should not desire the complex things, but focus on the simple things. Our ambition and blind belief in things we want that need approval of others to become a reality are often false prophets and just by reducing our desire, we have less fear. And hence a more stable emotional life. We are more resilient. Warriors and Sportsmen – Practice Based Resillience: Of course, a final practice of resilience is teaching the body that some pain has absolutely no relevance by practicing over and over again to a level of exhaustion. This will not stop the pain, but reduces the fear reaction from the pain experienced. It unlinks how our “brain” links the existence of a certain pain with imagining a potential bad outcome. Examples include for bodily pain: boxing and martial arts; extreme weather endurance and sports; “steeling” (e.g. by breaking over and over again) body parts in dance and martial arts; “hyperstressing” like rock climbing and gym; or sleep and food deprivation training Other practice based resilience training: as described banking, meditation and reflection, sales and pick up artistry. To a minor form, puberty is all about testing limits and building resilience to certain situations. What bankers and consultants know in these situations is how to use a tone in the voice that starts the limbic system of the opponent. It sounds “confident”, but it really is an animalistic way of triggering resentment, aggression and fear from the opponent to make emotions take over the entire relationship. On top, the level of confidence, assertiveness and constant blaming – deadlines, error, not being serious – is increasing the tension for the other party. The pace is increased, the deadlines are shorter, the information gets more and impossible to process, errors and paranoia are everywhere and then the interaction is full of arrogance, signals of humiliation and that voice that is triggering fear and resentment all the time. This is what bankers learn. To use these weapons of abuse without moral judgement and to expect it and accept it in a negotiation of others do it. People not trained in this always take the short stick in the negotiation by for example changing a very aggressive but hard to spot term in a 5000 page termsheet before the PR event next day at 4 am at night when all bankers are on cocaine and in their best of mind and the opponent is close to heart collapse. These skills are later transferred to management positions in start-ups and corporates and they simply work. But all it takes to build resilience is to call the bluff and just ignore all the noise created by such individuals and focus on the facts. This works at work and in real life. Separate the action from reality and assume everyone is only acting as a game with an intent you do not share. That is a key skill to learn in life. The fears people trigger in these games oftentimes are not real. The Buddhist approach: But what if the fears are real? Then there comes the buddhist approach that tells us that all fear on how a situation will change our future life is due to a failure of our brain taking itself too
  • 46. Resilience and Income Normal Person Intellectuals / Engineers / Doctors Entrepreneur & Salesman Bankers, Lawyers, Consultants Top Executives & Politicians Satanic Wizards, Cult Leaders, Billionaires, Dictators < 60.000 USD < 250.000 USD < 600.000 USD < 1.500.000 USD < 50.000.000 USD ??? Some can not even endure studying and getting a degree And get distressed from a bad colleague Disliike abuse and avoid it Usually able to discipline themselves and get a degree Medium masters in office group dynamics and politics Not used to systemic abuse and not trained in it High discipline and work ethic, resilience to rejection High influencing and sales skills. More “positive” side. Endure negativity Know abuse and how to avoid it or use it to manage teams Extreme high resilience to stress, abuse and violence High influencing skills on “negative” side with some skill in sales / “positive” Very trained in abusing and being abused High resilience, no pull effect from external stress. Poker face Ability to switch to any influencing skill required without being “caught” Skillful in use and highly resilient in dealing with abuse / attacks Pure focus on manipulating others in very complex settings Ability to shape personalities with long-lasting manipulation campaigns. Unaffected by others Typically destroy any attacker with all their might and skills Pain Level (Ability to endure abuse, ability to abuse, resilience, amorality) Influencing skills A strange cultural connection of resilience and income ▪ With the dominance of money in our society, many types of people try to end up where money can be made. The competition is high. ▪ Unfair tactics, violence, manipulation and strategic skills all mingle in the struggle over influence, reputation, power and performance ▪ This requires increased levels of resilience to cope with ever more complex interactions focusing on abuse as the pay scales increase
  • 47. Resilience and Dissociations We talked about bankers and their ability to consider their daily life as a game that they have to master. They are protecting their self-image and identity from the emotional push and pull of the situation and learn to increase the level of emotional tension between them and their peers without suffering. But the deeper method behind this is what psychologists call dissociation. Dissocation has many forms. A child born into a terrible circumstance with little hope of success can dissociate from the situation by creating a dream, a vision for its future and learning to endure and navigate the daily life while striving for a goal. Just like the banker, such a child needs to dissociate from how the current environment and the emotions the environment create affect the inner functioning of decision making, behaviour and habits. But this comes at the cost of the connection breaking with the people around it. And merely “performing” the emotion – of fear, of joy, of agreeing and disagreeing. Coming back to bankers, they do not dream a better world in which they can endure the pain. The environment actively prevents people from drifting off internally and they need to be present in the environment at all time. Instead, the dissociation is aiming to operate like sociopathically or psychopathically. In some cases, of course, the trauma and abuse also can lead to the actual social disorder, although such traumas usually are more common in childhood and environments where a very strong emotional binding exists and the means to protect from the trauma are not yet fully developed. In all cases, dissociation means either cutting the emotional connection or cutting the connection between the emotion and the psyche. By creating a psychological split. Which is a neurological approach to resilience. It is therefore different from the resilience concept that we describe in part two when looking at moods and coping mechanisms or the ones we highlighted earlier when talking about stress management. A dream dissociation is typically one where the emotional connection moves from individuals to imaginary beings, a future or inner self, and sometimes very selective individuals outside of the normal routine that have a highly positive influence. But even then, it depends on how well the individual is able to truly isolate from the environment before the belief in the process of dissociation is broken. In that case, people experience trauma and may develop dissociative disorders. Another strategy of dissociation affects life style itself and is common among artists, scientists and intellectuals as well as business people. They start to decide to break the connection to their environment and either do not associate with anyone – and go into seclusion or isolation – or merely tread others as objects that they have to strategically and tactically maneuvre. Classic models of personality disorders know two cases. Where an individual completely loses the ability to use empathy or the biochemical binding with others and has to merely mimic and perform physical cues that lead to emotional binding of others, which is called psychopathy. Or the empathy mechanism is still in place and the person can generate a good emotion that is then naturally transferred to someone else in order to manipulate this person; but there is no internal meaning of the emotion due to strong dissociation with the psyche. This called sociopathy.
  • 48. Resilience and Self Castration in Buddhism A new look at the buddhist way It is well known that Buddhism teaches the letting go of the pain. For almost anyone feeling pain, that is a noble thing to do. But depending on the specific teaching and practice, this can also be destructive. As the primary concern, one can assume that all teachings accept the fact that we can not solve all our internal traumas and subconscious issues with thinking. The mildest form of Buddhism teaching to solve this problem is mediation and the increase of awareness of ones emotions, moods and the patterns in which they show, the triggers that create them. To carefully assess them. Another worldly form of Buddhism that is found in the martial arts sects is aiming to combine this with strengthening of our body by enduring physical pain. In the hope of making our body in general less sensitive, more trained in dealing with pain and regulating self-control and moods. Something we look more into in part 2. But this is already destroying sensitivity and receptability of some bodily functions and hence reduces our ability to fully be human. With the goal of reaching a state that makes us more resilient. It starts to become more dangerous when buddhist starts teaching to let go of wants, desires, dreams and earthly goals. It is then when our ability of using dissociation to cope with a certain environment is put on the forbidden chair. If it is forbidden to have dreams and imagination, then we are not only no longer to transcend ourselves beyond our daily habits and life and the forces that we endure. This sort of teaching is more cult-like. The self-castration and extreme focus on routine and disicipline and the letting go of dreams and desires is merely a form of isolating and locking in individuals to take away their most natural tendency of connecting to other people and being part of society. The last and strictest version of Buddhism is aiming at killing off emotions in general. By becoming more and more sensitive in meditation when they form and how they flow through our body and learning – like the mountain climber learns to control muscle tension and blood flow – to build subconscious routines the suppress the excitement of any emotion. Hence if any emotion – maybe any other than happiness – is forming due to a chemical process generating a new balance of neurochemicals, a trained mental muscle is breaking up the reaction and pushes the emotion down. While it is true that these methods help us avoid pain, it appears highly dubious to belief that this serves any spiritual goal. It looks rather than complete hybris to think that working against millions of years of biological evolution is the step forward in achieving humanity. The truth being that such trainings are good to build out soldiers that can be activated in war that have little fear and are willing to die for whatever purpose is injected into their brain. But is it human spirituality? I doubt it.
  • 49. When things do wrong: When pressure and lack of resilience creates dissociation and trauma When things go wrong Not every resilience training really works and does what it is supposed to do. If a young martial arts student tries to smash a brick, it is more likely the hand is broken if the too much force is exerted in the weaker muscle. An over enthusiastic gym user mike strain a muscle, destroy a joint or otherwise impair his body if going too hard. The very same is true for other scenarios. Not eating for a few days can lead to collapse. Running a marathon without training can lead to a heart attack and death. Enduring extreme weather can lead to freezing to death or skin burns. And a free climber can lose muscle tension and fall into death. But the same is true for emotional stress. A child being abused too strong can become traumatized or face a dissociative personality disorder. A child constantly trained in being deprived of sleep, love or support can lose faith and confidence and even recede mentally and turn permanently impaired. A person hearth broken or in exteme pain from loss can stop functioning in society completely and turn away from society, depressed and even choose to die. What is the take away When thinking about resilience and other topics explored in this presentation, you have to think about which people, environments and circumstances might have the intention or possibility to traumatize you. And it is only natural to focus your presence and attention to avoiding such a scenario and in the ideal case you just leave this environment or relationship. The problem in any and all cases is that the body did not learn to do something that we do not know it is doing. To have the permanent tension for rock / free climbing the climber not only must learn to not be influenced by his brain to trigger fear and excitement – to overshoot mental functions -, but also the body needs to learn how to household with the energy and supply of nutrients that keep the muscles working under tight conditionts during the climbing exercise. This is a bio-chemical habit that needs to be formed and mastered as the climber practices. A person that endures abuse or even torture needs very trained mechanisms in his body that regulate the reaction of key body processes that regulate fear, thoughts, indocrine response (e.g. no fight/flight/freeze state) and that allow the body to produce feel good chemicals that overwrite the intended feel bad processes that generate potentially life threatening stress levels. More often than not the body must also be able to overwrite any process that would generate a certain mood or emotion that would yield a certain facial expression that would guide the abuser or torturer in deciding his next actions. So in any and all cases practice makes perfect and the practice generates sub-conscious routines of how different cells that interact with muscles, nervous system and total energy regulation to cope with the external events.
  • 51. Humans as networks Emotions are inter-personal binders among people In this chapter we explore how we are connected on emotional level with people around us. To really understand our emotions and how they influence our personality, relationships and evolution in life, we have to understand that we are not in fact individuals that can be looked at in isolation. In this chapter we look how emotions in groups shape experiences and habits and how this forms character and personality which then again shape new relationships and desires and goals. The key element to understand is the emotional connection and experience of emotions in relation to others that are in our relationship graph or network. We introduce an interesting theory on the biological foundations of group formation from Robert Dunbar and talk about Dunbar networks a lot. The fact that relationships need time to form and take time to end creates a form of emotional environment that is oftentimes more stable than the psychological and intellectual environment that is harder to communicate and share in groups. After all, we have only a limited set of emotions and connecting emotionally is fairly easy in groups if interaction is intense, authentic and frequent. Thoughts and ideas are as complex and manifold as they can be and are far harder to align in groups. That is why emotions also play such a critical role in social environments. They are simple. They are oftentimes easy to understand and read. And they are more often than not honest. With the notable exception among individuals with personality or social disorders. We look into some of those as well. In the last section on groups and identity crisis we also learned that living as member of a group rather than as individual, we have to abandon the concept that our inner self is something special. But very luckily, the concept of Dunbar circles which we explore soon is resolving this issue a bit again.
  • 52. Dunbar Circles: A quick intro ▪ People do not fall onto the earth at any given point. They all come with a long history. ▪ The history of relationships explains a lot about trauma, stress, ego and emotions in the current moment ▪ Many dysfunctional behaviours can be healed by coaching people through their own emotional history ▪ The model by Dunbar on the intensity of our relationships is a really powerful tool to work on this We talked a lot about emotions, stress and how this all relates to situations and our ability to perform within a setting and social environment (or in groups). But we did not discuss the personality aspect of this yet. What comes now is the long-term intertemporal dynamics of emotions and our “network”, or people we spent a lot of time with. To understand this concept, we start with a very well established model by a guy called Robert Dunbar. His work says how our mental capacity and the time we have in our days relates to our ability and limits to have meaningful relationships with n number of people. The work focused on the meaningful size of social (online) networks, but it reveals a deeper truth. You can not have 500 friends that you interact every day with. If you sleep for 8 hours, work for 8 hours, do household and self-care for 2 hours, you have 6 hours for socializing. That is less than 1 minute for every person every day and given that everyone lives a day of 16 hours a day, that is not enough to stay connected. So his work focuses on how this all affects how many people we can have relationships with on a certain level of depth ranging from partner and family to close friends, good friends, to coworkers and so forth. But if we only have a certain amount of people we can spent a specific amount of time with and have certain types of relationships ; and if what we share and talk about and experience with these people and how we feel with and around these people ; then we can look at how the people in these different circles (we call them Dunbar Circles) affect our personal development, our emotions and our identity.
  • 53. Understanding Dunbar Circles 1 2 3 4 5 Intimate Relationships - Daily touchpoints and interaction (30 Minutes to 5 hours) - Strong co-dependency and joint development - Symbiotic in different aspects of life - E.g. Partner, children, family Best Friends - Multiple touchpoints per week (30 Minutes to 4 hours per week) - No co-dependency, but strong liking and affiliation - Shared time, emotion, memory, experience - E.g. very best friends, family members, dates Good Friends - Touchpoints at least once a month, remote or real (< 4 hours/month) - Interesting conversations, regular joint experiences - Interest in each other, joyful time spent together, advice - E.g. people we like and cherish, but cannot accommodate deeper Friends - Touchpoints in month, quarter or annual range (<10 hours/quarter) - We “know” or “hear” about their life sometimes and stay updated - Meet up when in town or go to parties and birthdays, talk well Acquaintances - People we meet from daily to annually, that are “part of our life” - Not necessarily inclined to talk to or share thoughts with - Interaction is managed and distant and professional Our cognitive ability and the time available in our life to bond defines bands of bonding and proximity that Robin Dunbar analysed. It underlies organizational principles in organization and life. https://de.slideshare.net/EXCCELessex/robin-dunbar-has-the-internet-changed-our-social-world Note: The hours here focus on “personal shared experience” first and “meaningful goal-intertwined interaction” second. Not time sitting in the same room.
  • 54. Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Workaholic 1 0 0 10 20 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Girlfriend is only best friend. - Will not marry, since no social life and overburdened - Clear risk of “father” being not available for children - Lack of friends and family in life provide no backup support - Unclear if sanity or personality is stable or can be understood Essentially no friends - Might have the feeling of being close to some core friends - Commitment and time spend on relationship not sufficient to have a mutual understanding of the friendship - Exceptions are if both friends are in same situations and deceive themselves of being good friend. - Likely no support in crisis. So not real friends. Colleagues are “friend replacements” - Excessive need to build bonds with colleagues - Makes more vulnerable from attacks and deceit - Helps others in organization understand that isolation can be used to elevant stress level to extreme level to beat individual - Individual more open to be extortet by threat of loss of reputation, job or position and responsibility in the job “Shift in Network” - Individual understands “friend” colleagues as good friends. - Understands acquaintances as “friends”. - Misunderstands equity of relationship and perceives as “naïve” - Has to strategically manage the network without ability to use relationship to pull in a favour This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
  • 55. Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Low Esteem Person 3 6 10 20 20 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Intimate relationship with low-ball peers - Controllable girlfriend, punshing below one’s weight - Same with friends. Low growth of group and focused on past - Very low outlook and likely lots of tension from being mediocre Friends below ones weight, too - Lots of time spend with “friends” in social activity - Most social activity not enriching or emotionally relevant - “wasting time” with “social activity” that is considered “good” - Nobody truly happy or willing to care and give in the ecosystem Colleagues are “tolerated friends” - Colleagues are managed more maturely as tolerated friends - The set-up in 1 – 3 however makes individual the lower weight in peers - Low ability to demand status and influence outside of being “nice” - Hence less likely to be an active player in the political theatre Very low exposure to higher level acquaintances - Unable to control circles 1 – 4, the level 5 is already not part of the managed theatre - People in this circle come and go and have little tactical advantage This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
  • 56. Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Balanced Mature Person 5 8 25 120 250 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Fully intact Intimate Circle - Good relationships with partner and family members - Shared activities, memories, stories and caretaking - Individual clearly has a focus on its family base and growing it Best Friends in tact - Clearly has best friends with deep emotional connection - Friends relay information about wider shared network - Deep experiences and caring and trust is part of relationship - Help each other out, help grow and reflect circle 1 issues, etc. (Companion) Friends mix colleagues and people from past - Circle 2 – 3 help remaining connecting with past people in circle 4 - Individual knows how to create meaningful moments with diverse set of individuals that have developed into different strands of life - Ability used to bond deeply and personally with key colleagues and work contacts by allowing them into outer circle. Acquaintances are a well managed ecosystem - All members in circle 2 – 4 join in managing the ecosystem of acqu. - Acquitances are added to the 2- 4 circles and withdrawn - Information flow and shared insights allows good management and tactical navigation also at work. - This circle becomes a resource for achieving goals without any affect to personal well-being, but while also possible bonded with effectively Good Circle of Good Friends - Phone calls, summer vacations, lunches, parties, birthday parties - Gifts are exchanged, stories are told and updated, values shared - Similar lifestyle, milieu and values and true commitment makes a rich - Friend circle and increases resilience of the core personality and outlook This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
  • 57. Understanding Dunbar Circles - Archetypes The Professional Mature Person 5 15 50 150 100 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Fully intact Intimate Circle - Good relationships with partner and family members - Shared activities, memories, stories and caretaking - Maybe 1-2 professional contacts jointly strategizing for success Best Friends of strategic relevance - “emotional comfort” is given in circle 1 and is sufficient. - Circle 2 is a tool to build strong bonds with strategically relevant individuals to be used for advancement of career - E.g. “Harvard grad peers from wealthy families or in politics” Tactical short- to mid-term assets as “friends” - People who can be deployed as workers or assets are added to the “friends” list. Relationship is built and abandoned based on objectives and the result generated. - Transactional level of friendship; own network and friend position must give leverage to the other in order to be controlled. Tactical Elements that are controlled via circle 4 -5 - Acquaintances include people that are de facto within the sphere of influence of the individual, whether desired or not - Goal is storategically manveurer with or against these assets using the circles 2 – 4. - The people that need to be dealt with are always mimized. Anyone not relevant is simply ignored or pushed out. The power circle of good Friends - Strategic assets in circle 1 and 2 support managing circle 3 - Circle 3 is full of networkers and influencers that help broker power - All relationships are carefully managed and kept alive and steady flow of value from and to the network is key aspect. This can be better understood by how different types of people use the time they have to focus on social relationships. Here we look at some “prototypic” artificial examples.
  • 58. Understanding Dunbar Circles – Dunbar Quality What is Dunbar Quality? It does not only matter how many people we are involved in. It also matters what kind of people are involved in (depending on goals and lifestyle). Type Dunbar 5 Dunbar 15 Dunbar 50 Dunbar 150 Dunbar 500 Comment Founder Hometurf, Helpers, Stepping Stones Family, Co-Founder, Other Founders Investors, Advisors, Top Team Employees, Top Clients, Advisors, Industry leaders Clients, Investors, Industry Leaders, Professional Network Potential Hires, Potential Investors, Other Entrepreneur, Influencers Mostly “taker” relationship of whoever trusts and helps Billionaire Inner Circle, Return on Investment Family, Secretary, Mentor Trusted Advisor, Top Executives Competitors, Top Executives, Advisors, Investors, Mentors Shareholders, Customers, Key employees, Professional Network, Lobby Employees, Stakeholders, Regulators, Spies/Information, trusted “get things done” Strategic relationships with very few insiders who support success Family Person Love, Growth, Responsibility Family, Best Friends, Partner Neighbor, Best Friends, Extended Family, Friends Interesting Peers, Trusted Friends, Coworkers, boss, children teachers, friends, banker, tax advisor, mentor, old bosses, old friends and colleagues Coworkers, future employers, professional network, neighborhood, parents of childrens best friends, etc. Clear focus on quality relationships and achieving goals while living good life. High awareness State President Paranoid / Performance Low trust level, hence no Dunbar 5 Partner, Parents, maybe an old trusted friend Advisors, Other Senior Politicians, Loyal Subordinates, Children Advisors, Experts, Lobby, Other Politicians, Party network, Powerful who own favors, useful fools/footsoldiers, press, etc. Highly paranoid and strategic Drug Addict No relationships Drug addict partner Other drug addicts Support Group Almost no social group Normal Person Wasting Time Parents, Partner, Children “Friends” Co-Workers, Acquaintances Acquaintances, people needed in “admin” life Mostly stuffed socially with bad relationships Workaholic Obscure co-dependency Family, Boss Co-Workers / Peers Friends, Co-Workers Acquaintances Mixed up relationship levels and high co- depedency
  • 59. Personality Development and Dunbar ▪ Key aspect: anything humans do or do not do strengthens (builds) or weakens (atrophy) their abilities in this sector ▪ The intensity, frequency and quality of experiences is what drives habits, brain structure / intellectual capacity ▪ Choices and chance define relationships early on and relationships encode habits via mimicry and adaptation. ▪ Relationships define character. Character defines relationships. So far we introduced the Dunbar Circle model. But what really makes it interesting is to trace who the people are in the different circles in our own lives as we grow older and who the people are in other people’s lives. Bad or traumatic parents which typically sit in Dunbar 5 can have a profoundly bad influence. But also bad friends in school who sit in Dunbar 15 instead of Dunbar 50 (we spent too much time on them and do not “manage” them like acquintances, but trust them as friends) can have traumatic effects. So when we look at a person today and we listen to their story of the past and who was in which Dunbar circle when who who had which traits, we can map the personality traits of this person to the influences in their past life. A person who can not trust had likely many people in Dunbar 5 to Dunbar 15 for a long period of time that betrayed this person and should have been in Dunbar 50 or 150. A person who had barely anyone in Dunbar 5 or 15 for a long period will be more immature than a person with a rich set of people. But if we only have a certain amount of people we can spent a specific amount of time with and have certain types of relationships ; and if what we share and talk about and experience with these people and how we feel with and around these people ; then we can look at how the people in these different circles (we call them Dunbar Circles) affect our personal development, our emotions and our identity. By understanding these frameworks and how they shape someone’s life choices can help us understand where people are coming from emotionally and what type of relationships and experiences leads them to the character and lifestyle that is visible today. This can be relevant for hiring and cultural management in organizations as well in navigating relationships.
  • 60. Mapping Dunbar Networks over time and development stages People do not simply appear and disappear in our Dunbar circles. The composition of who is in which circle is a process over time combining randomness and choice on commitment. A framework for analyzing one’s own personality or that of others is seen below. If every square in the grid is filled with a name of a person (here the red means a bad influence), then one can discuss or talk about who this person was and infer what kind of influence this person had on the personality (the emotions, beliefs, behaviors, mindsets) of the person describing his life in this framework. Our habits, beliefs, emotions are often an imprint of the people joining our lives in different Dunbar Circles. Some of which we choose, some of which we endure. 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13 Year 14 Year 15 Y Dunbar 5 - No 1 Dunbar 5 - No 2 Dunbar 5 - No 3 Dunbar 5 - No 4 Dunbar 5 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 1 Dunbar 15 - No 2 Dunbar 15 - No 3 Dunbar 15 - No 4 Dunbar 15 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 6 Dunbar 15 - No 7 Dunbar 15 - No 8 Dunbar 15 - No 9 Dunbar 15 - No 10 Mom Toxic Tony Casey Can Do Mediocre Marvin Pre School Primary School Middle School S V ▪ Dunbar 5 Toxic Tony talked bad about person in early school time and then drifted away leaving behind trust Trauma. ▪ Casay Cando inspired dance and music and imprinted passion for years to come from Dunbar 15 ▪ Mediocre Marvin attaches to Person for the next years in Dunbar 15.
  • 61. Artificial examples of how early age Dunbar configuration affects emotions and maturity 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13 Year 14 Dunbar 5 - No 1 Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Grandma Dunbar 5 - No 2 Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Tony Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Dad Dunbar 5 - No 3 Sister Sister Sister Sister Sister Kyle Sara Sara Sara Sara Sara Kyle Dunbar 5 - No 4 Grandma Grandma Grandma Tony Tony Sara Jörn Jörn Jörn Jörn Jörn Jörn Dunbar 5 - No 5 Grandpa Grandpa Grandpa Dunbar 15 - No 1 Grandpa Grandpa Sister Tony Tony Tony Tony Tony Sara Dunbar 15 - No 2 Grandma Grandma Dad Sister Sister Sister Sister Sister Dunbar 15 - No 3 Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad Dunbar 15 - No 4 Carla Carla Carla Carla Carla Dunbar 15 - No 5 Jose Jose Jose Jose Jose Dunbar 15 - No 6 Dunbar 15 - No 7 Pre School Primary School Middle School Example 1: Individual grows up with healthy relationships and high emotional connection ▪ Produces more Oxytocin (see next slide) and learns social behavior faster 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13 Year 14 Dunbar 5 - No 1 Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Mom Grandma Dunbar 5 - No 2 Dunbar 5 - No 3 Dunbar 5 - No 4 Tobi Tobi Tobi Tobi Dunbar 5 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 1 Dunbar 15 - No 2 Tobi Tobi Tobi Tobi Dunbar 15 - No 3 Dunbar 15 - No 4 Dunbar 15 - No 5 Dunbar 15 - No 6 Dunbar 15 - No 7 Pre School Primary School Middle School Example 2: Individual grows up with one parent and in front of TV. Rarely any relationships ▪ Low development of emotional skills and safety net. Experiences more unhealthy individuals In Dunbar 15 Mimicry, experimentation and socialization is likely far different from example 2. Individual has a wide range of experiences and learns to trust and rely on others. This has effect on the emotions felt and neurochemistry, which is then stabilizing in habits and be- haviours which help anchor the psychological profile for long time to come. Mimicry, experimentation is focused on being alone and interacting in imaginary world. While this is safe, it does not guarantee ability to influence and live real relationships with their daily push and pull of emotions. The development might lead to high level of naivity or very high level of distrust and antagonism to outsiders.
  • 62. Atrophy / Regression Activity / Development Long-term impact on lifestyle and life goals can be seen in this overview: A case for Oxytocin rich relationships ▪ A person full of great relationships, caring and love will have strong oxytocin levels constantly. ▪ Habits for creating dopamine will be focused on oxytocin-strengthening ones and around the social circle. ▪ The groups will seek to obtain good levels of serotonin by being active, mindful and going into the sun ▪ The shared experiences and the natural levels of all other neuro- transmitters will also lead to larger endorphine levels which gives the group the confirmation of the right life style. ▪ A person that does not have any good relationships will have low oxytocin. ▪ The dopamine will require individual actions and creates habits that foster more isolation. ▪ Most natural suppliers of endorphine will be reduced which will lead to less stress tolerance. ▪ This will lead to the need to generate more actively serotonin via activity. Which also isolates the individual. But this cycle will prevent the individual from understanding and caring for the relationships that can change this dynamic. Happy persons will find it hard to accept a rather exhausted incomplete human that does not place high focus on care and the human interaction. And the person will mingle with others that have the same problems and the cycle does complete. In its perfect “worker” form, the individual has no oxytocin but very strong longing for it, which gives rise to “co-dependency” issues and opens for being exploitable and driven by external factors of “reward”. The endorphins only work via exercise and in its cheapest form “entertainment”. Endorphine become a “reward and punishment” system that is highly transactional and also leads to higher risk of abusing drugs and engaging in aggressive sexual behaviour where partners are treated as objects for endorphine. The human becomes cynic and amoral as everything is transactional. The human needs to do a lot of exercise to keep serotonin levels high. A low one meaning self-hatred, a high one meaning more aggression towards others. The transactional view, the co-dependency, the aggression generate aggressive worker bees. With dopamine now tied to ambitious and grandiouse goals, the worker is perfect. Completely negating his Humanness (Oxytocin) and being trapped in a cycle of pain and ever stronger scheduling of the body. The whole human The incomplete human The Aggressively Ambitious Worker Family and Past Friends and Shared Destiny Group Partner Light relationship with Family and Past Light Relationship with Partner Hostile Work and Friend Zone Hostile Work and Friend Zone Objectified Partner Lost Family and Past
  • 63. Long-term impact on lifestyle and life goals can be seen in this overview: A case for Oxytocin rich relationships Family and Past Friends and Shared Destiny Group Partner Light relationship with Family and Past Light Relationship with Partner Hostile Work and Friend Zone Hostile Work and Friend Zone Objectified Parter Lost Family and Past Pure Relationship Model ▪ Relationships are primary goal of life ▪ Nurturing and caring environment ▪ External factors such as security, career, individualism come second after relationship The individual does not care what external goals exist. The individual does not move away from the rooted environment, it does not strive to exist and grow outside of its relationships. All focus equally on growing together as friends and as one strong group in life. Individidualism ▪ Primary focus on security, career, individualism ▪ Ability to have one or two true relationships in life with focus on building at least a light nurture ▪ Little or no support in daily struggle from old relationships ▪ Career and goals over co-workers and friends makes relationships competitive and hostile Typically, individual has moved and left its original habitat and lost relationships, but still cherises new relationships and nurturing them. Oftentimes the desire for individualism and growth is so energy – consuming that Failed Individual ▪ Sole focus is external growth, career, success and compensating measures of life ▪ All relationships are objectified and competitive, individual needs to perform and manage ▪ Often past friendships and relationship to family is poor, making the individual very lonely