The palace of emotions
Our mind is a palace of emotions.
It consists of several facilities, bedrooms, and living rooms. Some are bright, with slit windows that let in rays of sunshine that make the decoration shine. Some have flowers with dazzling aromas and armchairs made of soft fabrics.
In these rooms, we socialised to the sound of unforgettable music, tasting delicious food, living moments of joy and euphoria.
In some other rooms, we shared feelings of passion, love and friendship.
Its walls were painted by our best attitudes, such as courage, compassion, gratitude, and altruism.
Then there are the places where you feel peace, hear the birds singing, listen to the sound of the calm breeze, the water flowing down the waterfall.
In short, in this wing of the palace we have experienced moments that we would like to eternalise.
“When life is good, you do not want it to end at that moment. Live in a way that makes you wish the moment you lived would be eternal. Live in such a way that makes you want to continue living as you currently do. And that’s the symptom of the good life.”
(Professor Clovis de Barros, quoting Nietzsche)
This palace also has its basements and dungeons. Dark, sad and mouldy places. There we feel unpleasant, disgusting smells. There we learn about cruelty, envy, betrayal, and loss.
In these spaces, we experience pain, suffering, anguish, and sometimes depression.
There are also some hidden rooms that have left their mark over time. We do not know when they were built. They have no name. They generate unjustifiable feelings and influence our lives. We only discover them by revisiting the palace countless times and paying attention to the details. When we find their key, the light comes in and everything becomes clear. They become part of one of the familiar wings of the palace.
Between these wings there are also intermediate floors, where weapons and shields are stored, for the moments when we fight battles with enemies or saboteurs. These must be identified, one by one. Some of these floors reek of boredom, sometimes tending towards discouragement or awakening creativity, inviting us to climb to the upper floors.
This palace is so big that, in order to better live in it, we should draw a plan with the names of the rooms and their keys, so that we may find the way to them whenever necessary.
The names of each compartment and their keys should be listed in the form of a dictionary. These names have an emotional meaning associated with them, experienced in moments from the past. They are triggers that set off the emotions we see fit to feel in the present. They are switches that can illuminate our past life in order to discover and overcome obstacles.
There is nothing good or bad about this palace. There are facilities that can be used favourably or unfavourably, according to our convenience.
They can save us or condemn us.
They can mean heaven or hell.
Throughout our lives, we can keep building, remodelling, or demolishing our palace. The quality of our journey towards our greater purpose depends on the effort we put into this endeavour.
Depending on our goals, we can make good use of the past if we consciously revisit each of the facilities in the palace that life has built within us and discover new facilities.
Imagination is about reshuffling the memories we lived in these facilities, making new combinations.
This process is the most effective way of learning from the past, living in the present and enlightening the future.
This dictionary is used for almost everything in life. It is very important to perfect it. This allows you to make powerful neuroassociations.
You can associate anything that you strongly desire with a moment of great pleasure, joy, euphoria, peace. If it is something that you do not desire, associate it with fear, anger, disgust, anguish, or any seriously painful emotion.
Check your dictionary, use the triggers, the anchors that will set off these moments, over and over again, until you achieve the results you want.
Being a problem maker or a solution maker depends on the ability to focus where you want.
And the quality of your life will depend on your ability to improve your “palace of emotions” using your imagination.
You can change beliefs. You can acquire or get rid of habits. If you want to have a good life, invest in your memories. Relive them, write them down, collect them.
Specialise in yourself.
With the map that shows you the routes to take, and your dictionary within your reach, you will be able to withstand any kind of life.
In this dictionary, you should pay special attention to the moments that relate to purpose, commitment, determination, discipline, breakthroughs, resilience, imagination, focus, habits, routines and, above all, the courage to act.
Use golden keys to open these compartments. Take care of them as if they were sacred places.
Relive moments when you had the courage to train and use them. Moments when you succeeded or failed, because you acted or failed to act. Whenever you have or you recall an emotion while you are living life, hurry and open up a new room in your palace.
I do not wish to convince anyone.
You will be convinced once you start recalling your stories, once you know how to use them and start living the life you want.
To live is to know how to maintain good emotions. This can be done by opening your “palace of emotions” on the page that suits you.
To live is to manage the conflicts between: life and death; meaningfulness and uselessness; guilt and shame. This creates stress and anxiety.
If you want to know why this approach works, you can find the answers in scientific studies on the neurobiology of emotions and behaviour, carried out by outstanding scientists.
Breathing
Two and a half thousand years ago, Buddhists already knew the importance of breathing and meditation in life. Today, neuroscience proves that the best way to connect body and mind is through breathing.
When we change the way we breathe, we change the chemistry in our brain, and so we change our mental states.
During the more than four years that I was involved in war training, I was able to see that, in the period of training at peak physical demand, there were no cases of depression. After this period, these cases were more common in teams that failed to preserve physical fitness or work routines. In other words, teams that made their idleness and aimlessness clear.
A warrior has to maintain physical and emotional fitness; there is no respite.
Upon noticing any sign of loss of energy, the solution is to intensify training.
Metacognition
Metacognition is one of the most effective ways of training the alignment of our inner voice with the emotions we desire.
This is a matter of thinking about the way one thinks. It is the ability that people have to control their cognitive processes. It is the ability to be aware of their actions and thoughts (Flavell, 1987; Nelson & Narens, 1996; Sternberg, 2000).
When an event triggers an emotion in you, think about the thoughts you had at that moment and write about it.
Give the emotion a name, label it.
Labelling is giving a name to the triggered emotion. It is about recalling it from the past, from memory, and bringing it into consciousness. From the unknown and obscure into the light. The things that are known to you do not scare you.
Investigate occasions when you felt that same emotion. What were you thinking then?
From emotion to emotion, you will get to the root of the emotion.
Nothing can be changed unless it is known. You can regulate emotion by reshaping thoughts. For example: “I feel anguished.” What do I find myself thinking about when I feel this way? Have there been situations in which I have felt this same way? Why do I feel anguish? What if I reshape this thought? What if I find an opportunity in it, instead of interpreting it as a threat?
Great opportunities arise from terrible threats.
To give new meaning to a thought, associate it with some other situation in which you felt pain or pleasure. Try to make this connection.
This causes a neuroassociative change.
Use your imagination to make these changes.
The association mechanism relies on the thoughts that you have and the type of association that you make. If we consider something as bad, we will not be able to see where the benefit lies; we will automatically start trying to find attributes that confirm our judgement.
Instead of focusing, for example, on the diet you must follow and how difficult it is going to be, you should be focusing on the opposite—you should focus on the body you would like to have.
This is different from ruminating on a thought. When I ruminate on a thought that causes me anguish, I look for arguments to justify it, and this leads to suffering.
When a thought comes along and causes discomfort, it is also possible to replace it with one that gives you joy. By repeating this, you make this process automatic. You develop a habit.
Firstly, start by admitting and accepting the fact, and then analyse it from different perspectives.
Secondly, focus on what is happening in your body. Forget about your thoughts. Example: the muscles on my neck are tense, my jaws are clenched, my stomach hurts, my chest is heavy, my heart is racing... Name the emotion you are feeling: fear, shame, anger, anguish, etc.
Thirdly, pay attention to what you are thinking about.
Fourthly, reflect on this: the thought I have—is it exaggerated or distorted?
In this way, you will be coming out of your unconscious and becoming aware of what is happening.
Ask yourself: What is it that I could think about in order to feel better? Were there situations in which I did better? Focus on these situations. What does it make me feel? It is wonderful to feel that changes are already taking place, less anguish, less fear, etc. Your body’s signals start to change. Then you know what you must do. What is the first step I can take? This is the smallest step that you can take, but it is a step that you really must take.
Every day, when you notice a toxic emotion, acknowledge the damage it is doing to you and follow this method. Until you take control.
Metacognition should also be applied in regard to good emotions. Doing this is highly important—we can say that you will only know that you are happy if you can reflect on the moments that give you pleasure, joy and well-being.
Prolonging this feeling requires focusing on these moments; otherwise, you can get as far as living a comfortable life and not feeling happy.
Mentorship
Knowing how to look for mentors, inspiration or information are individual skills. Only you can know which mentors are right for you.
Because understanding something depends on how we analyse the information that our truths provide us with.
Having good mentors is the best way to save time. To get more things right.
Your truths are the result of your emotional memories and your beliefs.
Information is analysed by applying the logic you use to interpret the world, i.e., how you organise information so that it makes sense, so that you can understand it.
The logic we use also depends on the context and the mood at the time.
No matter how credible your mentors are, the quality of what they propose and the reasoning behind it, their intended message will be of no use if it cannot set off an emotion.
Communication is about exchanging emotions.
It is ineffective to refer other people to your mentors. It is just like wishing your children to heed everything you tell them. People only make use of the information that sets off their emotions, and this depends on each person, on the “dictionary” they use to interpret it.
Even though every communicator’s dream is to teach, the best things cannot be taught. They are more than thoughts.
One can only learn something that they can feel.
Nobody can spare the time to study all the things that scientists publish.
Today, with all the ease offered by social media, there are scientists, journalists and other researchers who follow and share various topics in many fields of knowledge.
For this reason, it is increasingly easier and quicker to find credible mentors. However, it is important not to fall for the traps that advertise infallible solutions, that make people attend every single lecture they can, and that make these people go to every place that offers easy solutions.
The frustration brought about by said behaviour means that, once the excitement of the moment has passed, around 70 per cent of these people either do not begin any endeavour at all or fail to conclude it if they do begin.
They feel like they have a thousand pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that do not fit together. These pieces can amaze these people, but they do not fit together.
This process is not just ineffective. It also strengthens your inner voice, which says “it’s not worth it, this isn’t for me”.
It is up to you to choose how to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. The words we read or hear have a different emotional meaning to each of us. It depends on the context in which they were stored and the neural network they use.
Benjamin Lee Whorf put forward the theory that language determines the nature and content of thought.
That is why any given mentor—or their recipe—does not work for everyone.
Personally, I think that all honest self-help proposals are important.
We can divide them into two types: those that inspire us, that switch on the light inside us and make us see things we previously did not see, and those that give us the knowledge we need.
Since they use creative arguments, they propose methods that are capable of setting off triggers. These triggers lead to thoughts that reshape beliefs. However, they will only work if they work for you.
Criticism of self-help stems from its attempt to sell the same solutions to everyone. There is no generic formula. If you believe in it, you will be frustrated.
Only your formula has a chance of working.
How to find mentors?
First — Pick the important issues for your change process. Start researching each one. You will find several works on each issue.
Secondly — Among all the communicators who speak of the given issue, look for those who are doing responsible, quality work. Check if there is any consensus among them in regard to the people who they mention as legitimate sources.
Third — Identify those who give you the knowledge you need, with clarity. Identify those who make you understand the subject better. Once you feel inspired by the proposed solution, write it down, re-read it. If it is in video, watch it again. Think about it, reflect on it, find examples in your life, visit your “palace of emotions, your dictionary”, make associations with what you need in order to reshape your beliefs, change your course or find new ways to follow your current path.
Fourth — Pick and write down the techniques and solutions that work best for you within your plan. Concentrate on what matters. Do not digress. Try to assess whether you have applied a consistent selection criterion. Are these mentors mere peddlers of ideas? Or do they actually have the legitimacy of someone who knows the things they propose, using them and achieving them?
Always be wary of easy propositions and effortless miracles. Make sure that you are not choosing them on the basis of a discourse that matches the things you like to hear, i.e., the discourse of your tribes. Tribal sense often prevents us from being open-minded.
You are biologically equipped to survive, by hunting, fighting in all conditions, weathering rain, wind, cold and illness.
How can someone use their entire arsenal to propose methods that they never used?
Would you like to become somebody’s guinea pig?
You need to choose recipes offered by those who have enough authority to speak on the subject, even if they think differently.
Do not forget that your brain always prefers people who think like you, and this is not the best way to learn new solutions, to create, to break paradigms.
Be humble. Silence that inner voice that always wants to be right.
Having good mentors is something that avoids wasting time on repeating old mistakes and gets you faster to a life that is worth living.
And get to work, GET IT DONE.
A store where the products are essential to a good life
Everything in life is acquired at a price. Everything can be paid for in cash or in instalments. There can even be a default. There is only one currency—energy—and there are two types of payment: cash with a discount or instalments with interest.
Interest is variable, ranging from pain to suffering. The dividends received are called pleasure. There are also rewards for customers who buy in cash a few times, and other rewards for the loyal ones who buy regularly, albeit in small quantities. These rewards come as prizes with beautiful inscriptions in gold that read victory or success. They give pleasure that can range from joy to happiness. For humans, learning to shop in this store means knowing how to choose what is worth paying for in cash, what is worth paying for in instalments, and even what should not be paid for at all. Other animals—that lack such a developed mind—always pay in cash. They went into extinction when they failed to do this.
If we adopt certain models of thought that prioritise what is essential to fulfilling our plans for life, if we move towards minimalist, Epicurean and stoic behaviours, we will avoid the pains that we can control, in terms of health, meaning and morality, reducing anxiety, anguish and shame. If we live our achievements with joy, however small they may be, if we see value in silence and cultivate wisdom, we will avoid habits that erode the structures of life and we will be awarded with meaningful medals.
Knowing how to shop in this store ensures comfort, safety and peace.
To go shopping in this store, which opened its doors four billion years ago, there are evaluation criteria. The first and oldest criterion is to feel. Knowing how to feel what goes on inside us, when we analyse our inner selves and the things that the outside world awake in us, is something that overrides all that we were taught about the value of knowledge.
The second criterion, much younger than the first one, is made up of feelings and emotions. Analysing the feelings and emotions triggered in us—and the contexts in which this happens—is essential for living a more peaceful, less stressful and acceptable life.
Finally, the third criterion is thinking. This one is a newborn in comparison to the previous ones. This capacity has seen greater development among humans, and it can surely help us in analysing potential purchases suggested to us by the other evaluation criteria. Thinking allows us to see if the focus is casting light on valid, unnecessary or non-existent needs. Thinking can shift the focus towards solutions capable of meeting the current need. This removes the obstacles that prevent us from moving forwards and ensures that the purchases made are indeed useful.
The strategy to be used must take into account the price to be paid in relation to the offered benefits—the products in this store.
This place sells commitment, determination, discipline, breakthroughs, persistence, resilience. All these virtues are sold with a bundled toolkit that builds them or helps to repair them. These tools are known as habits, focus and the courage to get things done.
The Gift
Dear friend,
I thought about you tonight... I thought about you so much that I felt the urge to give you a gift. Not one gift—several gifts, actually.
These gifts are so good that you could proudly parade them, at all times and in all places.
I got up early and went into town to find what I had imagined.
I walked into a beautiful store where it said “Humanity”. There I bought a lot of PERSISTENCE, WILLINGNESS TO LEARN, HUMILITY, DISCIPLINE, but only 50 grams of VANITY. That was all that there was in stock. The clerk told me that there was a lot of demand, that customers were buying a lot of vanity.
I bought a heavy pack of COMMITMENT, bundled with RESOLVE, so that you can mix it with a SMILE.
I bought INTEGRITY so that you can use it all the time.
There was a huge glass of COURAGE hidden out of sight. It was expensive, very expensive, even though people rarely bought it. I decided to buy all of it in stock.
I also bought some glasses of LOYALTY and COURTESY for you to use with your loved ones. In the seeds section, I also saw TRUST and INSPIRATION, and I do not think there could be a better adornment to sow on the edges of the long road that leads to your dream.
You know, my FRIEND, in this same store, on the opposite side, I noticed a large, shining glass of ARROGANCE. I did not buy it because you do not use it. I bought small, scented packets of LOVE and PEACE, along with PATIENCE and TOLERANCE, for you to use on those dark days when all seems lost.
My FRIEND, I saw a very sad thing in that store. I saw many people waiting in line to buy LAZINESS and RESIGNATION. One of the clerks told me that there was even a shortage of these products—such was the demand. At the back of the shop, in a place obscured by the dim light, people who kept their heads down and had sad looks on their faces were buying INGRATITUDE, ENVY, DISHONESTY and COWARDICE. I looked at them from afar.
I also bought some other small packs of COMPLIMENTS and TOLERANCE.
Under a table illuminated by a large spotlight, there was a big box of ACTION packets. I bought all of it.
Finally, I found a beautiful big HEART OF WISDOM, and you can use it to store all your gifts!
I wrapped it up in a long, cheerful paper, with colourful HABITS, and had it delivered to your home.
On the card I wrote... Have a great day, a great week, a great month, a great existence.
Oh! Do not forget to use that little packet of IMAGINATION and CREATIVITY I sent you!!!!