Frist in the series on emotions
Where Our Emotions Actually Come From
From the time we are small, we are taught that other people, places and things cause our upsets and where our emotions come from. “He made me mad.” “She made me angry.” “It upset me.”
Wrong.
If it were true that other people, places or things cause our emotional upsets, we would all have to react the same way to every situation.
So how would you respond to coming up upon or seeing a car crash in front of you? Let me ask you, would a hundred percent of the people respond the same way as you do? No.
Well, why is that?
There is something that happens between the thing that is happening, the car crash, and our emotional response. And this is the best news ever. In a healthy normal brain that something is our thoughts, or our reactions to the thing that is happening.
Now, in a normal healthy brain, this happens in one tenth of a second. So that’s why it seems that the thing that’s happening, that car crash is causing our emotions. But, no, it is our lovely three pound mass between our ears, our healthy human brain, the miracle of the healthy human brain.
To teach this to our clients in Rational Living Therapy, we use this model and we collect the emotional ABCs.
ABC’s of Emotion
Model of the ABCs, A is what we’re aware, B is a beliefs, and C are consequences.
A – that’s the thing that we’ve come aware of. That is the happening. The people places and/or events.
B – these are those thoughts that pop into our head or our reactions to A. These can be thoughts, beliefs, and our mindsets.
C – Consequences. This is what we do in response to our thinking in B. It is what we feel emotionally and our course of action.
So how this works. We have a positive thought, which results in a positive emotion and an action. So something happens and we think, oh, this is a good thing. We won the lottery and we’re like, “Oh, this is a really good thing.”
And I feel positively, like happy, joy, and excited. And I act on it. Maybe I call my friend, “Oh my god. I’m filthy rich.”
Now, negative thoughts results in a negative emotion and action. “Oh, this is a bad thing.” And then we feel the negative emotion, such as anger, sad, hopeless, anxious, and afraid.
For example, “Oh my god. I won the lottery. Oh my god. Every person under the planet Earth is going to want to bother me.” And so I’d be sad and then delete everything off of Facebook.
A neutral thought will result in a neutral emotion and action. “Oh, this isn’t along the lines of good or bad.” And you experience a neutral emotion like calm, and act on it.
For example, “I won the lottery. Okay. Well, that’s cool. I’m definitely gonna take care of my financial problems, but man, is it gonna be something having people bother me about this.”
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This is the first video in a two video series. Click HERE to view how to use the ABC’s of Emotion Model.