Most of us are fans of self-cultivation of one sort or another.
We are aware of many ways to cultivate the physical body - so some guys
have sculpted their physical bodies into works of art.
Others have spent years working on their minds, their intellects.
I'm going to tell you how to cultivate your emotional body.
BACKGROUND
Its invisible, yet it governs all of our life choices and decisions.
Determines how we feel in all our most important and intimate moments.
What is it?
The emotional body.
Most people's emotional bodies are flabby and out-of-shape. Actually,
they are small and delicate little emotional bodies that have been unchanged
since childhood. They have not flexed or grown.
I'm not going to list all the ways in which this will improve your life.
I've found that would be an endless list, since the ways that it improves
your life are endless and ever-evolving. I'm just going to explicate the method.
1. Realize the importance of emotions in yourself and in others
Look to yourself, in your difficult moments. Is there an emotion there?
Look to your friends, in their high points and their low points. Are there emotions there?
An undercurrent of intuitively-felt meanings, a.k.a. emotions, lie just beneath the surface
of our experience. Remember those puzzles that have you look for an item in a huge crowded
room? In your experiences and those you are observing, try to find the hidden emotions within
the experience.
2. Separate your beliefs and rationalizations from your emotions
The problem with having a brain is that each problematic area of our lives will be guarded
by a complex web of explanations. Try to realize when your brain is spinning out rationalizations,
in order to explain emotions which you are not strong enough to face. Usually you will be having
an emotion that you cannot stand to look at or deal with, and your brain will invent some
juicy story like "All women are wh0res!!" to cover over something like pain, fear of rejection,
etc. Your emotions are pure, your rationalizations are pure bullsh1t.
HEAVY LIFTING
Those exercises were preparation, to get you mental clarity and motivation to continue.
These exercises are the ones which will actually grow the emotional body and strengthen it.
3. Think of something that upsets you, then ignore the details and focus on the feeling
Getting upset is a purely emotional experience, even if your mind tells you something else.
If you focus in on the rage, the sadness, the misery, the confusion, then you are learning
to look your own emotions in the face. This is AMAZING progress, being able to do this.
When you can look these emotions in the face, now you can really see what has been holding you back,
preventing your growth, and making your life difficult. It isn't your job or lack of money or
lack of good looks, its THOSE EMOTIONS that have been making you feel like a man in a never-ending
struggle. Also dont think your going to cut them out with a surgeon's scalpel, thats not how it works.
The only way to deal with the feelings you recognize is:
4. When you recognize a feeling, open yourself up to it and FEEL it as deeply as you can
Exercise 3 was the equivalent of the warm-up, lunges, bicep curls and push-ups for your emotional body.
This exercise is the equivalent of squats, deadlifts, bench press, dips and a 3-mile run.
This is going to get your emotional body jacked and change reality for you, gradually.
You want to FEEL the feeling, whatever it is. This causes the emotional body to grow in strength,
stamina and resilience. The more difficult the feeling, the more growth you will experience.
Imagine that feelings are like beautiful liquids of different colors that want to flow through you.
Your body in this metaphor is a network of tubes and tunnels and open spaces. Letting the emotions flow
is like learning how to hold open a tube inside yourself while a liquid flows through it. If you are closed off, you may
only hold the tube open 40%. That means the liquid flows through it very slowly. See if you can open
yourself up 100% to let all the liquid flow. This is just a metaphor, dont worry if its confusing.
EXAMPLE ROUTINE
Dedicate 15 minutes minimum to your emotional growth each day.
You can choose which of the exercises above resonate with you, and explore them.
There are no rules, and whatever you do, it will be causing growth.
Since I am very hardcore about these things, I'll give you a sample workout that I did
when starting out on this stuff three years ago, so you can see what is the toughest
exercise you can do to start off.
I sit down. I remember the last time I was humiliated by a woman I loved.
I realized it was intensely emotional and that I wanted to cry about it.
I focused on that feeling, and let it overwhelm me.
If tears want to flow, let them flow!!!!!
I ached and felt the pangs of sadness for 15 minutes.
When my mind drifted, I refocused on the feeling of the pain, or whatever feeling it was.
I continued to do this until the time I had set was up,
or until the feeling had flowed and had left me or changed to a new feeling.
Voila, now you understand emotional work.
MAINTENANCE
5. Cherish slow growth
Since emotions are such a deep part of your reality and who you are, its appropriate to grow slowly.
Even then if you take it seriously, you will grow pretty quickly. However, I think its important
to cherish the slow growth. When you realize how important the emotions are, really, how
are you going to rush your own deepest blossoming as a man? Its like yelling at a child that it should
grow up faster.
When you can face all or most of your demons without running away or going crazy, when you can maintain
a stable and positive frame in situations where you couldn't before, when you can feel love in situations
where you couldnt before, when your life has deep meaning that you couldnt taste before - you will
know you are getting emotionally jacked. Have fun. God bless all of you.
We are aware of many ways to cultivate the physical body - so some guys
have sculpted their physical bodies into works of art.
Others have spent years working on their minds, their intellects.
I'm going to tell you how to cultivate your emotional body.
BACKGROUND
Its invisible, yet it governs all of our life choices and decisions.
Determines how we feel in all our most important and intimate moments.
What is it?
The emotional body.
Most people's emotional bodies are flabby and out-of-shape. Actually,
they are small and delicate little emotional bodies that have been unchanged
since childhood. They have not flexed or grown.
I'm not going to list all the ways in which this will improve your life.
I've found that would be an endless list, since the ways that it improves
your life are endless and ever-evolving. I'm just going to explicate the method.
1. Realize the importance of emotions in yourself and in others
Look to yourself, in your difficult moments. Is there an emotion there?
Look to your friends, in their high points and their low points. Are there emotions there?
An undercurrent of intuitively-felt meanings, a.k.a. emotions, lie just beneath the surface
of our experience. Remember those puzzles that have you look for an item in a huge crowded
room? In your experiences and those you are observing, try to find the hidden emotions within
the experience.
2. Separate your beliefs and rationalizations from your emotions
The problem with having a brain is that each problematic area of our lives will be guarded
by a complex web of explanations. Try to realize when your brain is spinning out rationalizations,
in order to explain emotions which you are not strong enough to face. Usually you will be having
an emotion that you cannot stand to look at or deal with, and your brain will invent some
juicy story like "All women are wh0res!!" to cover over something like pain, fear of rejection,
etc. Your emotions are pure, your rationalizations are pure bullsh1t.
HEAVY LIFTING
Those exercises were preparation, to get you mental clarity and motivation to continue.
These exercises are the ones which will actually grow the emotional body and strengthen it.
3. Think of something that upsets you, then ignore the details and focus on the feeling
Getting upset is a purely emotional experience, even if your mind tells you something else.
If you focus in on the rage, the sadness, the misery, the confusion, then you are learning
to look your own emotions in the face. This is AMAZING progress, being able to do this.
When you can look these emotions in the face, now you can really see what has been holding you back,
preventing your growth, and making your life difficult. It isn't your job or lack of money or
lack of good looks, its THOSE EMOTIONS that have been making you feel like a man in a never-ending
struggle. Also dont think your going to cut them out with a surgeon's scalpel, thats not how it works.
The only way to deal with the feelings you recognize is:
4. When you recognize a feeling, open yourself up to it and FEEL it as deeply as you can
Exercise 3 was the equivalent of the warm-up, lunges, bicep curls and push-ups for your emotional body.
This exercise is the equivalent of squats, deadlifts, bench press, dips and a 3-mile run.
This is going to get your emotional body jacked and change reality for you, gradually.
You want to FEEL the feeling, whatever it is. This causes the emotional body to grow in strength,
stamina and resilience. The more difficult the feeling, the more growth you will experience.
Imagine that feelings are like beautiful liquids of different colors that want to flow through you.
Your body in this metaphor is a network of tubes and tunnels and open spaces. Letting the emotions flow
is like learning how to hold open a tube inside yourself while a liquid flows through it. If you are closed off, you may
only hold the tube open 40%. That means the liquid flows through it very slowly. See if you can open
yourself up 100% to let all the liquid flow. This is just a metaphor, dont worry if its confusing.
EXAMPLE ROUTINE
Dedicate 15 minutes minimum to your emotional growth each day.
You can choose which of the exercises above resonate with you, and explore them.
There are no rules, and whatever you do, it will be causing growth.
Since I am very hardcore about these things, I'll give you a sample workout that I did
when starting out on this stuff three years ago, so you can see what is the toughest
exercise you can do to start off.
I sit down. I remember the last time I was humiliated by a woman I loved.
I realized it was intensely emotional and that I wanted to cry about it.
I focused on that feeling, and let it overwhelm me.
If tears want to flow, let them flow!!!!!
I ached and felt the pangs of sadness for 15 minutes.
When my mind drifted, I refocused on the feeling of the pain, or whatever feeling it was.
I continued to do this until the time I had set was up,
or until the feeling had flowed and had left me or changed to a new feeling.
Voila, now you understand emotional work.
MAINTENANCE
5. Cherish slow growth
Since emotions are such a deep part of your reality and who you are, its appropriate to grow slowly.
Even then if you take it seriously, you will grow pretty quickly. However, I think its important
to cherish the slow growth. When you realize how important the emotions are, really, how
are you going to rush your own deepest blossoming as a man? Its like yelling at a child that it should
grow up faster.
When you can face all or most of your demons without running away or going crazy, when you can maintain
a stable and positive frame in situations where you couldn't before, when you can feel love in situations
where you couldnt before, when your life has deep meaning that you couldnt taste before - you will
know you are getting emotionally jacked. Have fun. God bless all of you.
