Hey everybody Professor Paul here welcome back.
If my voice sounds significantly different from the last section I got an upgraded microphone.
I want you to know that I'm not altering my voice in any way.
It's just a really great microphone.
So it sounds significantly different metaphor I think such a good microphone that I've actually two
inches taller and 50 percent better looking.
So that's a plus.
Now in this section we're going to look at the basics of how feelings work.
So as I'm describing this I want you to think about not only the reality of hey this is how thoughts
and feelings and actions come into being but also how you can use it as a technique to significantly
change your feelings and therefore your actions.
So here's the basic flow.
The old debate in psychology was which came first.
It was the chicken and the egg problem.
Did your thoughts create your feelings or did you have a certain feeling and then you started thinking
thoughts related to that.
So do the thoughts come first and the feelings come second.
Where do the feelings come first.
And the thoughts come second.
We've saw this debate.
The reason there was such a strong debate is this.
They come so close together.
It's like a millisecond which is which.
But when you check it out scientifically you research it.
You drill down it's the thoughts your feelings are always based on the thoughts that preceded.
Remember that quote your feelings are based on the thought that precedes it.
So you have a thought that creates a certain feeling and then based on that feeling you take a certain
action.
So that's the basic flow.
They teach this in Ari Beattie which is rational emotive behavioural therapy.
Now here's what I want you to get and watch this over and over again if you have to it's a simple enough
concept but it's huge in psychology thoughts and feelings will always match.
If you have angry thoughts you have angry feelings.
If you have worried thoughts you feel worried.
If you're thinking happy thoughts you feel what happy you're catching on.
Absolutely.
Now when you think angry thoughts what percentage of the time do you get angry.
It's 100 percent.
They will always always always match.
There's no such thing as a mismatch so people say oh you know I need anger management help and you know
I say well what's going on for you and they go blah blah blah blah blah.
Angry thought angry thought angry thought angry thought.
And they say who.
I just can't get over these angry feelings.
I'm like here's what I want you to do.
I want you to listen to your thoughts and I want you to notice that anytime you have an angry thought
you have an angry feeling in at any time you're not angry you're not thinking those angry thoughts.
Now they look at me a little strange but after a day of doing this they realize that their thoughts
and their feelings always match.
And the solution to their anger is to let those angry thoughts go to stop them right in their tracks.
How do you do that.
You think about anything else.
I don't care if you read a book you read a road sign you read soup can labels.
He starts singing with the radio.
You start doing math in your head.
Anything that isn't focusing on the angry thoughts will make them disappear.
Now your thoughts and your feelings are always going to match.
Here's the other thing that's happening in the background.
To feel angry.
You have to be thinking an angry thought when let me ask you the question again when do you have to
be thinking the angry thought.
That's right.
You have to be thinking it right now.
As a matter of fact for you to get angry you have to have an angry thought to have an angry feeling
we've got over that.
This is not new.
But here's what is new to stay angry.
You can't just have one angry thought.
Oh no.
You have to have a stream of angry thoughts.
People say oh you know I can't control my anger.
You're not controlling your thinking which is focused management you're not choosing what to think about.
You're just letting your thoughts run away with you.
And then they're creating these horrible feelings.
And for some strange reason you don't want these feelings but you stay on these thoughts.
Choose again.
Control your own mind.
Choose again.
Choose not to think angry thoughts.
Choose to have any other thought in the world.
You might even want to choose a thought that matches with the way you want to feel.
Why.
Because thoughts and feelings always match you are always creating your internal state and then blaming
it on something external.
It is the most common psychological misconception that the outside creates the feelings.
No it's the inside it's your thinking.
So not only do angry thoughts create angry feelings you have to keep going in a constant stream matter
fact I would do this with depressed patients.
They'd be telling me Oh my God Mr. Paul blah blah blah.
They tell me all their things that are so depressing in their life.
And then I kind of interrupt them a little bit and I tell my little joke and they laugh and I say Well
tell me what you're talking about again.
And they go Oh yeah yeah.
And I was blah blah blah blah blah.
And they go through all their depressed thoughts and all their depressed feelings I interrupted again
and I told a little joke or make a funny comment and they laugh at it you know they're trying to nice
to me and of course it was a little funny.
And I say Hey stop right there.
Notice what happened.
How do you go from horribly depressed to laughing at my joke in back to horribly depressed because I've
watched you do it twice already
when I interrupt their thoughts when I make them think about something else even my stupid joke even
it wasn't that funny.
It's enough to distract you from your depression and stop it in its tracks and you've got to start thinking
the depressed thoughts again.
So any time and this is why I told the patient.
Any time you're not thinking is can constant stream of depressed thoughts you feel okay.
Have you ever been really depressed and you got distracted like you almost got hit by a car or something
or something shocked you and you forgot about it or the phone rang and you got this conversation.
You start focusing on somebody else and also your depression was gone.
But then when you hung up the phone or the incident had gone by and you went back to your old patterns
of doing what thinking a constant stream of depressive thoughts.
You got depressed again.
I want you to notice something.
Here's a great psychology trick we're gonna find out.
If the problem is caused by you or all these other outside things that you blame it on.
Oh you know I'm so depressed because of the government and my taxes and my job and my wife and my kids
and blah blah blah blah blah.
I want you to get alone in a room by yourself and I want you to notice who's in there and who's not.
I want you to know is that anything from your past anything that you're worried about is not currently
happening.
And I want you to see if you're still depressed.
Alone in a room by yourself still depressed you can figure out who is the person causing your depression.
Do you get it.
You're the only person there and nothing is currently happening you in real time alone in a room by
yourself are watching you cause your depression.
You also cause your happiness want to blame that on you too.
You cause your happiness.
How.
By thinking happy thoughts you cause yourself to be worried.
Why.
By thinking a stream of thoughts things that worry you.
You will feel worried.
They always always match.
I want you to feel empowered to realize that you have control over these things.
So here's the next piece.
Feelings are amazingly simple.
They are drop dead stupid simple.
We've been told they're wildly complex Oh they're from you know deep seeded unconscious forces and childhood
issues and latent programming and you know the government's warping your mind and you know there's all
these different layers of drama and sub contexts and everything's very unconscious.
What a load of crap.
I'm sure somebody sold a book based on that or got you to take six years with a therapy based on that.
Absolute rubbish.
We just went over how simple it is.
You think a negative thought you have a negative feeling.
You think a positive thought you have a positive feeling.
Boom so feelings are not complex this story.
This whole drama this story about oh I'm so depressed and it's based on this trauma.
And then this happened and then this other guy did this and this other person did this and that's when
the bear attacked me and the fire broke out.
New you create this whole story this ridiculous story of layers and layers and layers of why you feel
this way that becomes wildly complicated.
I'll have a guy come in and say his.
He asked a pretty girl to the dance and the girl said no.
And he'll go all Mr. Paul I feel so terrible you know I was thinking about it for days and you know
I was so nervous and I walked up to her and I asked her to the dance and you know she said no and I
felt crushed for days and you know I feel so stupid I never should have asked her and blah blah blah
blah.
And they go on for like an hour and I'm like you realize I charge over three bucks an hour right.
Let me tell you your entire story.
You didn't get the outcome you wanted.
Your feelings were hurt and your ego was bruised.
I'm out under five seconds.
That's how simple your feelings were and they're even simpler than that you're having negative feelings
about what happened because of what you're currently telling yourself.
Now in and out in three seconds feelings are amazingly simple.
Most of psychology is simple until the gurus get it and they complicate it.
I'm gonna move the girl so remove this story and the feelings are simple that's all you need to know.
You doing fantastic.
You've learned a major psychology concept.
You're doing wonderful and I'll see you in the next section.