Planning your Emotions

by Yitz Miller

Visiting Lake Garda in the north of Italy this week, we embarked on a 3-hour boat tour of the lake, greeted by the following sign:

With full recognition that this corporate tagline was likely just the result of an underpaid Italian graphic designer using a free translation app, the claim that one could “plan one’s emotions” flashed like a neon light in my psychology-geek brain.

Part of MenLiving’s Vision of “A World of Healthy, Intentional, Connected Men” (https://menliving.org/) are the suggestions (amongst the 5) to “Live Emotionally, and to Live Intentionally” (https://menliving.org/mission-vision-suggestions-for-living-fully/).  The question comes to mind…how Intentional can we be about our Emotions?  Can we actually PLAN them?

Doing what any good 21^st-century curious mind does, I Googled the phrase…in quotes.

Following a litany of “Emotional Planning” posts that Google hoped were close enough to my in-quotes search “Plan your emotions,” (most of which focused on planning ahead to avoid emotional dysregulation, written mostly for parents of kids that school systems label “Emotionally Overactive”), Google did find one exact match…a segment of an acting course entitled: “Don’t try to plan your emotions…immerse yourself in the scene.”

Based on that title, I could take the easy way out and write a post about “immersing yourself in the scene” as well-phrased life guidance about the importance of embracing present reality (e.g. Wherever you Go, There you Are—Jon Kabat-Zinn https://bookshop.org/p/books/wherever-you-go-there-you-are-mindfulness-meditation-in-everyday-life-jon-kabat-zinn-phd/81cf4185fef8f9a9).  But me being me, I chose to ponder (overanalyze? 😊): “When in life do we actually ‘Plan our Emotions’…can we?”

The first thought that jumped to mind was the ability (propensity?) to create “self-fulfilling prophecies” e.g:

• The Pygmalion Effect in education (“high expectations lead to improved performance and low expectations lead to worsened performance” scribbr.com/research-bias/pygmalion-effect/),
• The Thucydides Trap in Foreign Policy (“It was the fear instilled in Sparta resulting from the rise of Athens that made war inevitable.” scribd.com/document/789232512/The-Thucydides-Trap-Foreign-Policy),
• and one of my personal favorites from multiple years of online dating: Confirmation Bias (“the tendency to seek out and prefer information that supports our preexisting beliefs” scribbr.com/research-bias/confirmation-bias/).

As a personal example, one Cognitive Bias I have struggled with my whole life is that I “underplan” joy, based on the false belief that I “need to be responsible” and don’t deserve to have fun “until I’ve finished my homework.”

If you’re in any way connected to MenLiving, I’m sure you know at least some of yours…and—kudos to you—are growing in them.

But however useful it is to address Cognitive Biases in relationships and elsewhere (www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202301/the-danger-of-cognitive-biases-in-relationships), I’m not sure it’s totally fair to label limbic reactions to Cognitive Bias  as “planning” our emotions.

Another possibility is what I’ve usually professionally referred to as “Reverse Psychosomatics,” though I recently see articles using terms like “Embodied Cognition” and “Interoception-Mood Connection” to describe the same phenomenon (e.g. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-reboot/202408/your-physical-posture-could-change-your-mood).

Most are likely familiar with the term PsychoSomatics—a field initially focused on situations where psychological factors influence physical health (e.g. anxiety creates stomach troubles). The term also applies to ways physical health influences mental and emotional well-being—as anyone who practices Yoga or has explored the Alexander Technique knows.

Jon Kabat-Zinn’s 50+-year career dedicated to mindfulness meditation impacting “incurable” chronic pain, initially described 30 years ago in his book “Full Catastrophe Living,” (https://bookshop.org/p/books/full-catastrophe-living-using-the-wisdom-of-your-body-and-mind-to-face-stress-pain-and-illness-jon-kabat-zinn-phd/3a2faef1709aafb7)has now manifest directly in his most recent book “Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief.” (https://bookshop.org/p/books/mindfulness-meditation-for-pain-relief-practices-to-reclaim-your-body-and-your-life-jon-kabat-zinn-ph-d/394dfcc9e5a1ef0b).

One of my favorite “Reverse Psychosomatic” practices to show people is how embodying a physical “safety posture” will reduce fear in a matter of minutes (unfortunately not seconds…so a bit of patience is necessary).  If you’ve never tried it, put your body in its natural fear-based (protective) posture…the fetal position.  Hold the position for a solid minute or two and observe your level of fear.  Then embody the opposite position…chest forward, arms back, spine ultra-straight, chin high with neck exposed.  Hold that position for a couple of minutes and observe how your fear has changed.

Personally, one of my major growth edges has long been the ongoing evolution—as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel names it—from Cleverness to Kindness.  Every day for years, in my morning tub, along with my gratitude practice, I include a “gentle eyes” exercise.  “Soften, soften, soften, soften” is the mantra that works for me as I expressly focus on the feeling of my eyes relaxing.  To this day it never ceases to amaze me how many “little things” that I woke up anxious or annoyed about fade into compassion.  Still plenty of growth to do, but I’m an asshole far less often than I used to be…😊

New to this and want to try one?  Did you know that intentionally smiling will actually generate a feeling of connectedness…just like a feeling of disconnection and anger will manifest as the opposite facial expressions.

So…

• How do you “Plan your Emotions”?
• Are there emotions you over-plan?
• Are there emotions do you under-plan?
• How well does your “Emotional Planning” serve you, those around you, and those beyond you?

With love, and the relentless quest to catalyze more of it,

Yitz Miller