Emotional arc

I consider it necessary to introduce the concept of the EMOTIONAL ARC into modern psychology. What it is? According to traditional views, our emotions are triggered by the brain, primarily by its limbic system, in response to emotionally significant signals from the outside. For example, we saw the danger — we tensed up, the victory is ours — we rejoice, the danger is gone — we relaxed. That is, the signal transmission scheme is simple: a signal — a response of the brain — an emotion, that is, an internal experience and its external expression.

However, it seems to me that this is not a completely correct description. In fact, emotions are triggered — attention! — not the brain, not the brain itself. Emotions are launched with the participation of the brain, but they are directly triggered by something else, namely, they are triggered by the expression of our face and the pattern of our body. And what determines the expression of our face and the pattern of our body? Well, on what it just does not depend … Each of us has his own, familiar expression of our face. Someone habitually gloomy, and someone absent-minded, for many it is constantly tense. Look at yourself in the mirror: as an expression of your face, are you more likely to have a bright, light smile — or alertness? Detachment? Arrogance? The facial expression may bear traces of the last conversation or a recent freeze if you were at the dentist. Photographers know that if a person’s eyes are narrowed in a photo, then those who look at this photo also narrow their eyes and look at the photo more carefully. And if you are chewing gum now, you have a rather stupid chewing expression on your face — check it out?

Add your body drawing here — the body is collected or relaxed, charged or tired, cheerful or faceless — and you will understand what really triggers your emotions. A person with a habitually joyful face will bloom with a smile at unexpected joy, while a person with an absent-minded face will miss unexpected joy, and a person with a gloomy face will brush it off …

Now look at it from a physiological point of view. A signal comes to us, we evaluate it as joy, but then the brain tries to put a joy signal on our face, launch it on our face. Even if this happens and joy is reflected on our face, this is not yet an emotion, this is an idea about emotion, there is still no experience. Moreover, in the first seconds a person does not yet notice his joy, a person usually does not immediately notice that he is doing something with his face and body.

And only at the next step, already by their reflex connections, the facial expression and body pattern trigger the actual emotion. This is an additional emotional arc, when the face and body take over control from the brain and begin to steer our emotions themselves.

However, why do we need to know? What difference does it make to us whether our emotions are triggered by our brain or our face? What does this give us? Can we somehow use this knowledge?

Yes, sure.

We cannot directly control our brain, especially the limbic system. And even though I trained, I find it difficult to manage. But I can control my face, follow its expression — I can do it quite well. And can you? If you can, you can control your emotions.

All that is needed to control emotions is to notice in time what is happening with your face and not allow the wrong face, not make a problematic body. The difficulty here is precisely in «noticing». Ordinary people do not notice what is happening to their face and their body, and therefore cannot control themselves. If you learn to notice subtle changes in your face and can control your body, you will be able to control your emotions, you will be able to control yourself.