How to Be Emotionless
Emotions play a crucial role in our lives. They are the senses of our psyche, and they are as powerful as our physical senses. Your emotions tell you what you like and what you dislike, what you want and what you don't, and because they deliver such important messages, you need to bring awareness and acknowledgement to your feelings. However, when you're controlled by your emotions, they can seriously affect your ability to perform and to think clearly in important situations. When you need to be at your best, you need a variety of tools to keep your emotions from controlling you.
Part 1 of 4: Training Your Brain
Accept that life just is. It's not that it's unfair, it's not that it sucks, it's not that it's great or full of rainbows; it just is. There's no changing it, there's no doing anything about it. You exist, thus it exists. There's nothing flowery or romantic or terrible about it. This is the mindset you need to get into. When nothing is a big deal, when nothing has meaning, emotions fade away.
- Really, what is worthy of a display of emotion? Love? It's fleeting. It's all over the place and not at all unique. And often it's wrapped up in selfish or sexual motivation. Children? They may be better off not seeing it. Convince yourself that there is no point, that life just is -- and it'll all be a bit easier.
Think community, not self. It's a lot harder to be emotionally caught up in yourself when you're focused on others. In highly individualistic communities, the self can easily become paramount at the expense of a sense of connection with others. In turn, this can cause us to be too emotionally self-involved because the self is all we've got to concentrate on.
- Connecting with other people is healthy and uplifting in an individual's life. By helping others, volunteering, giving time to mentor or guide others, sharing your knowledge and your cup of sugar with other people in your community, you'll find your emotions aren't such a driving force.
- By focusing on others, you leave less space and time for turning any inner emotions into overwhelming inaction or self-distress. When others rely on you, you find the courage get on with it and stop wallowing in your emotions.
Create new mind maps. According to neuro-leadership expert David Rock, it's very hard to rewire our neural pathways. Instead, it's a whole lot easier to make new ones. And the good news is that new mind maps, or new ways of thinking, tend to be stronger because they're fresh and highly focused.
- Rather than spending inordinate amounts of time trying to overcome an ingrained perception of yourself as sullen, hopeless and never-going-anywhere, make a new mind map of yourself as inspired, goal-oriented and exciting to be around.
- Spend all of your energy on creating this new mental map through actions that confirm objectively that this is the person you are. With practice, you'll shape this new neural circuitry and you can simply ignore the old wiring that had you so emotionally overwrought.
Monitor your positive emotions, too. This is about being emotionless, and unfortunately that spans the positive end of the spectrum, too. So when your mom buys you those concert tickets you've wanted or your best friend walks in the room, acknowledge the person or the gesture, but don't let loose. Smile and be grateful, but keep it at that.
- If you really want to appear emotionless, you won't get enthusiastic or excited about anything. The good news here is that if nothing really makes you happy, nothing can really make you that sad. You'll just have a baseline neutrality when it comes to everything.
Let go of what you can't change. You may feel angry when you find yourself powerless to change a situation, but you have to acknowledge your anger in order to release it. Instead, focus on changing what you can so that your mind is pointed in a positive direction instead of being mired in misery.
- Thinking positively sets the stage for emotion. While this is definitely an option, consider not really thinking at all. Disengaging is something the human brain is capable of. So if you're looking to be entirely neutral, don't think positive or negative. Experiment with shutting yourself off entirely.
Part 2 of 4: Thinking Unemotionally in the Moment
Dissociate from the situation. Think of your life and what's going on around you like a movie. Rise above what is happening and pretend you're observing somebody else, not yourself. This action allows you to objectively interpret a situation without involving your emotions.
- Imagine that you're looking at the situation as an outsider, with no prior knowledge of the subject matter and no emotional involvement. With dissociation, you don't allow yourself to be subjective; instead, you remain objective, like a doctor treating a patient. In neuro-linguistic programming, this technique is called "reframing."
- Be careful with dissociation because it comes with inherent risks. Dissociating too often can lead to unhealthy results in your mind and your personality if you're not careful. Only dissociate on a situation-by-situation basis, not as your ultimate response to every difficult situation. Sometimes you need to face certain things head on instead of dissociating.
Don't anticipate the future. Because you'll probably be wrong about the outcome! When we start thinking, "Oh God, X is going to happen if I do this," it's all too easy to start freaking out. If you don't concern yourself with the consequences, there's no fear or worry. Simply act on your gut. You can't predict the future, so why try?
- If you absolutely must picture the future, imagine yourself 5 minutes from now, totally losing your cool. Do you want to be that person? Probably not! Use negative imagery to determine who you don't want to be.
Think logically. Rather than assuming things based on fear, anger or similar emotional reactions, work purely with facts. Logic often combats out-of-control emotions and allows you to see the reality in any situation. After all, reality is outside your head -- not your interpretation of it.
- If you're afraid you won't do well in a job interview, remind yourself of the facts. First, you wouldn't have gotten an interview if you didn't have the qualifications. Second, if you don't get the job, you may not be a good fit for the company, but it doesn't mean you aren't a good candidate.
- Staying logical in an emotional crisis allows us to take well-established mental shortcuts instead of thinking things through more substantially. When you're used to reacting emotionally to difficult situations, you have to retrain your mind to think logically.
Banish self-sabotaging thoughts. Don't whip yourself into a frenzy of self-pity and internal loathing. Media images of the perfect body, the perfect lifestyle, the perfect job and the like are targeted at making us all feel "less than." You can choose whether or not to entertain these thoughts.
- Stop comparing yourself to others. The moment you compare yourself with others, you reduce your own unique worth. You have talents, abilities and foibles that are unique to you. Own them and help them to either shine or disappear, as needed. Comparison is for prices, not people.
- Stop thinking that you aren't equipped to handle a situation or thinking everything always goes wrong anyway. Thinking this way actively undermines your functioning. Instead, replace thoughts like these with logic, and try to find a solution to your situation.
Know emotions have their place. Once in a while, they come in handy. We have them for a reason -- if they weren't useful, we wouldn't have evolved them. In fact, studies show that when we go off our gut, sometimes (usually when we're low on energy) we make better decisions. So if you're feeling something, determine if it's valid. If it is, you may want to stick with it.
- If it's not valid, throw it out the window. Defenestrate it. If it's paranoid, neurotic, worrisome, fearful, or nauseating, let it go. It's just that voice in your head that's there to drive you batty.
- If it is valid (grief, for example, is a negative emotion that's valid), acknowledge it. You cannot let it go until you do so. Accept that you had the thought and let it pass. It will get replaced by another in time.
Part 3 of 4: Keeping Your Cool
Take a deep breath. Deep breaths keep you calm in tough situations and can cause significant improvement in your overall health. Try some of these methods to use breath to steady your emotions:
- Breathe in through your nose for 2 seconds. Hold your breath for 4 seconds. Breathe out through your mouth for 4 seconds. Repeat the pattern until you feel your emotions receding.
- Sit down in a comfortable chair and become aware of your breathing, whether it's deep or shallow. Don't try to change it; instead, make fists with both of your hands and squeeze your thumbs against your index fingers. Release the squeeze, and then squeeze again and hold. You'll notice your breath becoming deeper and slower with each squeeze, and you will relax and release your emotions.
Calm down by distracting yourself. Rather than remaining stuck in a worrisome train of thought, get up and do something else. Thoughts come and go -- you can usher the bad ones out by distracting yourself with new ones. Soon enough, you'll be thinking, "Oh yeah, I was upset about that, wasn't I?"
- Choose something active that makes you feel good. If you're sad or worried and you can't stop thinking, run outdoors with your pet, go to the gym for a workout or take your camera and go shoot photos of nature. Do anything that will actively engage your mind and force your thoughts away from emotional ones.
- Pick an activity that requires intense concentration. Try knitting, sewing or another repetitive type of activity that requires you to focus your mind.
Don't abuse alcohol or drugs as a way to bury your emotions. It may seem like a good idea at the time, but you'll wake up in the morning with the double the regret you would've had. It's a very temporary solution to the problem and it will always come back.
- Also, avoid over-eating or under-eating in response to overwhelming emotions. You'll just put more stress on your body (and mind) if you don't give it the nutrition it needs.
Keep a journal. Dedicate it to your emotions. Dedicate it to you. It will help you become more self-aware and it will serve as an outlet. So the next time you experience an emotion (best if it's a particularly strong one), get to your journal as soon as you can and start writing.
- What was your emotional trigger? Did you sense it coming? What did the emotion feel like? How did it present itself in your body? How did you make it dissipate? Or did it dissipate on its own?
Cut out toxic friends. If you constantly find yourself drained and dragged down, it may not necessarily be you. You could just be in an environment that beats you down. Most of us have people in our lives we're just too lazy or too nice to cut out. We've gotta stop that! They can rile up emotions that we just don't need. Starting today, go cold turkey on the first name that pops into your head. You don't need that crap.
- Unfortunately, people have a great deal of influence over our emotions. Well, they don't actually, but we give them that power. Life is too short to surround ourselves with people who make us feel bad, so let 'em go. They can find other people to leech off of!
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