A situation that causes tension and fear, for example, being late for work creates a ‘kneejerk reaction’ or first thought. There is no control at that point over it and comes automatically. The thought might go something like this: ‘Oh no! Look at the time!’ which creates slight emotional tension. After this we add more thoughts in a split second that escalate the problem. We ‘hook’, which creates an increase in tension to the point of causing emotional pain. For example, added possible thoughts might be: ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to be late; I don’t want to be late again; I’ll get into trouble; That’ll be the third time this week; What if the boss notices?; They might think badly of me; Mind you, I deserve it; I am so stupid!; Oh traffic lights, hurry up and change to green!; Why are there so many cars on the road today?; People should take public transport!; The roads are far too busy these days!; Why do they have so many traffic lights here?; These buses think they own the road!; I’m damned if I’m going to let it out in front of me!; Don’t they realize I’m late?’

Is it any wonder that the ‘hook’ creates emotional pain?

Emotional Pain

We can do several things with this emotional pain. The most common things we do are, expressing it and suppressing it. Expressing it is good for us because it rids us of it at that moment, but can often have dire circumstances, particularly if other people are involved. The person in our example who is ‘hooking’ on their way to work could express their tension by putting their foot down on the accelerator and taking risks on the road, or express their anger by sounding their horn and shouting at innocent road users (acceptable in some countries and cities but not in Scotland!). Suppressing the pain (very British!) is more socially acceptable but not such a healthy option, as we create tension in our body resulting in possible headaches, increased acid in our gut and many other diseases, especially if this is a habitual behaviour. Also this suppression creates a bigger ‘kneejerk’ and ‘hook’ the next time something similar happens. The next time for our driver, it may be further along the road when a traffic jam appears, or turning up at work to find there is twice as much to do as expected, and the deadline was yesterday!

Emotional Pain is Useful!

Here’s an interesting alternative way to look at emotional pain. Thinking of it as a signal to you that you that you are ‘hooking’ puts it in a new perspective. Just as physical pain can be a warning, e.g. if you sit too near the fire you get burning pain; If you exercise too much your muscles get sore, emotional pain is our warning too. It has a useful function. This can mean we are not necessarily victims to our emotions any more!  They are a signal to us that we are ‘hooking’. That means we have a choice of what to do. We could do what we normally do, which is suppress or express it, or we could unhook or let go.

The difference between suppressing emotion and unhooking is that, with unhooking we recognise that what we are thinking is causing the pain, and we stop doing it, like turning down the volume switch of our thoughts. When we suppress our emotions, we put the volume switch of our hooking thoughts up, but then don’t express anything like anger or sadness outwardly, ending up with problems mentioned before.

Emotions; positive, neutral or negative all have a useful function. Why else would we experience them? The expression of emotions is what makes ‘the world go round’. A common way of dealing with emotions such as anger is to express it in acceptable ways, such as sports; exercise and a driving force to work. It can be released at crowd events such as football matches and rock concerts. The weepy movie or TV drama has great value in helping us to release tension from suppression of sadness from the past. Our choice of profession can say a lot about our underlying emotional life. Many of us in the caring professions can feel better about ourselves by giving, which helps us deal with low self esteem and guilt! Many in the entertainment business may love the attention and adoration from others due to possible underlying feelings of being undervalued. Scientists, engineers and scholars like to intellectualise as a way of denying feelings. Creative, artistic people can often harness their emotional power in their work.  This diversity of humanity should be celebrated!

With this knowledge that emotions have a purpose, we can make a choice about what to do when we experience them. It might not be always necessary to see them as the enemy!

Letting go or ‘Unhooking’ and accepting ‘What is’.

Emotional pain is the warning sign that hooking is occurring. Once we get into the habit of noticing our feelings such as sadness, anger, anxiety and fear, we can accept them as being there to warn us, instead of beating ourselves up for having them, or blaming someone else for giving them to us, and we can start to take more control of what to do when we experience them.

Intention

All the literature on how to succeed talks of having a clear vision of what we want, and to state it in some way, either as an intention in our mind, or out loud, or writing it down. It’s therefore a good idea to make the intention in our mind to let go. For some situations, this might be enough to let go, particularly after practice of the procedure.

Detachment Methods

- The most immediate way of letting go is to just return our attention back to what we were doing originally. In our example of the driver late for work, if he was aware of ‘hooking’, maybe by his anger, he could simply unhook and go back to listening to the radio or thinking about something more positive.

- We might need to use a quick way of convincing ourselves to let go by asking a question such as, ‘What purpose is this anger serving?’, or, ‘What’s the point of holding on to this?’ This conversation with yourself can be had in seconds. There may be a perfectly good reason for the anger, for example if something unjust is happening, but, assuming that expressing the feelings is not useful, we can just accept what is, let go and return to the task at hand. Our driver might ask something like this: ‘What good am I doing by getting tense? I’m too late now to worry about the consequences. I’ll deal with that when I get to work. I need to get up earlier in future. Hey, that’s a funny comment on the radio. That DJ is a scream!’

- Using a quick relaxation technique is very effective as it replaces the tension felt at that moment with relaxation. A good example is simply to slow down our breathing rate or check out any parts of the body that are tense and relax the muscles in them, for example, in the stomach or shoulders.

- There are other methods that help us detach from the difficult emotion, such as humour. It may feel like a stupid thing to do to see the funny side, but having a smile at ourselves when we realise we’re hooking once again jolts us away from the pain. We need to do this in a gentle way to ourselves, like we would to our child or best friend, rather than in a cynical, accusing way.

Non Judgement

When we hook, it often comes with judging thoughts like, ‘I’m fed up feeling like this’, or, ‘This should not be happening’, or, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ It is important not to judge or criticise ourselves, as this only makes the hook bigger, and the pain greater.

Repetition

Of course, when starting this practice to begin with, it feels alien, and, like any new habit, returning your attention to the ‘here and now’ deliberately may need to be repeated. Another feature of successful people is that they persist. Eventually, the practice will become routine, and, like riding a bike, will feel automatic after a time.

If you watch good tennis players, on the whole they will remain focused on the game by letting go as they go along, even when there are disappointing losses and doubtful calls from the linesmen. This letting go keeps them focused on the job of winning the next point. Those who discipline themselves to let go are much more efficient and don’t waste energy.

The more practice we get from unhooking from a specific emotion, the sooner we recognise in the hooking process that we are hooking and the easier it will be to let go, until the hook becomes extinct, at least for a longer time than normal! After practice, the situations that originally created the hook rarely do it, and the stressor will have to be much more severe.