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Emotions are deadly, they often lead to monkey like behavior and all tied to things that you “cannot put in a wheelbarrow (semi-quote from Marc MacYoung’s book INOSD).” Emotions are tied to feelings, how we feel about something said or done “to us” tends to send the monkey on a binge of emotional tsunami’s. Those huge waves pushed high by said emotions along with the adrenal flood that comes from such emotional tidal waves.
Those feelings and their baggage often die out when things settle down unless your monkey decides this ride is like a cool roller coaster ride and allows your assumptions and speculations to give fuel to those emotions. We will make assumptions as to the why and what kind of perceived slight that may or may not have caused. Then we speculate as to what the person may or may not do to escalate into a higher level of conflict especially if we allow our speculations, our assumptions and our feelings to escalate the ride from a roller coaster to a high speed chase down the highway of violence (another quasi-quote from Marc MacYoung’s INOSD).
When I speak toward avoidance as a self-defense goal I often tend to think of how I can rein in my feelings, my emotions and my monkey brain tendency to see, hear and feel evil in things others say that in reality have noting to do with me but tend to be a projection of that persons faults, foibles and lack of esteem. Often, those things that trigger our feelings are most often about them, not us and our pension to let them take our feelings to the monkey’s home are our personal feelings about ourselves involving our faults, our foibles and our lowered self-esteems issues.
If we cannot control our own emotions and emotional reactions then we will find our ability to avoid conflict and violence stunted or completely gone. It comes down to a personal awareness of our faults, foibles and personal valuation of self-esteem. If we have a chip on our shoulders that we will project on anyone who makes a statement, comment or say a word that pushes those buttons then in all likelihood we are going to go monkey shit on that person. That person will first wonder, “What the …,” then in that same vane trigger their own feelings then make assumptions and speculate about how the other guy stepped across the line and the fight is on.
We humans, as far as I can see, tend to project outward in lieu of looking with a magnifying glass inward, this seems to me the crux of self-defense. Granted there are other area’s that are outside this realm of the monkey dance but those are, as I understand it from professionals, seldom experienced by the average person, lucky us.
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