- What are “feelings” and why is it important that the term is explained well? So, when we understand how they formed and released, how can we maintain balanced feelings?
- the study that lead to this model began with a focus on feelings. I just wanted to feel good, as in ok.
as the model evolved, I found that I was looking to maintain “balanced” feelings, and this lead to defining how patterns of tension, reflecting current thought and sensation, are formed and released.
this was relevant because it’s this reversal of tension that we experience as emotional balance or balanced feelings.
we need:
in order to be effective in describing how we can keep our feelings “balanced,” we need to be able to provide a clear lay-level explanation of the process that forms feelings.
feelings make up a big part of our conscious “stream” and they’re a major player in how (well) we feel
so, we need to be able to concisely explain / show / demonstrate the steady process of generating a “reflective stress” pattern in the body’s muscle for each sensation or thought that comes up in our conscious stream.
we need to see how we get a reflective stress pattern, a subtle automatic feeling in our muscle, on our chest or arm, for example, for (that immediately follows) each thought we experience. so it’s pattern of tones is replicated in the muscle and this also becomes an instant in the conscious stream
it’s pretty cool, once you get it. but this is what we need to “get:”
we need for our reader/listener, to understand how the simultaneous patterns of muscle tension and a pattern a thought, for example, converge on in our “network of records” (jargon?) to form a new pattern that generates a trail to the muscle that replicates the same (reflective) pattern of tones that made up the thought.
It starts by recognizing that each instant of sensation or thought is made up of a pattern of tones … is that understood?
And we also have to recognize that our muscle landscape generates tones as the strains of muscle are tensed. There is a great range of potential tone patterns that the muscle can generate. Each muscle in a strain of muscle generates a range of tones depending on how tense or relaxed it is. And combinations of adjacent muscle, each generating different tones make for a great variety of tension patterns.
this can be important because it shows how our body relates to the instants of sensation and thought we experience.
but, at least as important, later we’ll see that the longer the thought, in this case is present, the longer the tension / reflective tension pattern stays in place, and the longer it occurs the more tension we feel … and the prolonged tension can continue, until it goes from a feeling of need, to possible annoyance, to potential emotional pain …
with this insight, in light of the whole model, we can see how this state can be released, when, for example, the originating thought (with its inherent energy) is used to derive another thought, thus releasing its presence and tension.
and as we become familiar with the pitter-pattern of stress & release process over time, we may see the sense of well being that goes along with twinkling feelings of stress and release on our body, rather than experiencing a steady tension pattern.
BACKGROUND:
[from web content about impulsing in Area 4]
we’ll see how impulsing forms and releases the tension pattern we call our feelings, including how feelings are formed and released, for emotional balance
Overview: This is about forming and releasing feelings to maintain balance in conscious pathways
As we continue following impulse trails in the conscious pathway, we get to Area 4, a sub-circuit of the conscious pathways. This section begins in the cortex … where records defining the relationships between the tensions of the body’s integrated a muscle to their corresponding sensation … are formed … and then the sub-circuit continues on to the body’s muscle landscape … and then back to the thalamus …
In this section, we’ll describe how our “feelings” are formed … In this case … it’s about the subtle feelings of muscle tension that come and go over the day
This is the backdrop … on which we experience the subtle changing patterns of muscle tension … that comes and goes … that we call feelings …
So, here … we get to heart of study … and propose the practical, useful concepts … that meet my original goal. Because … we can relate the stress states … we experience … to their physical counterparts … and see how these stress states evolved … as well as … what it takes … (further impulsing) … to either avoid stagnant experiences … or to resolve the stresses we are experiencing … in a timely way … leading to its release or relief … restoring our sense of emotional balance …
Specifically … in Area 4 of the conscious pathways … we’ll follow impulse trails from both the muscle and the conscious stream … to the muscle’s network of records … to see how they are resolved … and see how they generate patterns … to the muscle … which we experience … as the subtle tension we call our feelings
And then we’ll see … how these tension states … are released … so the muscle relaxes … and we feel the relaxed muscle … as relief. This reversal of tension … from muscle that’s tensed and then released … is what we feel as emotional balance [all in this system’s natural monitoring and resolving work.
In short, in this area, we see how each sensation and thought generates a corresponding tension pattern in the body’s muscle. The tension pattern or feeling in out body can be called a reflective stress. And when the sensation or thought is no longer present, often because it contributes to a resolution, the tension is released and we feel this reversal as emotional balance.
And since, as we’ll see, the release reflects stopping a sensation or the successful resolution of a thought … a pattern of regular stress and release reflects ongoing successful resolving activity. So we’ll see that … just how well our feelings stay balanced … reflects how successfully … our system is doing its monitoring and resolving work … in conscious pathways.
a. The muscle landscape and it’s the muscle network of records …
(A part of our makeup is 3-d integrated muscle) The body’s 3-dimensional muscle landscape is made up of integrated muscles. Some are used for moving parts of the body. But the finely integrated muscles we’re focusing on here … are the muscles that are responsible for the subtle feelings of tension … that we experience. These muscle tense and relax … in place … so we don’t see them move … (each muscle has a tension range, which is steadily expressed to muscle network)
This muscle … in the body’s muscle landscape, by the way, is not the muscle that we use to move ourselves and our environment … it’s the muscle that doesn’t visually move … so although we can experience changing tensions on our muscles … in the face, chest and upper arms, for example, we can’t see it move … In other words, the muscle’s tension changes in in place …
Each of the integrated muscles … that make up our muscle landscape … has a length … that changes along a continuum or range … as its tension (and length) varies … from loose and tight … or from relaxed to tensed …
At the same time … as each muscle expresses its presence … or changes its position / tension … adjacent sensory neurons … in its tissue … express a sensation or tone … that corresponds to the muscle’s current tension … so the sensation … the tone ranges from soft to sharp …
Now since these finely tuned muscle, although integrated … each muscle can tense or relax independently … we can potentially experience … a great number of (distinct) patterns of tones … in the muscle landscape … at any one time …
As each muscle’s tension changes, so does corresponding sensation expressed by adjacent sensory neuron groups) So as the muscle changes tension … so does its corresponding sensation or tone … also along a continuum … from soft to sharp tones … expressing the tension’s matching sensation … to the thalamus … and cortex … and together … they form … a record of each muscle’s tension / sensation relationship …
So, beginning in infancy … we make records … into a muscle network of records that relates … each muscle tension state … to its corresponding sensation … so in the future when we experience the sensation … the part of the record related to the muscle position that makes that sensation … is also energized. And soon we’ll see how this causes the muscle to resume/recreate/replicate … that position in the body … the position that elicits that tone.
So each position of each muscle … has a corresponding sensory tone … and as the position or tension of a muscle changes … so does the corresponding sensation … we experience …
So … as current each muscle’s presence … in whatever degree of tension … from loose to tight /relaxed to tense … is expressed … to the cortex … its corresponding sensation … is simultaneously expressed … from adjacent sensory neurons … in the muscle … from soft … to sharp or tight …
And together … they form a record … in the muscle’s network of records … that unites this particular tension (along its range) … to its sensation’s matching tone (along its range) …
Beginning in infancy … we make detailed records … that relate each degree of tension … of each muscle … to their corresponding sensation … or tone …
So in the future … when a part of this muscle /sensation record … say the sensation part … is energized … the rest of the record … is also energized, which may generate a trail to replication the position that made that sensation (according to the record being completely energized …)
b. Forming feelings:
Here we are going to see how feelings of tension are formed by the convergence in the muscle network of current muscle state and current conscious stream states … and how they constantly change over time … in our muscle landscape throughout day … lifetime. (as 2 types of trails converge, from muscle and conscious instants, in muscle network of records … the pattern of tones in-common generates trail to tissue to replicate pattern of tones that matches conscious instant’s …)
In slower motion … resolution in muscle landscape network depends o records matching tension to corresponding sensation, overlapped pattern in common generate trail to tissue … re-forming muscle positions that express tonal pattern.
Now, of course, since our muscles are alive … there are trails constantly being generated … from the muscles (expressing their presence) … to this part of the cortex … to keeping … this network of records … energized …
So … onto the muscle’s network of records … in addition to … getting trails from muscle … of muscle states currently present … there are incoming trails of instants … flowing in from the conscious stream … trails of sensations … and thoughts … each being made of their own pattern of tones … entering this muscle network of records … trails defining current sensation and thought … in terms of their patterns of tones …
And when the pattern of tones … making up each sensation … either a sensation or thought … converge in muscle network … the overlapped pattern … they have in common … the pattern of tones they share … generates a trail … back to muscle landscape … where a set of muscle positions are energized … to form tension pattern … that replicates the same pattern of tones of the sensation’s … or thought’s pattern of tones …
In other words … when the muscle trails and the trails of conscious instants … converge in the muscle network of records … i.e. the records that relate each muscle’s range of tension to its corresponding sensation or tone … the pattern they converge on / they have in common … is a pattern of the tones … and energy to that pattern … generates a trail to the body’s muscle … that forms a tension pattern … those muscles were in … in the past … to make that pattern of tones …
… when the muscle trails and the conscious trails converge (here) … the pattern they have in common … is their pattern of tones … which generate a trail that energizes a set / combination of muscle positions of the conscious instants combination of muscle positions that elicits that pattern of tones … tones that made those records in the past …
This overlapped pattern then generates a trail to muscle landscape … to form tension pattern … to replicate actual pattern of sensations/tones … so each sensation and thought … in the conscious stream has a counterpart tension pattern …
Since these fine muscles can be independently energized … as their corresponding sensations / tones are energized … we can experience a great number of potential tension patterns on body’s muscle landscape
And … in this way … each sensation and each thought … in the conscious stream … generates a physical counterpart … to the body … a tension pattern of tones … that matches that of the sensation or thought itself …
So as different combination … impulse trails converge … we experience ongoing … changing tensions in our muscle … such as … examples of sensation and thought reflective stresses:
Examples of reflective stress of sensation: position in environment, intensity of communication, music …
Examples of reflective stress of thought:
Tension patterns changes when trail combination changes; otherwise muscle stays stimulated … depleting nutrients … which needs to be released … to maintain health … so the release of tension … the reversal of tension … reflects a healthy state … and is felt as emotional balance …
c. Maintaining emotional balance concept: achieving relief and restoring balance
Now when the sensation changes or the thought is resolved … the tension pattern is no longer generated … and as the muscle relaxes, we feel a kind of relief, which signals a successful resolution (the release of a need)
So for each stress … there’s relief … reflects monitoring and resolving work being done … reflects health
(reflective stress state continues (per combination of trails) until originating combination changes, resolution needed)
In fact … we feel this reversal of tension … as a kind of balance … we call emotional balance … that reflects a change in what the NS as monitoring … it’s a reflection of a sensation no longer being present of successful resolving activity.
And when the sensation / thought changes … we feel relief … as its reflective tension stops … relaxing the muscle … and the degree of relief depends on the strength of the original (preceding) stress …
We experience this reversal of tension … as a kind of satisfying balance … we call emotional balance …
And when we maintain ongoing feelings … (as the system monitors) … and their relief in a timely way … we feel emotionally well … and we feel this as healthy exercise of our tissue and often set up activities … to achieve stress and relief experiences … like a baseball game … for its tension and relief experiences …
So … as reflective stress … goes on … when sensation ceases … or thought is resolved … their impulse trails … are no longer converging … so they don’t generate trails … to muscle … that replicate their patterns of tones … for generating resolution …
So, as muscle tension relaxes … relief is felt … when sensation ceases or thought resolved … corresponding tension released = relief … so when sensation (monitoring) stops or thought is resolved. So as their reflective tensions are released … a relief is experienced … signals that balance … provided / achieved.
Then, when the sensation is gone or the thought is resolved, the are no longer present and they no longer generate a tension pattern–so the muscle’s tension relaxes. And we experience this change of tension as a kind of satisfying exercise and when we feel this reversal of tension — we are experiencing emotional balance and say our feelings are balanced.
When the sensation stops or thought resolved … monitoring continues … reflecting successful resolving … so releasing reflective stress … is felt as release … relief … healthy balance in this part of the body
Overtime, this is felt as a kind of healthy exercise … reflecting healthy monitoring (feelings) and resolving (& release) activity …
d. Maintaining reflective stress: signals as muscle’s tension intensifies …
So when trail combination maintains increasing tension state, emotion signals need for resolution
otherwise, as trail continues to stimulate muscle, tissue becomes depleted of nutrients … expressing pain … signaling need for resolution … when reflective stress not released
So … since reflective tension stays generated … for as long as the sensation or thought … is present … if the sensation or thought … isn’t changed or resolved … the tension continues … and the tension intensifies … since the tissue’s nutrients haven’t been replenished … signaling a need … (with inherent energy) … for a change or resolution …
Often … the added attention … acts as a signal … that prompts/leads to engaging a kind of conscious work … … with accompanying energy …
So when reflective tension stays … its intensity increases … and it serves as a signal … getting our attention … that … there is a need … a need … for a resolution …
Since reflective stress stays … for as long as present impulse trails are converging … in network of muscle records … energy propels further activity … trails to the muscle tissue continue … and as the tissue’s energy intensifies … (to thalamus) the sensation’s intensity gets stronger in the conscious stream … and as it get our attention … we experience it as a signal …
In effect, it signals the need for the converging combination to change … for the sensation to stop or the thought to be resolved (by being used to derive a new conscious instant/state) …
But /if reflective stress doesn’t stop … energy gathers … so if no cession or resolution … gathering/adding tension depletes nutrients/rest … stress continues/increases … so intensified tension … varies in conscious stream: from sense of need … to full blown emotional pain … signaling need … for relief/balance … so we can call on what we’ve already seen in this theory … to see what it takes to get a resolution … that restores balance
So when there’s no successful resolution or sensation change … the signal intensifies (as tissue’s nutrients are depleted) … experienced … as boredom … or degrees of “emotional pain” …
So when there is no change or resolution … and the signal’s intensity increases … we often engage a kind(s) of conscious work to get a combination of conscious work such as superimposing reflective tension states … in a process that leads to changing a sensation or resolving a thought … or as we’ll see … using temporal records to setup, spring-load and proceed with an activity as if on auto-pilot …
When completed … conscious work changes the sensation … or resolves the thought … with the corresponding release … relaxation of muscle’s tension … felt as a satisfying balance … with the degree of relief depending on/ matching the intensity released …