The Importance of Understanding Internal States

In his book BLINK, Malcolm Gladwell offered a popular presentation of how the thinking mind, moving at the speed at which verbalized thought-structures are created, is often mistaken as well as slower than nonconscious processes. In my opinion, Guy Claxton in HARE BRAIN, TORTOISE MIND presents a more accurate and complete presentation of some of the differences between when the thinking mind is effective and when the nonconscious processes are better. Besides the super-fast instinctual-emotional processes and the everyday speed of verbalized thinking, there are also all of the circumstances that feed into long-term contemplation.

Part of what I speak of as intentional control of attention, then, rather than involving just trying to stop any of these processes, often involves selecting which of these speeds to follow with one's conscious focus and privilege at any given time. For instance, during contemplation, the nonconscious processes still occur, the verbal processes occur for part of the time, and the more amorphous contemplative processes often seem to faze in and out of awareness. But, understandably, if you have to quickly react to an oncoming car that is out of control, you don't take weeks to contemplate your response.

If we think about intentional control in this context, we can see that intention and attention are different than emotions. Very intense emotions may drive someone into an instinctual-emotional state unintentionally. Habituation will often lead one into repetitious thinking spirals or rumination unintentionally. Verbalized thinking is also effective for things we'd like to practice and understand as well as part of habituation and repetition. And while contemplation is a "natural" enough state, it may take a little practice or learning to figure out how to apply contemplation consistently in a valuable manner. (Of course, these different influences on one's attention are not completely separated--emotional compulsion can influence rumination, resulting in obsessions, and verbal thinking is an important part of contemplation and eventual insights.)

Emotions, then, can be experienced as particular types of energy. These energies are noticeably different from intention. When one's intention is clear and one finds emotion-energies of different types acceptable, then it is easier to influence what one does without being oppressive with one's own feelings and desires. Rather than fighting against or being overwhelmed and directed by emotions, one accepts emotions for what they are and INTENDS one's actions. If we can conceptually and experientially distinguish intention and emotion, we can find a fitting place for will. Without having a sense of intention as fairly distinct, we often use will to dominate and override emotional feelings and impulses rather than finding a fitting type of attentional deployment that works with rather than against various emotions. When we are able to distinguish intention, attention, emotional energies, and will, we can practice being effective, strong, and flexible with a sense of agency.

Emotions that are not accepted and enacted tend to spiral and stagnate in some way, becoming repetitive habits or moods and shaping some form of intrapsychic conflict. When one intentionally accepts a variety of emotional energies, especially accepting the current emotional influences, one's emotions becomes more pliable and it becomes more likely that one will be able to direct one's attention as one chooses. When we are able to direct attention as chosen and do so in a way that is in accord with a variety of emotions, we align our energetic impulses with our intention and feel more integrated and alive in what we do.

When this happens, will and concentration lead into an artistic application of attention. With meditational techniques, we can learn to concentrate and stabilize a variety of emotional states and attentional strategies. Initially, practice may involve a consistent type of discipline--in order to learn the fundamental attentional skills or abilities--but eventually one applies stability as centeredness and flexibility. While variety is a natural part of being emotional beings, there is a difference between vascillating emotions and intentional flexibility. Maturation, then, involves the wisdom of recognizing how to choose what to do attentionally and the experience of willingly accepting emotions as well as an artistic/effective deployment of attention. With a feeling of artistry and stability, clarity is almost inevitable.