(Steve Mensing's letter on Avatar Overdrive)

Captain Vic:

Your description of turning on me after absorbing the Mensing Teachings sounds like the exact model my first 11 wives used.

Now for these topics for discussion you mentioned:

I'll start with your 4th topic and see if I can link in the other topics as well. Remember when we get down to how we process our emotions we're treding in the realm of pure conjecture and theory which often suffers from reasoning after the fact and the trap inherent in all meta-thinking or thinking about our thinking. There will always be numerous frameworks through which we can view events. When we speak of one possibility we miss potential millions of others.

So I'll paint the myth of evaluation and emotion.

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7

Before we head into the no man's land of cognitive science and look at evaluations and emotions, let's look at one possibility of how we create our emotions.
Remember this view is not cast in stone--it's pure conjecture on my part.

If we go back in ancient texts we'll see mention of how folks have observed our emotional responses. Our choices in gut held imagery and evaluation appear to be ultimately our choices in feeling. Today some schools of psychology hold we are not so much disturbed by people and events as we are by the private meanings we attach to people and events.

In creating our emotions we become aware of an event, others, ourselves, and things and we instantly respond with positive, negative, or neutral evalutations. In simplistic terms these evaluations trigger our range of emotions. Since our emotional reactions occur instaneously, we often assume external events and people caused our feelings. Most times we are unaware of our evaluations about an event or person. Our evaluations within the same instant we become aware of an event. (However this is likely in some high speed brain code--sorry about the conjecture. This instant is as rapid as us recognizing a color. Because of our bio-computer's great speed we often assume our emotions have external causes. Closer examination may demonstrate that some evaluation/brain code took place before we felt the way we did.

Our evaluations are often habitual and take the form of brain code or imagery (I'm open to counter explanations here) Our consciousness can access this brain code or imagery through a felt sense or intuition and translate it into verbal evaluations, meanings, reasonings after the fact.

Here is a simple model of an emotion that is rooted in Cognitive Therapy, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy,
and Rationsal Self-Counseling. These are popular psychoterapeutic myth models:

THREE STEPS TO AN EMOTION:
(1)EVENT=You become aware of an event with your senses.
(2)EVALUATION=You evaluate the event (Imagine, recall, think about etc.)
(3)EMOTION=You feel or emote (Love, feel good, anxious etc.

Lets try to run you through some experential stuff here:

How might you feel if your boss wanted to see you in his/her office first thing in the morning? What might you imagine or tell yourself? How you felt here would depend on your evaluations of your relationship with your boss, how you evaluated your own performance, your knowledge of how the company was doing or if there was a "cut" list--you get the picture.

Recall a popular movie. How did you and your friends feel about this movie. Did your emotional responses differ?

Suppose you visited a copyright attorney and when you entered his/her office, he/she stood up and dumped a glass of water on your head? How would you feel? Suprised? Shocked? What the heck am I doing here?
Irked? Angry? How would you feel in the same exact situation if you were raised in a culture that taught you that dumping water on people was a warm greeting or a show of acceptance or love? (This may start to answer some of the topical discussions).

As you can likely imagine emotional responses are often powered by more than one evaluation. Also we can have emotional responses about our emotions. Example: "My anxiety is scaring me" or "I hate my depression!" Heck we can even become guilty about feeling happy.

Where do our emotion making evaluations come from? That's a pretty big can. I'd bet Captain Vic has more than a few good ideas on this. Off the top of my head we may get emotion making evaluations from 1) attitudes we developed during childhood. (2) From beliefs borrowed from parents, friends, society, media,school, religious institutions, corporations, etc. (3) Traumatic experiences that alter our perceptual screen and thus bend some belief systems.
(4) Reading boards like this and thinking about what we read. (5) Creating evaluations in the moment.
The list could be endless--just consider any of the many ways beliefs enter your sphere and you take them up consciously or unconsciously.

Biochemistry effects thinking by being the basis of it. In turn, thinking (at the gut level) can effect our biochemical states. We witness this when thought effects feeling. Each system provides feedback to the other. Since thought is biological, our dietary, exercise, and sleep habits all effect our thought processes and hence our evaluations. Get some low blood sugar and see how it effects your evaluations.

My 4 year old Rachel is calling me so I have to duck away for a bit. I hope to come back later and continue my stab at these very curious topics that the Captain has raised.

Back before long, Steve

Now back to these stimulating topics around evaluation and emotion. I'll go at them out of order.

You asked how a person might power up/power down their influence on others.

How do we better influence people? Likely that answer resides in "connection". If we can connect with folks we stand a good chance of influencing them. By connection I'm talking about a sense of rapport or closeness which may be brought about by a number of factors.

You know when you are connecting with someone. It's almost as if you are on the same wavelength. How does this same wavelength come about? What factors are involved?

Superficial connection may be found in speaking the same language and dressing in a similar way.

The connection may deepen a bit when you and the person you wish to influence shares similar language speed, uses a similar coloquial style, and may speak
in a way that matches your sense way of being in the world. If the person you speak with tends to speak in a language where the hearing sense predominates--then likely they will feel a closer connection if you say phrases like "I hear you Bub" or "that sounds good to me". The same goes for people who dwell in the bodily felt sense of speech (Mud Wrestlers, Dancers, Athletes,etc). The same too for visual sensers. Example: You know what happens when a hearing senser businessman meets up with an artist (Visual oriented).
There's often a lack of connection.

Other major influencing factors can be emotional or thinking focus. Folks who speak from the gut will often feel out of sorts with people who are off in their thoughts. (This isn't always true--couples are often made up of a polarity between thinkers and feelers--each compensates for the other). But tightest connection is often experienced between folks sharing the same polarity. Influence as I said comes with similarities.

Shared values leads to a deeper connection. You'll likely have more influence coming from someone who shares your core values. Nondualists will likely be more at home with someone who shares that experience than with someone who comes from a belief based religion.

Clarity in speech goes far in influencing others. And if that clarity is linked with a common vision of the world, a vision built out of similar logic and experience.

Shared logic helps. Some folks simply put their world together differently and reason differently.

If the person tends toward absolutizing, overgeneralizing, and dichotomous thinking and you do likewise, you're more likely to feel a connection. And the opposite applies. I know when people speal absolutistically I tend to scratch my head and feel some disconnection. Disconnection breeds a lack of influence.

Back to the notion of variations in logic. Let me give an example:

Norman Vincent Peale as some of you old duffers might recall was the Daddy of Positive thinking. He told this story about logic that illustrates how logic can be different for different people.

Back when Peale was 42 years old and working as a pastoral counselor in an Ohio mental institution, he was "setting" in his office one day when he heard a knock on his door.
"Yes--come in," Peale said.
A older fellow with a shock of gray hair and a toothless grin, leaned in the doorway and immediately frowned at Peale.
"How old are you?" said the older fellow, narrowing his eyes.
"Tell you what,"said Peale.(Remember Peale was 42 years old). "You guess my age and I'll wave today's fee."
The old guy folded his arms tightly and squinted hard at the pastoral counselor.
"42 years old", said the old guy.
"42!"shouted Peale. "That's amazing! How did you know?
"Logic," said the old man.
"Logic? What kind of logic would tell you I was 42.
I love logic--it was one of my favorite courses of study when I attended Ohio Wesleyan. Yes--what sort of logic?"
"Pure logic!" shouted the old guy. "I've been in the mental hospital 21 years and I'd figure you're twice as crazy as me!"

Now back to influence. If you're intuitive in nature you're going to feel more connection with other intuitive folk. Same goes for sensers. They'll experience more connection with people who process information in a similar way.

Other key influences in influencing are the ability to tell stories or present evidence. You guys are more likely to recall the teachers who stepped out of straight theoriizing and one dimensional delivery to tell stories. The story teller gets our ear especially if he tells stories that match up with our being able to identify with his/her characters and their values and ways of problem solving.

Stories often bypass our natural resistance to new information that doesn't fit our way of currently viewing the world. Metaphors do an excellent job of this as well. Our unconscious will select out information and examine it more readily if it is presented in metaphorical form.

So in short if you want to power up your ability to influence others do what you need to do to build a connection with them. Step into their world of values, reason, feeling, sensing and tell stories they can identify with and you'll build influence.

I don't know how long this board goes for, so I'm going to stop here and come back to the rest of these
topics.

Take care, Steve

Back to those topics again concerning evaluation and emotion.

"What are the various criteria that people use to evaluate against? Where do they come from?

This is difficult to answer and calls on plenty of conjecture. In listening to folks I experience the criteria folks use is individual and highly variable.

Many people are fairly unaware of their criteria making. It may be just like the evaluative brain code that spins instaneously on the heals of an event.

Now if you talk to meta thinkers or folks who think about their thinking (the folks who come here and to NAP), they will supply you with various criteria.

Some people make a judgement about their evaluations based on a felt sense or intuition. This felt sense may come back "right", "wrong" "Yes","no" or something simple like that. There are some people who evaluate by reasoning or logic--remember even the ground rules for logic and reason may vary from person to person and may be influeced by language. You remember the fellow in the Peale story who operated via "pure logic" or doubling the length of his stay at the institution to figure out Peale's age.

When people say logical they may mean different experiences. There's other people who operate and evaluate by whim. These are the persons who go by their particular feeling at the time. They hold their finger up to the mood wind.

There are folks who use criteria fashioned out of preexisting rules--the Sutra of Hui Neng says such and such or the Bible says this or the Corporate Handbook proclaims such and such.

Some of the criteria may be no more more than felt senses the content of which is on the borders of awareness. Or it can be a lengthy and reasoned out process. You know the guys with the thick lensed glasses and the vexed look.

Criteria, for some folks may change across contexts.

A mobster may have criteria that changes from compartment to compartment. He does one thing with his
family, one thing with his crime family, and uses a completely different criteria for those people "out there".

The criteria may be elaborate rules and principles, and they can be just a simple affirming grunt.
They are folk's supreme court. Like evaluations they too come from upbringing, culture, life experiences, religious instruction, peers, reading, media, etc.

Criteria may be formated like a pro and con. It may be weighted against what is normal. It must feel just right. It may come from a sense of what large numbers of people would do. People are so individual about the way they decide. And these criteria may also be influenced by our biological makeup, emotional and reasoning intelligence, and perceptual filters just out of our awareness.

Doorbell ringing!

Take care, Steve