Being Sensational

There is a lot to be said about being sensational.

Firstly that being aware that you are sensational will actually propel you into being more sensational.

We spend so much time being busy that we forget to notice how we feel about things and how this impacts the way we act and react. This can cause us to end up in emotional states that are not productive and hold us back from achieving what we set out to.

This is where state management (and awareness) come in. There are lots of techniques that involve pre-creating the state that you want, and recalling it at the appropriate time. These work well when you remember to set them up in advance, and then actually remember to trigger them before you need them. They can sometimes be tricky to trigger when you are already caught up in the negative state you wanted to avoid as you are already overwhelmed.

This is where being sensational comes in.

By regularly practicing the recognition and acknowledgement of your sensations (in both mundane and extraordinary circumstances) you can then deconstruct some of your emotions into the component sensations, thus enabling you to manage your state better.  With even more practice you can do this on the fly, not even needing to know what the emotion is/was/could be just simply acknowledging the sensation for what it is, sensation.

As an example

When public speaking – I get nervous (my version of it)

Butterflies in my stomach, tightness in my throat, dry mouth, sweating, cold clammy skin etc are 5 of the basic sensations, there are more but let me stick to those 5 for now.

If I change one of those, then it is no longer my (my bodies) definition of nervous. It is something, but it is no longer nervous.

So let’s look at another state.

Excited, with anticipationFor example, when you have your first kiss (or every kiss with someone you love)

So again my version of this….
Butterflies in my stomach, tightness in my throat, dry mouth, pupils dilated (everything seems brighter)

Hang on a minute….. The first half of both of those are exactly the same!

Therefore if I catch myself at butterflies, or tightness in my throat, it could simply be anticipation for what is about to happen. Not being nervous about it, maybe I am just being nervous because I expect to be!

This is where practice come in, by learning to frame our sensations (recognise them as individual and distinct things, rather then the more complex emotion) we become more aware of ourselves and how we respond.