Cultivating Emotional
Balance
Session Six
Fear Theme
 Threat of harm, actual, imagined, expected, anticipated,
misperceived
 Psychological or physical pain
 Evolutionary: Loss of physical support or object moving rapidly
into visual field
 Most of what we are afraid of is learned
Preset actions:
 Freezing
 Fleeing
 In most other primates, freezing occurs first, if threat still there
then flees
 Fear and anger easily alternate and fighting might be a
response motivated by anger mixed with fear
Surprise
Briefest of emotions – typically less than 1 sec
Is a weigh-station rather than endpoint
Quickly converted in to anger, fear, disgust,
enjoyable emotion
Must be both sudden and unexpected –
something out of context
 All refer to things beyond the norm
Focuses attention on novel event
Ordinary mental states:
 Lustful: craving and grasping onto someone or something to make
us happy. The experience of lust has the quality of “being on fire
from within.”
 Hateful: a narrowing of perception that falsely identifies someone or
something as 100% undesirable and an ultimate source of
unhappiness. The experience of hatred is compared to having “the
physical tension… of being overpowered and controlled by a
forceful opponent.”
 Deluded: the consciousness of grasping onto that which is not I and
mine as being I and mine. This consciousness is accompanied by
doubt or agitation and has the quality of “being hopelessly
entangled in a net.”
 Contracted: laziness and lethargy
 Distracted: dispersed or dissipated attention
Disgust Theme
Biological theme: a sense of oral
incorporation of something that is
deemed offensive and contaminating
Preset behaviour: to regurgitate/turn
away/avoid
Social disgust: reject something offensive
Cross-cultural differences in major
trigger
In Japan, person who criticizes others
or does not fit into the group
In USA, person who acts brutally or is
racist
Fed-up Disgust
Husband stonewalls wife’s anger, wife’s
reaction is disgust
“I am fed up” – disgust
When anger gets replaced by disgust an
intimate relationship is in serious danger
Highly predictive marriage will not survive
Suspension of disgust in intimacy
 One of the characteristics of a loving relationship is the
ability to suspend disgust
 For partners and family: sexual intimacy, dealing with
excrement etc.
 For intimate friends: admitting weaknesses,
shortcomings, failings assumes there is a suspension of
disgust
 “Love privileges another to see us in ways that would
shame us and disgust others without the intervention of
love” William Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust
Functions
Physical function: to eject, repulse something
potentially harmful
Social function: suspension of disgust establishes
intimacy and is a mark of personal commitment.
May not just be a mark of love, but a way of
strengthening love.
Disgust motivates and justifies genocide. Use of
terms like vermin, scum, lice.
Disgust
Contempt
 Signals the feeling of being superior, of not needing to
accommodate or engage
 Asserts power or status
 Those uncertain about their status may be more likely to
manifest contempt to assert superiority over others
 Primarily aimed at people
 Synonyms: disdain, morally superior, condescension
towards
 In disgust, want to get away from object, but not
necessarily in contempt
Can be very harmful to target
Wives of husbands who show contempt
when trying to resolve marriage problem
believed problems could not be resolved,
marital problems severe
Had more physical illness in subsequent 4
years (not apparent for wives of anger or
disgust)
Reflecting on the Four Virtues of the
Heart
Loving-kindness:
Far enemy: hatred
Near enemy: self-centered attachment
Succeeds: when it makes animosity
subside
Compassion
Far enemy: cruelty
Near enemy: despair or overwhelm
Succeeds: when cruelty subsides
Empathetic Joy
Far enemy: envy and cynicism
Near enemy: fixation on hedonic pleasure
Succeeds: an uplifting appreciation of virtue
Equanimity
Far enemy: attachment and aversion
Near enemy: cold or aloof indifference
Succeeds: when attachment and
aversion towards others subsides
Interrelationships of Four Virtues of the
Heart
If loving-kindness succumbs to self-centered
attachment, meditate on equanimity
If compassion succumbs to despair, meditate on
empathetic joy
If empathetic joy succumbs to fixation on
hedonic pleasures, meditate on loving-kindness
If equanimity succumbs to aloof indifference,
meditate on compassion
In small groups discuss:
In moving forward
discuss how you plan to
use some of the tools of
CEB in your everyday
life…
Life Exploration
 Utilize RAIN during emotional episodes
 Continue building inner resources through the daily
cultivation of the heart and mind
 Continue to develop emotional awareness by
becoming more and more familiar with the components
of the Emotional Episode Timeline as they manifest in
your own life, especially triggers and emotional
regulation
 Uplift others through the power of kindness and
compassion