238. Sympathetic Fear vs. Sympathetic Joy: What Are You Tuning Into?
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Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab Podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.
Aimee Prasek: And I am Aimee Prasek. So here at Joy Lab, we help you to uncover and grow your most joyful self. Be sure to follow this show on whatever platform you listen to us. And if you wanna learn more about the podcast or the program, head over to JoyLab.Coach.
So we are talking about Sympathetic Joy this month, which is the practice of taking delight in other people's happiness, in their successes, their [00:01:00] wins, all that good stuff. And we're exploring this Element by going maybe behind the scenes of sympathetic joy a bit more to kind of talk about how that happens, how we tap into that joy, how we tap into all the other energies and emotions around us.
Because here's the thing, we are constantly taking in the emotions and energy of those around us, whether we realize it or not. And if we aren't aware of what we're absorbing, then we can get swept away by whatever's strongest around us . And guess what feels strongest most of the time? Yeah, soft in the negative stuff, which is not a bad thing as we're gonna talk about today as well.
Like our system is slightly more attuned to noticing and responding to the "negative stuff", quote "negative stuff", to the perceived threats. [00:02:00] It is a survival tool. And so if others are amped up, feeling fearful, if we're perceiving those threats, we can really pick up on that stuff too in an effort to protect ourselves.
Henry: I agree with that, Aimee. And I'm gonna present a little counter- perspective.
Aimee Prasek: Absolutely. Do it. Prove me wrong.
Henry: The eternal optimist.
Aimee Prasek: Alright.
Henry: Oh God. It gets, it gets tiresome, doesn't it?
Aimee Prasek: No it doesn't. You're on brand. You're on brand.
Henry: Well, I think there's another aspect of emotional connection that is just as strongly encoded as this, the threat to survival, and that is the hard wiring that we have to nurture another being. So I think this is most obvious with a mother and child, but I am here to tell you, I think it exists in guys too.
At least it can. In a [00:03:00] sense, I think of this as a survival bias as well, but, but it has more to do with maybe with emotional survival rather than physical. 'Cause I think we instinctively know that in order to grow healthy whole human beings, they need to be emotionally nurtured and cared for when young and vulnerable.
So this is a biological drive, but it can coax out from us a lot of love and affection. Kind of the opposite of the threat and the the fear of survival
Aimee Prasek: Yes, I reluctantly agree with you, Henry. You know, we, I think we've talked—
Henry: Also on brand.
Aimee Prasek: Also, I, uh, I th— we have talked about the tend and befriend response here, sort of that other side of, fight, flight bite. I'll find the episode we did on that. It might be a nice little compliment to this. But I think the way we can then interpret this is [00:04:00] that yes, we are incredibly tuned into each other's emotions and energy, tuned into that nurturing, as you just described, to those energies and emotions and actions of caring and to their opposite, the energies and emotions and actions of fear and, and all for good reasons as we've just described for survival. So to dig into the science a bit more here, there's a phenomenon called emotional contagion that is helpful to understand.
This is work from Dr. Elaine Hatfield, or pioneered a lot of that work. And the idea is that we kind of synchronize with those around us emotionally, physically, and physiologically. A first step of contagion, this emotional contagion is known as mimicry or motor mimicry. So this describes how we mirror the facial expressions, vocal sounds, postures of others near us. [00:05:00] Like think about yawning, laughing, crying. When we see someone else do this, we can hardly stop ourselves from doing it as well.
Henry: Mm-hmm.
Aimee Prasek: And this motor mimicry helps us to tune into the other person's emotional state too. Scientists sometimes call this neural resonance or brain to brain coupling, which is my favorite term.
Henry: Ooh, I like that.
Aimee Prasek: It's so sci-fi and so true. So, you know, when we observe a, a person's, another person's emotional state, the same neural representation is activated in us. So cool. Uh, There's also something called autonomic synchronization where we actually match the physiology of those around us. So research, so shows that during social interactions, things like heart rate, cortisol levels, even pupil diameter sync up between people, oftentimes more so with people that we [00:06:00] like, but also with folks that we might not be connecting with but close to, even just physically. And we can do all this in an effort to come together and to survive and thrive together, really. But sometimes it doesn't always make sense.
I wanna give a weird example. So. Maybe a weird example. It's a good example, I'd say. This comes from some of the Asch conformity experiments that started in the 1950s. They were made famous with that show Candid Camera. So maybe people I know
Henry: Now you're, you're talking my, my language.
Aimee Prasek: I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about when I describe it.
I remember this on Candid Camera. And so they, they did this, this study or they recreated this study on Candid Camera. It was the elevator study. So there are folks in an elevator. They all work for the researcher or for Candid Camera at the time. Okay. And so they're all in there. The doors open to an [00:07:00] unsuspecting person who just wants to go up to like the fifth floor or something.
So this unsuspecting person walks in. Everything's normal so far. The doors close and then everyone in the elevator turns around to face the wrong direction, the back of the elevator, and you see this poor person become very confused
Henry: Oh my Oh my gosh.
Aimee Prasek: And then kind of embarrassed and then unsure what to do, and then most of the time they end up turning around to follow everyone else.
Before they get up to the fifth floor, it doesn't take long.
Henry: Gosh.
Aimee Prasek: But for good reason, everybody's doing it. Like, you know, just physically they are feeling so uncomfortable, wondering what they're missing. Why, you know, just, it's wild. So there's two critical things that wanna highlight with that. First, our mental and physical states are impacted [00:08:00] by the emotions and states around us.
As we just talked about. We are interconnected creatures. We're not these isolated beings sort of floating around in our own bubbles, which emphasizes this second thing, probably the key. We need awareness. We need to be able to navigate that interconnectedness so that we're not constantly surprised by it or overwhelmed by it.
So it's really helpful to know when we are simply sort of following another person's emotional or, or physical state without realizing it, realizing that it's maybe not ours because so often we do take ownership over it. You know, we take ownership over that fear, that anger, that anxiety. We think it's ours.
We think it started with us. You know, it came from us for some reason and that just might not be the case. We may just be mimicking it.
Henry: Yeah, I'm thinking back to my very early days, early years, really as a [00:09:00] psychiatrist, a therapist, and I think that, like me, most new therapists who are often really naturally attuned to other people's emotions can get overwhelmed by it because we aren't yet able to separate out the client's emotions from our own.
And it's kind of surprising how long it can take to get really skilled at that. It, it's... so, it's no surprise to me that, you know, most folks without any kind of training and support might not be very adept at this. I, I think the key is just what you said, Aimee, it's, it's awareness because picking up on another person's emotional state is really natural.
Probably, you know, more natural for some people than others, but it's just kind of automatic and so not being able to [00:10:00] manage that, not really knowing what's mine and what's not mine, being able to stay attuned to the other person's emotions without being bowled over by them. That is a real skill. If we happen to be with someone who is happy and joyful, then no problem. Right? It's super easy. It feels great. We get some of that good stuff in us too. But, if we think about the people in our lives, how many of them are naturally joyful like that and make us feel better just by being around 'em? If you have people like that, by all means, hang around them as much as you can.
But as we all know, through experience, there is just more of a tendency to wanna share the hard things, the fears, the scary news, the difficult life events. It, it we're just kind of compelled, it seems to share that with [00:11:00] others. And so conversations can often become kind of like doom scrolling on your phone, you know, except you're just doing it in person with someone instead of on the phone.
So I just think we have to be really intentional about what we seek out and what we let in. 'Cause it's gonna have an impact on us emotionally no matter what.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. I, I like to, I like to think of this phenomenon and this kind of idea, as you said, of like what we're letting in, almost thinking of ourselves, kind of as a radio that's always on, we're always picking up signals, and right now the strongest signals maybe in our environment might be a little bit more fearful.
Kind of cynical, maybe angry, divisive, and those signals are really loud. They're easy to pick up. They're everywhere. Might [00:12:00] see 'em on the news, social media, casual conversations, as you noted. And if you're not actively also tuning your radio to a different frequency or at least scanning other frequencies to joy, to connection, to love, then those negative signals are what you're going to pick up, 'cause they're just so easy to grab onto. And they're gonna shape how we feel. They're gonna shape how you think, how you move through the world.
So changing that frequency can be hard. Absolutely. But like I can, even if I, I like, I can do it. I feel like everybody else can do it too. I am not primed for like optimism fm, but absolutely you can, you can change that frequency. And it is nourishing, and it doesn't mean that you're not hearing some of the other signals as well. You're just able to navigate them more skillfully. So how do we do it? How can we become more aware? How do we tune into the positive when the [00:13:00] negative is so much louder?
Henry: Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. Good question. I think first it's worth repeating that this tendency to tune into the negative is, is baked into us. You know, it's, it's biological, so let's not be too hard on ourselves when we keep doing it. We don't have to try to stop the automatic reaction. We just have to notice it, and then by noticing it, learn what to do in response.
I actually find this noticing to be pretty easy, maybe because I'm so doggone sensitive that I have a strong reaction to negativity. But what I find is that all I really need to do is to put my attention on the midsection in my body between the throat and the groin, and then ask myself something like, "Am I feeling open or closed?"
[00:14:00] Because when I'm letting someone's negativity in that I feel a tightness a, a constriction, and it's really a very visceral, obvious feeling. There's no, there's no subtlety to it. It's not mysterious. It's very clear, I think, and what I'm letting in the good, there's a sense of release. There's a lightening or a maybe a feeling of flow or warmth.
So I think that's kind of it. Are you tightening or are you releasing in that moment? And once you get that distinction, then I think it's pretty easy to see when a person or a conversation or a newsfeed, whatever, whatever the input you have, whether it opens you up or closes you down. And of course, whenever you can you want to choose the things that open you up. Not always, [00:15:00] because sometimes you know, we do need to see what's wrong. We need to see what's bad or scary out there, but mostly we get more than enough of that, you know, it, it needs to be balanced out by the stuff that feeds us, and I think that is as simple as noticing who and what we're really drawn to because it leaves us feeling more open.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. I love that as an invitation to trust our wisdom, to inform us when maybe we can change frequency. And to your point, Henry, too, I kind of envision, you know, if you're tuning into trying to sort of connect with a little bit more of what nourishes you, the scary stuff will show up, like those breaking news feeds.
Like, they'll, they'll make their way through if they really need to. It's like that stupid red bar at the top.
Henry: They will, yep.
Aimee Prasek: So I, yeah, I think to, to confidently go into [00:16:00] that space of opening up, it can be hard, but you know, I don't, I, I don't think we're gonna miss the threats by doing that.
Henry: Right.
Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Um, so and you said kind of as well, that awareness can help us to determine what's next.
I wanna maybe get into that by talking about, again, the Asch conformity experiments for a moment. There's something in there that is found over and over again with these con, these conformity experiments and that's really talked about. And it's that when we have in these studies, when one of the confederates does the right thing. So in the case I presented before, so when somebody, just one of those people in the elevator turns to face the right way, then participants will see that, oh, there is a person doing the right thing. And they'll follow their, their gut too, like a little bit of trust and confidence in their own wisdom.
And then they'll turn around so they won't just conform. [00:17:00] And so there is this draw into the energy of the group, this alignment with the emotions and behaviors, that emotional contagion and mimicry. And there is an initial hesitancy to go against the group. Yes. From a survival perspective. And what these... this piece of these studies is showing us as well, it does not take much to remind us that sometimes it's okay not to conform, maybe even better for us. And we can do quote, " the right thing." We can trust our wisdom, we can trust our needs. And so sometimes as a way to help us do that, it can be helpful to look out for those people who are doing just that.
Henry, you noted this just a moment ago. Find those people who kind of ooze a little bit more joy um, in your circle. So when we're thinking about choosing sympathetic joy over sympathetic fear, look out for those folks who are not letting the negativity and fear overwhelm [00:18:00] them. Give them some more attention because that can help us do the same.
That emotional contagion, that mimicry works there too. When we see someone celebrating someone else, for example, we're more likely to do it too. And when we do that, we're likely to feel better, and when we feel better, someone else more likely to take notice too and they act similarly. This is the viral nature of joy. It can be as rapid as the viral nature of fear, but we just have to be maybe a bit more aware of it and often make that choice. And to your point as well, I, we talked about it a moment ago, I get there's hesitancy there like that if we look in that direction, we'll miss what's going wrong and it won't be solved, like head in the sand kind of stuff. But I really think we've been tricked into believing that we have to be constantly vigilant, constantly aware of everything that's wrong, constantly fighting against, [00:19:00] you know, whatever the bad thing we should be constantly fighting against. And those things are important. We want 'em to change. Yes. And we cannot do that effectively if we're completely depleted.
We can't fight for a better world if we're absorbing all the negativity, if we've lost hope. And if we're unaware and simply fueled by fear, that sympathetic fear, we are not gonna be efficient or wise or effective.
Henry: Well, I really like the idea that choosing to let in more joy can be an act of resistance
Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
Henry: and that it can go viral.
Aimee Prasek: Yes.
Henry: Why not? Why not let ourselves focus on what's right and what feeds us and gives us joy? Wouldn't we be better able to face our challenges and even work for the greater good if we're more filled up? Of all the [00:20:00] Elements of Joy
I think this one, the Sympathetic Joy has the most power to break down this illusion of separation that we keep talking about, that false idea that we are isolated beings who have to be vigilant in order to protect ourselves and get what we can for us and those close to us. There are so many forces that separate us right now.
This has become so clear, I think, and here is something that not only promises to break through that sense of separateness. But can also make us feel really good in the process. I mean, who wouldn't want that?
Aimee Prasek: Yeah, it doesn't have to be so terrible. We can feel good in the process. Yes. You know, because we often can't control, for example, the news cycle maybe, or social media or other people's emotions. [00:21:00] But I think what we're getting into here is that we can control what we tune into. We can shift the frequency to absorb more of maybe what we want, that helps us feel good in the process. We can choose to kind of be a source of that positive energy that amplifies as well.
So I, I hope this conversation has been helpful, folks. We're gonna like, continue to build on this this month. And also, I just wanna thank you so much for listening to the Joy Lab Podcast.
Be sure to follow and rate or review us wherever you listen. It really does help. And if you wanna dive deeper, we encourage you to head over to JoyLab.coach to learn more about all the fun stuff we get into here about the Podcast, about our Elements of Joy, about our Joy Lab Program. You can send us your questions over there as well.
So I wanna share a little bit of wisdom from Margaret Mead before we end today speaking to the power of sympathetic joy. [00:22:00] Here, it is. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has."
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