Emotions and  Your Finances.

If you are having financial difficulties it is a problem that maybe we can help with.

If you are fine we can always learn more. 

Several years ago I was asked to apply my knowledge of emotions to finance. 

I am by no means a financial guru but I do know something about how emotions affect all areas of life.

Over a short time, I will add a few videos to this page. 

There are 5 parts. Each part has two videos with the same martial.

The first is a carton with the summary audio of the text. The second video is my original production a narration and visualization.
Let me know what you think.

PART 1 

👉Summary Introduction:

👉Narration and Visualization

It is not about you.

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It is not about you.

Time and again, I go over a simple thought for myself and others: Do not take things so personally, and do not think you are special in a relationship, especially in terms of negative attributes.

If you see someone that is your friend, or you think is your friend, doing things to people that you do not like, do not make the mistake and say to yourself, “Oh, I am special; Tom won’t do that to me.”

We all have been, and are, abused. We all make the above mistake. We all “disavow” the truth. The truth is right under our noses, but we would rather not see it.

The more we take off the blinders, the more we might be able to keep those friends as much as possible, and help them and ourselves. We will reduce our trauma as we will less and less be blindsided and stop saying why, why me?

We will be able to stop saying it because we will have the great insight that it is so much not about me. It is about them. You see, if you observe their behavior, they are doing these things that bother you to everyone in the same fashion. This is what we call a script. It is like a computer program. Yes, sorry to say, humans in many ways are like this. If we were not, we could get nothing done. Scripts are “good” and “bad.” I get up and start brushing my teeth, and don’t even realize it, and while brushing, I am in the process of composing this essay. That is the usefulness of a script. It “frees up thinking.”

Unfortunately, humans can get “scripted” in all kinds of ways. Due to early experiences, we generalize certain dislikes, subtlety unconscious or even conscious we have about people. These are the root of great pain and fear that people harbor their entire lives unless they get help. 

A very common fear is one of abandonment because the person was abandoned at a vulnerable time, and they now project that on every relationship. They might have some sort of “disgust” for people in general that they really have no understanding of, but it is there, always interfering with things. They need to get to the root of it. So, we think it is about us. Why don’t they like me? What is wrong with me?

Often, people with severe problems have overcompensated in other parts of their personality. They are, that is, for example, very seductive. They conquer us. They have the same need for attachment as all of us, but let’s say they have this lingering disgust. They would be at war with themselves, would they not? So they seduce, and even fall into a kind of love, but then it has to end. So, it is that we often blame ourselves.

What I have noticed in my own life, and what has been so convincing and so remarkable to me with several people in several types of relationships, be it family, dating, or friendships, the person has been greatly abused, but now, when the person is in a safer saner environment, not only due to me but to various other factors, it seems to make such little difference. Again, the point is, it is not about you or even the environment but about them, at least at first, and often for a very long time. Unfortunately, this can be a setup to blame and shame the person for not “taking advantage” of a good situation, or “not wanting” to, or being “lazy,” or “wanting everything handed to them on a platter.” It can all be very frustrating.

This is the introduction to my pamphlet entitled Doing -Thinking -Feeling- In the World and serves as an introduction to this blog.

You might also try joining the conversation at Affect Psychology group: Facebook.

Brian Lynch

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Optimizing until the end. 

It’s amazing when someone articulates something you’ve been thinking about for years and you never quite hit the nail on the head. Here one word suffices, and that is “optimize.”

Not that I am a great student of economic literature, but in general discussions of economics, and especially capitalism. It’s always irritated me that the discussions don’t seem to delve deeply into the realities of the systems we live in and pretty much avoid the downsides.

That is capitalism may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. But that is so far. That does not mean it’s great for a good portion of society. One of the truisms is there are winners and losers in capitalism. It is not a zero-sum game. Where are we headed?

Many argue that that’s just the way it is and that on the whole capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, or at least raised their standard of living greatly over the last 30 years.

I am always trying to get someone to say how do we improve the system. Where do we go from here?

So, so far, the system has had great success compared to all others in the modern era, but to a point. Have we reached a point of diminishing returns? This is what is striking about this conversation in the video where I heard about optimizing. The link is at the end.

For the most part, capitalism is optimized by the goal of maximizing profit.

Besides fulfilling many of the characteristics of psychopathic behavior capitalism then also, in terms of optimizing it, takes on the traits of obsessive-compulsive disease.

As stated, in the video, things get better and better, and then they start getting worse. The obsessive-compulsive can start out improving productivity but then, of course, can become too focused on one aspect and neglect the larger picture. One example mentioned is the veracious appetite capitalism has for natural resources.

You are seeing this right now, in many ways, in a virtual collapse of much of the US healthcare system. The for-profit system is beginning to cannibalize itself. Insurance companies are the dominant force, followed by individual greed and avarice. It is optimized for profit. Or, least it is going to die trying.

Things are out of control: I read the other day that Massachusetts General had a $500 million deficit last year despite being a world-class hospital, in demand, with the latest technology, and an  enormous patient base. How can I lose money?

Such a clear idea: things get better, and then they get worse due to the optimization of a single-minded goal. In this case profit.

And as pointed out capitalism and AI meld.

How do we avoid a catastrophe?

Dangers of optimizing.

First post in 10 years

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 My first post in 10 years.

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Brian Lynch

I have been busy. And in the vein of being transparent, as social media has developed, I have adapted and frankly have been distracted now and then. Where I was not distracted was in my turning to Facebook where I started a group called Affect Psychology. Here is the link to that group:Affect Psychology Facebook

The group now has thousands of posts dedicated to exploring the human condition and how emotion motivates us.

I have come back here to revist my writing from more than a decade ago and see what I think of it and improve it where I can. 

So, far I am pleased with the content of the 20 or so essays I have reviewed. I emphasize “content” as for the mechanics I have found them lacking. I am therefore editing as I go along.

This may seem strange to explain but reading and writing ability are subjects dear to my heart as I have had lifelong difficulties with them.

When I hit upon this theme of these types of difficulties I like to pause and share what I have learned about them as much has to do with my understanding of the tenets of the psychology that is the foundation of everything written here.

What I am about to say may sound self severing or as if I am making excuses it is meant to be an exploration of a segment of human communication.

Let us first remind ourselves that reading and writing are not innate skills and they take years to learn.

In fact, when did you stop learning to read and write?  We never stop learning and you certainly never stop learning to write.

Let us realize that although the world literacy rate is about 85 percent what does that mean? Basic literacy is about writing a simple complete sentence at a 4th to 6th-grade level.

My journey is that early on I had a good amount of emotional upheaval in my life. I stuttered and was mute off and on for short periods until about 21 years of age.

In the United States, if memory serves, 7th and 8th grades are important for learning grammar. These were difficult years for me. I did not pay attention in English class and I have said for a long time you never recover from that. Add to this a tad bit of dyslexia in that I transpose many things. Give me a rule about punctuation and I will transpose it.

We live in a judgmental world. The standard mantra has always been if you can't write well you can’t think well. I point out the Mien Kemp may, at least by now, have an excellent edit but all that does is make the content that much more absurd.

I continue to be fascinated by the complexity of writing. The many levels of it.

I have managed to write two books on this material, an art book and a pamphlet. I remember working with editors, or at least trying to and began to understand the complexity of editing. I thought I was only looking for corrections in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Of course, I was reminded that there are many components. And I found, in several cases, that the editor wanted to go beyond that to style and content.

At times people have had something to say about essentially every sentence I have written. Quite humiliating after thinking one must have learned something about writing after so many years of schooling.

So is it true if you can’t write well you can’t think well? I do not think this is so. It is not so based on what I have just said about the complexity and the many levels of writing. That is each is a skill not necessarily related to logic and often not logical. Take spelling for example. In English, it can be maddening. What does "I before e except after c.” have to do with being articulate and logical? Cannot dyslexics be brilliant?

This is never to say that excellence in the mechanics of writing and style is not always beneficial. It is to say that when we dismiss people due to judging them on technicalities we are missing out on what they are saying.

A person that changed my life immediately picked up on my initially poorly written emails. They understood the content but immediately saw the plethora of errors as a cry for help. They immediately saw what I was asking of them. “This is a test. I want to see if you pass the test by seeing through the errors to what I am saying?” They did and things, at least psychologically, only improved.

Twenty years later I still have problems with writing, as again, you never get over not paying attention in 7th and 8th grade. But it is all connected as I was not paying attention due to emotional problems in the first place. And I, as we all will have, vestiges of emotional trauma that will sneak up on us and try to sabotage us. I am finding that now going back and reading what I have edited over the last few weeks. Often I find things need more work.

I do hope my new editing improves my communication with the reader. I am helped tremendously with the new editing tools at all our disposals. And these tools only make writing more fascinating as they all have an opinion, especially on style. The reader must be the judge but so far I am pleased that I have done very little rewording and have seen almost no need to alter the information or understanding I initially had of the basic material.

I am not sure if I will continue to post here. This update is to tell the story I just told and hopefully keep interest in the already published material as so far I see none of it as out of date.

Brian Lynch, M.D.