Thursday, July 31, 2025

Emotional Engineering I, Habits: Introduction

Why I Don’t Think Emotions Are Random. 

Copyright (c) 2025 Akien Maciain, all rights reserved. 
Email me to use this material elsewhere. 
This version: 20250915.1

TL;DR

👣 Step by step Habit Replacement Practice… 

1) 🔎 FIND HABIT: Identify the habit you want to replace. 
What is it that, to change it, would make life suck less? 
What are the positives and negatives of this habit… Because if the new habit doesn’t meet mostly the same needs, it’ll be far harder to stick with it. 
Let’s pick ‘when my mouth gets dry after smoking something, I reach for candy'.
2) 🔎 FIND TRIGGER: Identify the trigger… 
The trigger is some observation, of the world outside or the world inside, that kicks off the habit. Like ‘when my mouth gets dry’
3) 🔎 FIND NEW HABIT: Identify what you want to replace it with… 
If possible, the new habit should be as easy/satisfying/stimulating/whatever as the one you wanna replace. At least, get as close as you can… ‘I’m gonna reach for xylitol gum’… which is just as tasty (now we’re at break even), way way better for my teeth (now we’re at +1), and they last waaaay longer (now we’re at +2)… I refer to the plusses as ‘wonderfulness points’.
4) 🏋️ PRACTICE: Practice it and know that you will 💥 FAIL at doing the new thing… 
FAIL just means “Further Advance In Learning”
4.1) 🫂 Self comforting for failing, not self shaming. 
Self shaming reduces your health score!!! And adds negative feelings into the mix. Self compassion is the answer. I remind myself that we are all imperfect monkeys, and it's just part of the process.
4.2) 🎭 Rehearse! Practice doing the new thing.
Just keep practicing it.

Main Article

I believe everything within me has a reason. Even when I don’t know what it is yet. Not a mystical reason... Not fate or the stars or karma... Just a chemically based logic. Emotional logic. I think every behavior, every emotion, even the automatic or ugly ones, is trying to do something useful. Maybe to protect... to warn... or even to comfort in a weird, backfiring sort of way. But experience has proven there’s always a reason underneath.

If that weren’t true... then psychology, therapy, coaching, reflection... None of that would work. It would all just be as effective as tossing dice or blaming everything on angels.

So I’ve spent a lot of years watching how the inside of my head works. Paying attention. Especially in the moments when I feel most reactive. Those are the most informative ones of all.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe about how it works:

Something happens. My amygdala says it's a Red Alert Condition. My body feels it before any of the rest of my brain even gets involved. Why? Because the amygdala is fast. Fight or flight fast. Not very discerning, but evolution has ruled that it's safer to give a false alert. So it’s scanning for danger and meaning all the time, and when something matches... or even smells like... it might be important... it reacts.

That reaction kicks off a sort of emotional search party. “When else have I felt something like this?” it asks. And a bunch of past moments, similar feelings, similar circumstances, come tumbling out of storage. It doesn’t pull up facts... It pulls up the emotions attached to those facts.

Each memory has a kind of emotional score: this was good, that was scary, this one made me feel powerless. It adds them up like a ledger... and then releases a mix of peptides... feeling signaling chemicals... into my bloodstream to signal the result.

That’s the part I feel in my body. My skin flushes. My chest tightens. My breath shortens or deepens. And now the rest of my brain notices. “Whoa,” it says. “That’s a feeling. That means something.”

So it goes searching again. “What’s this about? Why am I feeling this way?” And it spins a story.

That story becomes the emotion. The one I name. The one I believe. Fear, joy, whatever... To move me toward or away from the thing.

If I’m upset... and I believe the story completely without checking it... then the loop can run again... and again... My body responds to the new lap on the story with more peptides... which causes more sensations... which ignites more story. Round and round.

The same thing happens with the New Relationship Energy that most of us have felt. A crush maybe, new love... It's a positive feeling loop. Intended to make babies and maybe long term relationships.

But here's the thing. The moment I can notice that’s happening... Thanks to a lot of years of practice... I now get a chance to steer.

Not to shut it down. Not to control it like a robot. But to cooperate with it. To ride it like a horse, with some gentle hands and maybe a voice that says, “Hey... let’s move toward something that sucks less.”

The difference between reacting and choosing, for me, comes right there. In that moment of awareness. When I can remember to notice it: these are just patterns. These are just stories. These are just chemical messengers doing what they were built to do.

And when I can stay connected to that idea... even when it’s hard... which is not as often as I'd like... Then I get to be more of who I want to be. I get to become someone I like being.

And that’s my work. Not some grand transformation. Just a learning how to steer. With self compassion, kindness, curiosity and lots of practice.

That’s how I make it suck less. For me. For the people I love. For anyone I get to talk to.

In section II, we'll cover how. https://trainmymonkey.blogspot.com/2025/07/emotional-engineering-ii-habits-for.html
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