Hey everybody, Professor Paul here, welcome back. If my voice sounds significantly different from the last section, I got an upgraded microphone, I want you to know that I'm not altering my voice in any way. It's just a really great microphone. So it sounds significantly different. Manufacturing such a good microphone that I'm actually two inches taller and 50% better looking. So that's a plus.

Now in this section, we're going to look at the basics of how feelings work. So as I'm describing this, I want you to think about not only the reality of Hey, this is how thoughts and feelings and actions come into being, but also how you can use it as a technique to significantly change your feelings and therefore your actions. So here's the basic flow. The old debate in psychology was which came first? It was the chicken and the egg problem. Did your thoughts create your feelings?

Or did you have a certain feeling and then you see thinking thoughts related to that? So, do the thoughts come first and the feelings come second? Where do the feelings come first? And the thoughts come second. We've saw this debate. The reason there was such a strong debate is this.

They come so close together, it's like a millisecond. which is which. But when you check it out, scientifically, you research it, you drill down. It's the thoughts. Your feelings are always based on the thoughts that preceded, remember that quote, your feelings are based on the thought that precedes it. So you have a thought, that creates a certain feeling.

And then based on that feeling, you take a certain action. So that's the basic flow. They teach this in our EBT, which is rational emotive behavioral therapy. Now, here's what I want you to get and watch this over. Over and over again if you have to. It's a simple enough concept, but it's huge in psychology, thoughts and feelings will always match.

If you have angry thoughts, you have angry feelings. If you have worried thoughts, you feel worried. If you're thinking happy thoughts, you feel what? Happy you're catching on. Absolutely. Now, when you think angry thoughts, what percentage of the time to get angry?

It's 100%. They will always, always, always match. There's no such thing as a mismatch. So people will say, Oh, you know, I need anger management help. And you know, I say, well, what's going on for you? And they go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, angry, thought angry, thought angry, thought angry thought.

And they say, Hmm, I just can't get over these angry feelings. I'm like, here's what I want you to do. I want you to listen to your thoughts. And I want you to notice that anytime you have an angry thought, you have an Angry feeling and that anytime you're not angry, you're not thinking those angry thoughts. They look at me a little strange. But after a day of doing this, they realize that their thoughts and their feelings always match.

And the solution to their anger is to let those angry thoughts go to stop them right in their tracks. How do you do that? You think about anything else. I don't care if you read a book, you read a road sign, you read soup can labels he starts singing with the radio, you start doing math in your head. Anything that isn't focusing on the angry thoughts will make them disappear. Now, your thoughts and your feelings are always going to match.

Here's the other thing that's happening in the background. To feel angry. You have to be thinking and angry thought when. Let me ask you the question again. When do you have to be thinking the angry thought? That's right.

You have to be thinking it right now. As a matter of fact, for you to get angry, you have to have an angry thought to have an angry feeling. We've got over that this is not new. But here's what is new. To stay angry. You can't just have one angry thought, Oh, no, you have to have a stream of angry thoughts.

People say, Oh, you know, I can't control my anger. You're not controlling your thinking, which is focus management, you're not choosing what to think about. You're just letting your thoughts run away with you. And then they're creating these horrible feelings. And for some strange reason you don't want these feelings, but you stay on these thoughts. Choose again, control your own mind.

Choose again, choose not to think angry thoughts. Choose to have any other thought in the world. You might want to choose a thought that matches with the way you want to feel Why? Because thoughts and feelings are always match. You are always creating your internal state, and then blaming it on something external. It is the most common psychological misconception that the outside creates the feelings.

No, it's the inside. It's your thinking. So, not only do angry thoughts create angry feelings, you have to keep going in a constant stream. Matter of fact, I would do this with depressed patients. They'd be telling me Oh, my God, Mr. Paul, blah, blah, blah, blah, they tell me all their things that are so depressing in their life. And then I kind of interrupt them a little bit, and I tell them a little joke, and they laugh.

And I say, Well, tell me what you're talking about again. And they go, Oh, yeah, yeah. And I was bla bla bla, bla bla, and they go through all their depressed thoughts and all their depressed feelings. interrupt them again. And I tell them a little joke or make a funny comment and they laugh at it. You know, they try to be nice to me.

And of course, it was a little funny. And I say, Hey, stop right there. Notice what happened? How'd you go from horribly depressed to laughing at my joke and back to horribly depressed because I've watched you do it twice already. When I interrupt their thoughts, when I make them think about something else, even my stupid joke even it wasn't that funny. It's enough to distract you from your depression and stop it in its tracks.

And you've got to start thinking that depressed thoughts again. So anytime. And this is what I told the patient any time, you're not thinking as a constant stream of depressed thoughts. You feel okay. Have you ever been really depressed? They got distracted like, you know, you almost got hit by a car or something or something shocked you and you forgot about it or the phone rang and you got this conversation, you start focusing on somebody else and all sudden your depression was gone.

But then when you hung up the phone, or the incident had gone by, and you went back to your old patterns of doing what thinking a constant stream of depressive thoughts, you got depressed again. I want you to notice something. Here's a great psychology trick, we're going to find out if the problem is caused by you, or all these other outside things that you blame it on. Oh, you know, I'm so depressed because of the government and my taxes and my job and my wife and my kids and bla bla bla bla bla. I want you to get alone in a room by yourself. And I want you to notice who's in there and who's not.

I want you to notice that anything from your past, anything that you're worried about is not currently happening. And I want you to see if you're still depressed, alone in a room by yourself still depressed. You can figure out who is the person causing your depression. Do you get it? You're the only person there and nothing is currently happening. You in real time, alone in a room by yourself.

Watching you cause your depression. You also cause your happiness, I'm gonna blame that on you too. You cause your happiness How? By thinking happy thoughts. You cause yourself to be worried, why by thinking a stream of thoughts, things that worry, you will feel worried. They always, always match.

I want you to feel empowered to realize that you have control over these things. So, here's the next piece. Feelings are amazingly simple. They are dropped ID stupid, simple. We've been told they're wildly complex. Oh, they're from you know, deep seated unconscious forces in childhood issues and Layton programming and you know, the government's warping your mind and, you know, there's all these different layers of drama and sub context and everything's very unconscious.

What a load of crap. I'm sure somebody sold a book based on that or got you to take six years worth of therapy based on that. absolute rubbish. We just went over how simple it is. You think a negative thought you have a negative feeling, you think a positive thought you have a positive feeling. Boom.

So feelings are not complex. The story, this whole drama, this story about, Oh, I'm so depressed, and it's based on this trauma. And then this happened. And then this other guy did this, and this other person did this. And that's when the bear attacked me and the fire broke out and you you create this whole story. This ridiculous story of layers and layers and layers of why you feel this way.

That becomes wildly complicated. I'll have a guy come in and say his He asked a pretty girl to the dance. And the girl said no. And he'll go, Oh, Mr. Paul, I feel so terrible. You know, I was thinking about it for days. And, you know, I was so nervous and I walked up to her and I asked her to the dance and you know, she said, No, and I felt crushed for days.

And you know, I feel so stupid. I never should have asked her and blah, blah, blah, blah. And they go on for like an hour. And I'm like, you realize I charge over 300 bucks an hour, right? Let me tell you your entire story. You didn't get the outcome you wanted.

Your feelings were hurt and your ego is bruised. I'm out under five seconds. That's how simple your feelings were. And they're even simpler than that. You having negative feelings about what happened? Because of what you're currently telling yourself?

Now in and out in three seconds. Feelings are amazingly simple. Most of psychology is simple until the Guru's get it and they complicate it. I'm gonna remove the girl. So, remove the story, and the feelings are simple. That's all you need to know.

You're doing fantastic. You've learned a major psychology concept. You're doing wonderful, and I'll see you in the next section.