Drain or radiator; which are you? - Podcast

We all know people who can drain the positive energy in a room simply by being there. Probably you also know some people who can lift the most despondent situation.

It's useful to think of these different people as drains (on your emotions) or radiators (of positive energy). But is that the whole story? This 6 minute podcast explores the idea further.

There's knowing and then there's really knowing

It normally happens with smokers who want to quit, sometimes with those who wish to lose weight.

They know that smoking (or over eating)  is potentially, catastrophically bad for their health but carry on anyway.

I term this knowing at an intellectual level. They know the information but are in no way engaged with it.

Do you see the warning or is it just 'white space'?

They look at the grim pictures or words on the cigarette pack, they have read all the warnings and still they carry on. They have not made the connection that this applies to them. It's seems to be almost a random droplet of knowledge that they picked up somewhere; "Oh yes I know that".

It seems slightly different to a state of denial, more a state of  uncaring.

Then we start work and my role is to have them know the information fully, that is on an emotional level as well as an intellectual level. When this happens, when they connect the information to their own life, the effect is often profound. It's as if they have put information into different boxes in their head that never got opened at the same time, but when they do, I expect tears or anger.

Then I find that positive change can happen quickly; intellect and emotions are aligned. Things happen quickly and generally very successfully from this point on.

Smells and how they trigger memory and emotion

I happened to be delivering something to a local pub recently. It's a mass catering food venue rather than an old style boozer.

As I walked out of the door, I caught a blast of air from the kitchen area.

In a moment I was transported back almost 40 years to a school meal hall.

In a split second an emotion of comfort was triggered in me. A warm feeling of being cared for...followed almost immediately by deep concern, low level anxiety and a feeling of unease.

A smell triggered a memory and then an emotional response (rather a stream of emotional responses) all within a few seconds and all without a conscious thought from me.

I wonder how many people realise just how powerful the sense of smell is in evoking memory and thereby emotion.

It was my own Proust, "Remembrance of Things Past" madeleine moment.