1- What your emotions say about you: To better appreciate the role your emotions play in your life, consider how you respond to your pain sensors, and what function they serve in the first place: pain is a signal that lets you know that your body is exposed to something that is harmful to it. If the harm is (potentially) great, and the pain is severe, your body won’t even wait for a response from your brain, but will respond with a reflex to jerk the body away from what’s harming it.

The same applies to feelings of hunger, for example, which let you know that your body is in need of food, or particular nutrients. If you choose to ignore your hunger, you would be dismissing an important message about your body.

The same applies to other feelings, such as fear, depression, joy, etc. They reveal to you your own values, and what you need to adjust or work on in your life.

2- What your emotions say about your beliefs: When you hold a belief that is inconsistent with the reality you are observing, your emotions will register the conflict, and you will feel uneasy, frustrated, angry, etc. Therefore, your emotions are important when considering the validity of your beliefs: why are you having these feelings? What are the issues you have not yet resolved in your beliefs? Where do the contradictions lie in the beliefs you hold, or the inconsistencies between what you have accepted to be true, and the inputs you are receiving from your senses?

Your emotions are not random sensations about a distant dimension. They reveal to you the consequences of your beliefs on your life, and they are an essential element for a better understanding of your body and your mental state. In the same way that a rational individual would take into account external factors to understand external phenomena, he needs to be attentive to internal signals to better understand his internal reality.

But do they actually work? And is their affect a positive one?

Positive affirmations are usually used as the starting point for personal transformation. If you experience low self-esteem, you are told to repeat affirmations like: “I value myself”, “I’m an important person”, “I am special”, “I am unique”, etc.

These affirmations, it is hoped (or claimed), will lead to positive results in one’s life.

However, such affirmations should never be used as a basis, and when they are used as such, their influence is short lived, and possibly damaging.

Positive affirmations are meant to affirm what we already know and accept. They cannot be used to convince ourselves that what we are saying is true.

No matter how many times we repeat an affirmation, we cannot convince ourselves that it is true, if we do not believe that it is in the first place. You cannot convince yourself that black is white and white is black, even if you repeat that statement a thousand times to yourself.

Conviction, in the sense of accepting that a statement is true, doesn’t develop through repetition. You cannot suspend the tie between a statement and reality, and hope that if you can ingrain the statement in your psyche that it will become true in reality. Conviction, in this sense, can only be achieved by looking at the evidence, and validating your interpretation of it.

For example, suppose a psychiatrist is trying to convince a patient of his to increase his self-esteem. His patient my suffer from low self-esteem because he has experienced many failures in his life. A positive affirmation along the lines of: “I will succeed in life” or “I can do it!” will, most likely, not produce the desired effect. This is because the patient will not, and should not, believe the affirmation, simply because he has stated it. You will succeed, on what basis? What have you based your conviction on?

However, if the psychiatrist was to point out to the patient that most success stories begin with a string of failures, or if he can get his patient to recall successes in his life, or even perform small exercises to demonstrate to the patient how competent the patient is, the patient can form a better understanding of reality, how success works, and how capable he is of achieving it. What this type of thinking does is bring to the patient’s awareness the facts that will help him achieve success, and allow him to focus on the possibility of success rather than the potential for failure.

Positive affirmations can then be used to maintain this focus. Given the facts, the patient can either think about all those who have failed, or all those who have achieved success. He can either focus on his own failures or his own successes. A positive affirmation seeks to direct one’s attention to the facts that will serve him. If I want to succeed, I don’t want to read about failures, or recall my personal track record of failures.

I would want to repeat to myself: “I can do it!” and have in my mind the incidents in which I succeeded, or remember all those who have persevered in the face of overwhelming odds against them.

If you wish to use any positive affirmation, ask yourself what it means to you, and what evidence do you have in support of this affirmation? (i.e. what fact(s) does the affirmation affirm?) Make the affirmation a trigger to recall the facts you wish to focus on.

This way, you will be able to respect the facts, base your convictions on reality and, therefore, be certain of the statements and affirmations you make. You will also force yourself to address the incidents that have led you to your present convictions. You cannot ignore your failures and hope to become successful. Accept that you have failed in the past, but you are still capable of changing for the better. If you wish to evade facts that your consciousness is already aware of, the positive affirmations you utter will not work to bring your focus on some facts, but will be used to drag your focus away from facts that you do not wish to confront, but your psyche would like to resolve.

In other words, you should never use positive affirmations to avoid thinking and dealing with the negative experiences that have shaped your present self. Use them to confirm your belief in the possibility of changing who you are and what you can accomplish.

If we take a look at our lives, we will notice that we have developed a routine that we live by. We sleep, wake up, go to work, have lunch, go out, etc. at roughly the same time every day, or week. We are not happy with everything in our routine, and often complain that we do not have enough “willpower” to make any meaningful changes in our lives. We want to start exercising, but we “just don’t have the time,” and “don’t feel motivated enough” to exercise in the first place.

The problem isn’t how strong our willpower is. The problem is that we do not acknowledge that we have free-will. This may seem to be a bizarre observation to make, but if you take another look at your life, you will realise that you are usually functioning in autopilot. You are following your routine because it’s your routine. You work based on your defaults. In other words, you are not really acknowledging that you have a choice in what you do and don’t do.

Let’s take another example: when we come to eat, we usually eat until we finish the food on our plate, or when our stomachs complain that we’ve had too much to eat. How did we “decide” to stop eating? When there’s no more food and when we can’t physically eat anymore, and feel pain for exceeding our limits. But we didn’t make a meaningful decision on how much to eat based on our needs and our desire to improve our health. Most people struggle to lose weight not because they don’t have enough willpower, but because they don’t use their willpower, or acknowledge that they have a will to begin with!

Our decisions are usually made for us by outside circumstances, or physiological impulses, and we simply go with the flow, without deciding what we actually want to do, based on our goals. When you accept that you have free-will in one situation, your ability to change your life in other situations usually improves, because you would have accepted that you have a choice, and can decide to go for the option that best suits your goals.

If you wish to get to experience what having  free-will feels like, follow this simple exercise:

Before you begin eating your next meal, decide how much you want to eat, and make it less than what you normally eat. If you usually eat a burger and fries, just have the burger. If you usually eat two plates of rice, just have one plate. But decide before you begin eating what your target is, and make sure that your target won’t leave you feeling stuffed afterwards.

If your diet is not a problem area for you, but the amount of time you spend surfing the net is, then decide to spend only half the time you usually spend surfing the Internet, and schedule another activity afterwards. The very fact that you have chosen to change your schedule will be a positive affirmation that you have free-will, and can use it to reach your goals.

This simple exercise will make you realise that you can change many things in your life, and it will feel way easier doing so. You don’t need loads of willpower, you just need to free your will.

Try the exercise out, and let me know how it impacts other areas of your life.

A friend of mine noted that when the Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel first started, the set for the show “The Opposing Direction” had a small table between the guests. However, because the guests couldn’t keep to their side of the table when having a discussion, that small table was replaced with a larger table. Guests sometimes appear on the show via satellite link-up, so that the guests are separated by continents, since the table can’t seem to do the job!

Even then, most guests are easily frustrated, and most episodes end up as shouting matches, without any fruitful outcomes from the discussions. Many people enjoy the show, probably because they can associate with one side, and feel relieved that they could vent their emotions during the show. For them, expressing emotion is more important than conveying their ideas, which reinforces the emotional attitude towards debates.

In this article, we will look at some of the reasons behind our emotional outbursts, and what the solution to each reason is. By being able to control our emotions, we can promote a more fruitful discussion every time we participate in one.

The Causes of Emotional Eruptions:

Not all emotional outbursts are for the same reason. And in order to have control over our emotions, we must first know why they arise in each situation. The default reason (i.e. excuse) we say to ourselves when we have an emotional outburst is that others have triggered our reactions. However, the focus should not be on what others do, but on how we respond to what they do, and why we respond the way we do.

We can become emotional when others express an opinion we disagree with, or when they do things we don’t approve of. However, the root cause behind these incidents is deeper than what we perceive. Below are some of the reasons behind the emotional eruptions we can experience during a discussion:

 1) An Attack on Our Values: Opinions express values, and values arouse emotions. When we consider something of value to us, we do not like to see it undermined or attacked. An opinion contradictory to our own expresses values that clash with ours, which incite negative emotions from us. And since dialogue involves the exchange of opposing beliefs, it’s natural that we can become emotional.

Solution: The solution for this can either be simple, or complicated, depending on how we arrived at our values to begin with. If we do not know why we value what we value, then we cannot offer others a reason. And since we lack an explanation that will convince us, we cannot expect others to be convinced of why we are right (and they are wrong). Therefore, the first step to take is to identify the basis for our values. Ask yourself this question: what is the reason why you value what you value?

What are the reasons? And how convincing are they?

If the best you can come up with is: “because I feel it’s true”, “I’ve always been brought up to believe X, Y, Z”, “How can it not be true?” and anything else besides a tangible reason, then the problem is slightly complicated. On the bright side, you would have discovered why you get emotional during debates (i.e. the basis of your values are your emotions, when it should have been rational reasons that define your values, which you should feel emotional about).

You will need to dig deeper to find out whether your values are worth keeping, and whether you need to do more thinking and researching to understand the reasons behind your values. This is especially true if you subscribe to a religion, where you may not be aware of the reasons behind its beliefs, and have always taken your religion for granted.

If you know the reasons why you have adopted your values, and can clearly express the rationale behind them, then the solution is simple (in principle, but not always in practice). What you need to realise is that others may not know your reasoning, or have attached different meanings to the words you use. For example, someone can fanatically oppose religion because he equates religion to irrationality. If you believe that your religion promotes rationality, then you need to identify where the misunderstanding has occurred and offer your own understanding of the term.

The point behind debates is not to oppose other people’s values, but to discuss their underlying reasons. You can’t discuss emotions directly, because you’ll only get emotions as a result. If people have emotions as the base to their values, then you can either try and convince them that emotions cannot be the basis of values, or you can leave the discussion (never forget that that’s an option!!).

2) Difficulty Communicating: A common reason for why we can lose our tempers during a discussion has nothing to do with our “opponents” but our ability to express our beliefs. This difficulty in getting the message from point A to point B usually leads us to blame point B for not getting the message!

Solution: Identify where the misunderstanding is taking place, and seek to correct it. You can either use simpler words, or different words to help bring the message across. It is also crucial that you get used to writing down your beliefs, so you can familiarise yourself with them, and make it easier for you to recall structured sentences in a debate, as opposed to saying: “Well, it’s like… it’s quite complicated really… the thing is, you know… it’s like…”

Many discussions arise without prior notice, and they usually involve questions we may not have asked ourselves before. There are some questions you should prepare yourself for, especially if they are raised in the media (or related to news items), you have heard others asked the question before, you would ask “you” if you were in other people’s shoes, etc. For example, Muslims - especially those living in the West – should know how to explain the link between Islam and terrorism, etc.

 You should also pay attention to using a strategy when answering questions. For example, if somebody is not familiar with Islam and is not involved in politics, but doesn’t like seeing crimes committed in the name of Islam, he may be curious to know what the connection is between Islam and violence: Does Islam promote violence, or do the terrorists derive their inspiration from something else?

It’s not very wise to say: “Why you say we are terrorist?! Islam is not terrorism! You! America bomb Muslims everywhere and you call us terrorists!? You terrorist! Islam is about peace! And Muslims must protect themselves from America!” (the bad English is to complement the disorganized thinking)

For one thing, this answer seems to justify terrorism in the name of defending ourselves. It is also extremely difficult to swallow: how can Islam be considered “about peace” when it sanctions terrorism (which can be assumed, based on the answer)? The one asking the question may not even support US foreign policy, but the example answer is very confrontational, and pits the blame on the person asking the question.

Such an answer is very common, and lacks strategy and structure. While I won’t be dealing with this issue in this post, it’s important to note that the absence of strategy and structure hinders communication (especially because it opens the floodgates to all kinds of assumptions).

If you are not prepared for a discussion, and think you need more time to think about the topic, you can say that! You can easily say: “I haven’t thought about that before”, “I’m not sure about that”, or anything along these lines.

3) Expectations and Experiences: Frustration often arises from the gap between our expectations and our experiences. If we expect people to understand our point of view, and to immediately accept it, we will become frustrated when they either fail to understand us, or choose not to accept what we say.

Solution: Don’t expect people to be moral, let alone perfect. There are tons of reasons why people may not accept your opinions, especially on the spot. People usually need time to change their beliefs, and this often occurs when they are left to continue the discussion in their head. Give people space to make up their own minds.

It is vital that you use every discussion you have as an opportunity to identify what went wrong in the discussion, and how you can fix it in the future. And even if a discussion goes perfectly, people will exercise their free will, which never guarantees the correct action to take. So don’t expect people to do the right thing, no matter how obvious it is to you.

4) Irrational Beliefs: Not every person you have a discussion with will make sense to you. There are beliefs that are irrational to their core, and there’s no way around the irrationality. If somebody says to you: “I’m a communist” then good luck having a rational discussion! (only kidding… well, at least I wouldn’t put it this bluntly if I wasn’t kidding ). A more serious example would be: “How do we know we even exist?”

It’s extremely difficult to answer such a question, because you wouldn’t know where to begin. Also, you can gauge the “thinking” behind the question from the question itself, and it’s very difficult to identify common grounds with such thinking when it doesn’t seem to have any basis for it.

Solution: Never rationalise the irrational! The worst mistake you can ever do is to think that you can somehow understand irrationality. By definition, irrationality is in conflict with rational thought. Your mind wouldn’t know what to do with irrational opinions, so don’t strain yourself trying to understand them. What you can do is identify what’s absent from an irrational belief (what makes it false), or why it was adopted by the person professing it (the psychology behind the adoption of the belief), but you can never directly understand an irrational belief.

If somebody says to you: “Rationality is for matters of this world, and faith is for matters of the spirit,” you can tell that the person professing this belief has no evidence to support this opinion, and does not place any importance on evidence when it comes to “matters of the spirit.” You can identify the consequences of such a belief, and what sort of beliefs it justifies (every belief under the sun!). You can even say that such a person evades thinking, and has not clearly defined what “matters of the spirit” means, but you cannot begin to understand the irrationality behind this idea. Don’t bother understanding it, otherwise you’ll end up frustrated.

Irrational people are hard to have a discussion with, unless they are willing to question their premises. In most cases, they will not be, because their own lack of understanding leads them to resort to emotions, and emotions cannot be directly discussed. Don’t forget that a viable answer is a smile and a nod, then leaving the debate.

(Some people usually get excited when they are offered an excuse to “let people be”, and are happy to think of others as “irrational”, “stupid”, “ignorant”, etc, so that they don’t feel responsible trying to affect a change, when it’s not possible to “get through to them.” Not all people are lost cases, and there is a lot one can do to promote rational thoughts. I don’t intend to discourage you from having discussions when I say you can always leave a discussion. But you must judge each case and be honest with yourself to find out whether the person you are having a discussion with is worth your effort or not.)

5) Provocative Attitude: The form of a discussion is as important as its content. The vast majority of debates collapse because they are not approached with the right attitude. Sadly, many people assume that just because (they think) they’re right, they can put their message across in any form possible. They usually resort to sarcasm, name calling, intimidation, and a string of other behaviours that amplify emotions and blur out the content.

Solution: You’d be surprised by the amount of sense you can instill in people just by setting an example of how they should behave. People often judge their actions by the actions of others. This works both ways: they can either realise that they are being rude because their opponent isn’t, or can justify rudeness because their opponent is. Therefore, behave in the way you’d like others to behave, and you’ll soon realise that their behaviour will gravitate towards yours.

Even if this strategy doesn’t influence the behaviour of those around you, their actions don’t justify you taking their lead. If they want to be rude, don’t be rude in return. If they try to be intimidating, don’t try to intimidate. Abandoning the retaliatory mentality (if they do it, then I must do it in return) can help you focus on your message, and not be influenced by their attitude. It also helps you act on your beliefs, rather than simply state them. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve seen Muslims behave in the rudest of ways, while trying to defend the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him and his family). If the Prophet taught us to control our tempers, then us losing our tempers in a debate will do greater damage than what our opponents can ever say.

As Imam Ja’far Al-Sadiq (peace be on him) said: “Become preachers without using your tongues.”

While I have not identified all the reasons for why we can become emotional in debates, it’s important to find out what the reason is, and to adopt a mindset that helps you to abandon the emotional reaction (rather than struggle to suppress it).

In this series of articles, I would like to cover some of the requirements for effective reading, and how to get the most out of what you read.

The “How to Read” series will consist of 5 articles:

1- Who You Are and What You Read: Defining what kinds of reading material you should be reading, based on your personal preferences, and how to gain the most out of what you read
2- Reading and Understanding: How to better understand what you read, and the factors that influence your understanding beyond the words you read
3- Reading as Interaction: How reading is not simply input, but input that triggers processing to produce output
4- What to Expect: What benefits you should expect from reading
5- Practical Suggestions for Effective Reading: A look at all the factors for effective reading, and what practical steps to take at each stage

Reading Yourself

Before you even bother reading anything, it is important to know what kind of writings you enjoy reading, and which will be the most influential to you. All reading is personal. It should never be done for the sake of someone else. Reading is a very engaging activity. It demands total concentration. If you are reading for the sake of someone else, it is very easy to lose interest, and to look at the words without their meanings registering in your mind.

You have to ask yourself: What topics would you like to read about? What are the issues in your life that you would like clarity about? What kind of information are you looking for? What sort of inspiration do you seek?

The answers to these questions determine what you should be reading. In the least, they will tell you what kind of reading material you would most likely be interested in and pay more attention to while reading.

Of course, it’s possible that you are introduced to a new genre of books or become exposed to new information that you had never imagined to exist because of someone else’s recommendation. You shouldn’t completely dismiss other people’s suggestions, but should find a personal interest in what they recommend. This also applies when you make recommendations to others. Why do you think they should read what you enjoyed reading? What benefit can they get out of it, given their own interests and circumstances? Know what kind of writings others will want to read, and recommend accordingly.

For example, suppose someone hates the thought of thinking about the possibility of thinking about philosophy (yes, he hates philosophy that badly). To them, philosophy is used to torment people, and no good can come out of reading any philosophical works. You can’t recommend philosophy to such a person by saying: “I really liked this book on philosophy!” His initial reaction would be: “Good for you! Now keep the book to yourself!” But suppose the philosophy book you wish to recommend is about how the mind works, which is something this person will find useful. The way you’d present it would be: “This book explains how the mind works, so we can think in a better way, and be able to understand situations better and solve problems much more easily!”

With this approach, you would have identified the benefits the person you are recommending this book to will expect to receive. Don’t give recommendations or go by recommendations to read what the reader wouldn’t personally find interesting.

Your Purpose

Having determined your interests, it is important to be aware of your purpose whenever you come to read any piece of material. Your level of concentration, and the amount of information you will be able to make use of, will be primarily dependent on your purpose.

I sometimes read books for information, but am disappointed because I don’t feel I gained much from the book. However, looking back at the book, I realise that it wasn’t intended to present the reader with information, but was written to inspire the reader. Inspirational books tend to stretch a simple story that would have taken five lines to explain to five pages, or even the entire book! If you are reading the book for information, the story will seem boring. Change the purpose you approach the book with, and you will change your entire attitude about the book!

It is important to define exactly what you wish to gain from reading before you begin to read. Having a clear purpose will mean that you are better able to notice the information you need, retain the information, are more willing to act on it and will find your reading session much more enjoyable.

When you read books or blog posts to be entertained, you would not get much information out of them after the reading experience. However, if you enjoyed the experience itself, then you would have fulfilled your purpose. A lot of reading sessions are deemed a waste of time because we don’t know what we were expecting to gain from what we read. Most of them are a waste of time, precisely because we have not defined our purpose.

The Value of What You Read

Having determined your purpose, and selected the suitable type of reading material, it is important to choose something to read that is of high value. You may be determined to read a book on economics, and select an informational book on the subject. However, the writer’s views are incorrect, or his style is boring, or the book lacks structure, etc. All these factors will play a part in how much you enjoy the reading experience, and whether you will fulfill your purpose or not.

Reading should never be an activity to simply pass your time. You should always seek to gain from what you read. If there is no value to what you read, then you might as well put the book down and stare at the wall. That way, you will conserve your energy and get just as much out of it as when you read.

Your selection of what books to read, by which author, for what purpose, etc. will help you make more informed decisions in the future, and, therefore, improve the chances of you finding the books that you enjoy reading and that will be the most rewarding to read.

See reading as a personal experience, determine what it will mean to you, and what you expect to gain from it and seek to gain as much value as you can from what you read.