Mirror Neurons and Social Contagion

On Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of helping a group of aspiring hypnotherapists develop their (already pretty advanced) intuitions. Before we started, several members of the group told me they’d been looking forward to this session, and afterwards, I perhaps understood why: they were natural psychics, and needed a little help understanding, and, in at least one case, coping with, what they were already doing.

After my usual explanation of intuition, we began the practice exercises. One exercise is designed to increase the students’ awareness of others’ emotions at an energy/intuitive level. It requires that one member of a small group fully experience some emotion, by recalling an instance of it, as in method acting, so that the others can notice how that emotion manifests, and what it brings up for them. This is critical to healers, because sensing what is going on for your client and managing your own emotions around that is necessary to your client’s healing.

As I told the students that the next emotion they were to experience was anger, one woman standing quite close to me jumped the gun, and remembered her anger immediately. I caught a glint of it in her eye, and before I was aware of what had happened, part of me thought, “Oh, s**t, she’s mad at me!” And this happened even though I knew I had just asked the students to “run anger”.

At another point, I asked the group to run fear, which they gamely did. While I was not part of the exercise, just managing it, I found myself nauseated and desperate to leave the room, in the classic “freeze or flee” mechanism.

What was going on?

What was going on was that my neurology was working perfectly! Our brains apparently have certain neurons, called mirror neurons, which “reflect back an action we observe in someone else, making us have that emotion, or have the impulse to do so”, according to Daniel Goleman in his book, “Social Intelligence”. These mirror neurons are the mechanism of our understanding what someone else is experiencing. They create a sort of emotional contagion between people (and even among crowds), especially when they interact face to face, and particularly when they look each other in the eye. This happens completely outside our conscious awareness.

So when I caught the eye of the woman who was “angry”, I experienced her anger, and when several members of the group were “afraid”, I became afraid.

So if you are someone who “catches” others’ negative emotions quickly and easily, what do you do?

The first step to solving a problem is to recognize it. If you regularly have emotions that seem to come out of nowhere, for no reason, your mirror neurons are probably very sensitive (or you have more of them, or they’re working overtime, or something). So the first thing is to ask yourself, “is this my emotion?” If the answer is no, then find a neutral or positive thought which will bring you back to your own decoupled physiology. A few good neutral thoughts are:

I am balanced, centered and grounded. (And really feel your connection to the earth.)
I have a protective bubble around me (or my aura). (Again, take a moment to notice the protection.)
I’m me; you’re you; we’re different (or separate).

Not only will you feel better, but then, in a more resourceful state, you have the ability to shape the interaction, so that the other person “catches” your more positive state.

Do you want to be happier? More successful?

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a very brief talk on the relationships of meditation, luck, emotional awareness and success, as part of a larger program given by others. There was a lot of material, actually too much for me to cover in the ten minutes I had, and that bugged me. Still, people were quite blown away at the picture I’d drawn for them of how all these things relate to and reinforce each other. So after I sat down to listen to the rest of the program, it hit me — this information needs to get out there! People need to know not only about this reinforcing relationship, but also about all the exercises that one can do to feed the virtuous cycle. So I had an idea... But first...

Quick — How happy are you, on a scale of 0 –10? (Where 10 is “it couldn’t possibly get better — life is a blast!” and 0 is “I’d be better off on the other side”.) Check inside quickly to answer that (whatever number comes up first is the right one). Then scroll down...

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If you answered less than 10, would like to improve that happiness level? (And if the answer is 0 – 1, please go get individualized professional help now.)

If you’re reasonably happy, or so-so, or even kinda bummed, and would like to be happier day to day, read on.

Did you know there are simple, scientifically proven strategies (no, no drugs!) to boost your happiness and sense of well-being, not to mention your success? Because there is now lots of research into the psychology of happiness, emotional awareness, the effects of meditation on the brain and body, and the structure of luck, which you can use to improve your life. But it’s fragmented into hundreds, maybe thousands, of different books and websites.

You could find all this information yourself, but why bother? Do you have that much time? I’ve gathered much of the best of the current research in one place. How much would you be willing to pay for all this information? $300? $500? $1000?

I’m offering it, along with some experiential tools not included in the literature, this one time only, for FREE (of course, there is a small catch, but it is for your own good)!

I’m offering a teleclass, based in solid scientific research into meditation, luck, happiness, and emotional awareness, which aims to boost that happiness level, along with your success, by giving you simple, easy tools and strategies. This is groundbreaking, as I haven’t seen anyone put all these things together in one place. There will be some lecture, especially in the first session, to explain the framework for the class, some guided meditations, some group discussion, homework (about 30 – 40 enjoyable minutes daily — and you may already be doing some or much of it), and questionnaires.

Here are the details:

When: 5 Wednesdays, 6/13, 6/20, 6/27, 7/11 and 7/18, 6PM PDT, which is 9PM EDT, for 45 – 60 minutes each

Where: Wherever you are, by long-distance telephone. However, you must not be driving a car, as it would be too dangerous to take part in the guided meditations.

Cost: Because this is a beta test, it is FREE, if you (a) attend all teleclasses and (b) fill out all questionnaires (don’t worry, they’re short). If you don’t do these things, the cost is $100, which is what it will be in the future. I do this because if you don’t attend all the classes, and don’t fill out all the questionnaires, I don’t know what is working, or how well.

Contact: Hollis Polk at hollis@888-4-hollis.com, 650-616-9377, or 888-4-hollis (888-446-5547) to sign up, get details and/or ask questions.

I’m looking forward to this — it will be fun! Please join me for what promises to be a life-changing journey!