Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
Meaningful Happiness is a podcast that unpacks the science of emotions, relationships, and personal growth through the lens of Affect Relational Theory (ART), Chronic Shame Syndrome (CSS), and Latalescence—the second act of life where experience, adaptability, and purpose shape our journey forward.
Each episode explores how shame operates beneath the surface, influencing our confidence, connections, and sense of agency. Through deep insights and practical tools, we uncover ways to rewrite our personal narratives, break free from shame-based cycles, and cultivate a life rich in authenticity, curiosity, and joy.
Join me as we dive into the psychological frameworks and real-world applications that help us navigate relationships, self-perception, and the ever-evolving landscape of human experience.
Let’s make happiness meaningful.
Check out our other content at:
https://linktr.ee/scottconkright
Meaningful Happiness with Dr. Scott Conkright
Ep. 01- Your Emotions Unveiled: Biology, AutoBiography, and Relational Affects
As a licensed psychologist exploring relational affects and emotions, I reveal the profound distinction between biologically hardwired affects like startle, fear, and anger, and the deeply personal emotional autobiographies that stem from them, empowering you to master emotional control. By understanding the nine core affects that shape our feeling states from birth and recognizing how prolonged moods and emotional narratives emerge, you can gain invaluable insights into navigating life's complexities with emotional intelligence and wisdom. Unlocking the mysteries of affects and emotions is the key to self-awareness, healthy relationships, and a fulfilling, emotionally balanced life.
For more information about Scott and his practice, articles, videos, and more: https://linktr.ee/scottconkright
Hi, I'm Dr Scott Conkray, founder of Meaningful Happiness and the Relationship Workshops. Today I'm going to talk to you about what might feel to be an intellectual or kind of academic set of stuff to talk about, but it's really about your feelings, because one thing that I really want to stress right now, especially if you're not feeling good, is that you need to know what feelings are about. So one of the questions I'm going to ask you is which is more important to you the way you feel or the way you think? And a curious question is how do you know the difference? And a curious question is how do you know the difference? I think by the end of this talk you'll have a lot more information, not only about what feelings are, where they come from, but, more importantly, what you can do to have control over what you're feeling.
Speaker 1:But let's first talk about what feelings are. I mean, what are they? They happen to you, right? Yes, they happen to you, just like thoughts happen to you. But again, what are they?
Speaker 1:Well, what they are are their reactions to stimuli. So, for instance, if you're in the car and you're driving up 85, any highway, and somebody honks at you, you can have a startled response right, you're responding to a stimuli. That's what we call an affect. It's an affect of startle. If somebody then slams on their horn and they keep pressing on the horn, what are you going to start feeling? In all likelihood, you're going to start feeling angry, and that's a reaction to a stimuli, to being this person laying on the horn. In some ways it's bigger than you. You really don't have much choice, because that's how we're wired. If, in the same traffic, a car swerves over towards you, you react with fear. You don't think about acting with fear, you react with fear. That's the affect of fear, and an affect, just like the startle affect, is a biologically based feeling state. We don't have control over those feeling states, and this is an important statement, because I'm going to come back later and talk about the difference between an affect, which is a response to a stimuli.
Speaker 1:What gets set up gets set. What gets set off after that, which is a response to a stimuli. What gets set up gets set. What gets set off after that, which is a bunch of memories which then basically become our emotions. But the immediate reaction to what's happening around us is an affective response, and there are nine of them. I'm showing 10 figures I don't know which one to put down, but nine.
Speaker 1:If you have nine affects, I will go into detail about those later on, but right now the point that I want to make is that when it comes to feelings, you don't really have any choice about them, except once you notice what that affect is and, by the way, once you notice your reaction to that stimuli, whether it's startle or surprise or fear or disgust or anger or interest or enjoyment. Once you have that, you get to make a choice what to do with that. That response of noticing it, by the way, is called a feeling. That's what a feeling is. You have an affective response Once you notice it, once there's an awareness of that. That's a feeling. By the way, if the feeling state lasts for longer, let's say all morning long, all afternoon, all week, that's called a mood. That's basically a feeling that lasts for a long time. Once you start going into your personal history of shame, fear, anger, so forth, which happens also automatically, that's your emotional life.
Speaker 1:So one way I think about the difference between affects and emotions is that affects are biology, they're biological reactions. Emotions are your autobiography. So each of us have the same affects when we're born and you'll see them, by the way, on every baby's face. Every parent who's ever raised a child knows these nine affects because they know them intuitively when dealing with a child. And we also are wired biologically to react to infants in all of their affects, because infants, they are pure affects.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if any of you have been on a plane that's been crowded and you're tired, and you're on your way for a five-hour trip from New York to San Diego and there's a baby on the plane. Now, this baby, when you, let's say, in the waiting room, in the lobby, this baby's smiling at you, you're automatically gonna smile back, because we are wired to smile back at interested, warm, smiley babies. When that baby starts wailing on the plane for hours because it's distressed and distressed is an affect you are going to feel distressed as well. So what's the whole point of this? Why is this so important? Because if you want to have some control over what you're feeling, you have to know how this works. Because you want to have some control over what you're feeling, you have to know how this works. Because you want to know if you're feeling distress. You want to know that you're feeling distress If you're not sure what you're feeling, go to the one of the nine affects, see which one it is and figure out what that's about for you. The first thing that you want to do is to say I am distressed right now. Why? Well, because there's a baby wailing on my plane right behind me. That's good reason to be distressed. Anybody's going to be distressed. What you do with that? Well, there's lots of different techniques about how you take care of yourself around those sort of things.
Speaker 1:One of the things that happens when we're distressed or when we're feeling ashamed, when we're reacting when somebody hurts our feelings, is that because we so dislike the feelings of shame and distress, because we feel like they're happening to us and we have no activity, you know, we have no agency around it. I mean, I cannot stop a crying baby on a plane, nor can you hope the parents can't, but if they can't, we're stuck with it. That feels really passive. So often, in response to feeling distressed or shamed, we turn to anger.
Speaker 1:99% of anger in most people is shame or distress related, and that's an important thing to know in a relationship, because if you're reacting with anger to feeling distressed or ashamed, you're not addressing what you're really feeling and the other person's reaction and everybody else around you to your being angry is to be angry back around you, to your being angry is to be angry back, and that is not going to work for you because that is going to make things worse, obviously. So that's a beginning. I didn't really cover nearly as much as I wanted to, but this is a beginning around understanding what affects are. I'm hoping that knowing this can help you make some good choices. So keep liking, keep subscribing, come back, check out my website and I look forward to seeing you next week. I'll be back. Thanks so much.
