# \[Dface and Doubtingthomas\] Discussion Tree Practice
**URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67
**Category:** Friendly
**Tags:** learning, idea-trees, tree-based-discussion
**Created:** [May 13, 2021, 9:40pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67 "2021-05-13T21:40:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2021, 1:13am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67/21 "2021-05-25T01:13:55Z")
Have you watched some of my tutoring videos? If so, how did that go?
> **[Tutoring Videos](https://criticalfallibilism.com/tutoring-videos/)**
>
> Tutoring MaxI helped Max learn philosophy by incrementally building up his skills. Most of it is relevant to everyone. One of my focuses was explaining practice activities that could be used to make progress alone, outside of tutoring sessions. I was...
---
### Author:  [@doubtingthomas](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/doubtingthomas)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2021, 11:34am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67/22 "2021-05-25T11:34:29Z")
I haven’t watched them. I planned on watching them just yesterday after reading this post. This is a problem I’ve noticed: I only do learning activities if it gets recommended by you. And it has to be in the near future. It’s like I need constant confirmation and approval.
Edit: I meant to say that that if the recommendation is recent then I like it more. The sentence I actually wrote which is “And it has to be in the near future.” is incorrect
---
### Author:  [@ingracke](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/ingracke)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2021, 7:01am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67/23 "2021-05-26T07:01:33Z")
@Dface This is all replies to stuff that Max said, but it is meant to apply to your situation/problem.
> [@Max](#):
>
> If you try to avoid them then you will never master them. If you want to be unaffected by them (and remain rational in spite of them), then you need to master those emotions.
I think “mastering” emotions may be the wrong way to think of them. It is hard to tell because it’s not really explained, so it could mean a lot of things. But usually when people talk about, say, mastering their anger, they mean that they still _get_ angry, and they just have some amount of _control_ over it. They are able to suppress it, or use it in a targeted way, instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.
So they aren’t really resolving the issues, beliefs, internal disagreements & coercion, etc that are causing their anger. Instead they are just channeling, controlling, suppressing, etc, the anger.
> [@Max](#):
>
> Those moments (when you do get emotional) are the best chance for you to figure out _why_ you have those feelings and to understand them - IMO.
If someone doesn’t have a lot of experience paying attention to, understanding, changing, etc, their emotions, then a conversation with another person is **not** the best place to start.
It is better to first start paying attention to your thoughts, physical sensations, etc, when you are _not_ emotional. You can learn to sort of step outside of your thoughts & feelings and view them on a more meta level when you are _calm_. Paying attention to thoughts & feelings like that is a skill, and it is easier to learn & practice this skill if you start while you are calm, and then later you can start to apply it when you are feeling emotional.
(This is what mindfulness meditation is: you learn the skill of focusing your attention, paying attention to your own thoughts and feelings, being able to view your thoughts and feelings from an outside perspective, etc)
Once you can use mindfulness, a lot of people will be able to use it during an emotional conversation with another person to calm themselves down, but in the beginning, usually the best thing for them to do is _leave the conversation_ until they are calm. (There are exceptions when it is a conversation you have to have, like a decision needs to be made with another person.)
And people mostly should _not_ be having conversations on here that they are emotional about – the conversation quality really suffers, people end up being more irrational, illogical, hostile, mean, etc, when they are emotional. So I definitely don’t think people should be having emotional discussions here as a way to practice dealing with their emotions. In general, people should _not write messages on here when they are upset_.
> [@Max](#):
>
> Here is my suggestion: read [https://fallibleideas.com/emotions](https://fallibleideas.com/emotions)
I agree the emotions essay has good advice. But to be able to follow that advice, I would suggest first practicing mindfulness meditation, to get some practice with the skill of paying attention to thoughts & feelings in that way.
Once you can do mindfulness meditation when calm, you can start to apply it to your negative emotions. One way to start is to _think about_ something you are emotional about. You just bring it up in your own mind, when you are calm. You don’t need to involve another person, get into an argument or discussion, etc. You can instead think of something that upsets you and pay attention to _those_ emotions.
This is a common type of guided meditation practice session: they will direct you to think of something that upsets you, and then pay attention to your feelings. The mindfulness meditation stuff directs you to just pay attention to your feelings. You can do that first, start to identify what you are actually feeling, what it feels like in your body, what your thoughts are, how you _know_ you are upset, etc. And then when you get good at that, you can apply the emotions essay advice.
Then once you have practiced on your own (when you don’t have another person to worry about, or a current problem to deal with) you will be better able to use the same techniques in real time when emotional situations come up.
Of course, if problems come up in your real life before you have practiced much on your own, you can try to use the meditation and emotions essay advice to deal with them and calm down. But you shouldn’t be _seeking out_ things that will make you emotional when you are just starting to learn these skills.
[Previous page](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67.md?page=1)