Emotion Memory Part 2: Shaping

[This article is part of a series about how to craft an intentional life using ideas and tools from Constantin Stanislavski’s acting system for working on our inner motive forces. Previous article: Emotion Memory Part 1: Exploration]

I have discussed emotions and described emotion memory and sense memory in previous articles. These included exercises to explore one’s emotions and emotion memory, and exercises on how our senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight affect us emotionally and trigger memories. Here, I discuss how we can shape our memories over time. I also describe an exercise that uses your senses to shape your mood.

While some memories and the emotions they generate seem carved in stone, they can change over time. We can work to nudge this change in a positive direction through deliberate reflection. Stanislavski shows us a way of working with and crafting our memories in this excerpt about the experience of witnessing an accident:

“[Immediately after viewing an accident] All traces were obliterated. There was one human life less in the world and that was all. However, a small pension would be paid to the family of the deceased and so everyone’s sense of justice would be satisfied. Therefore, everything was as it should be. Yet his wife and children were perhaps starving. As I thought, my memory of the catastrophe seemed to become transformed. At first it had been raw and naturalistic, with all the ghastly physical details, the crushed jaw, the severed arms, the children playing with the stream of blood. Now I was shaken as much by my memory of it all, but in a different way. I was suddenly filled with indignation against human cruelty, injustice and indifference.

[A week passes] The snow was white then as now. That’s—life. I remembered the dark figure stretched out on the ground -- that is—death. The stream of blood, that is the flow of man’s transgressions. All around, in brilliant contrast, I see the sky, sun, nature. That’s—eternity. The street cars rolling by, filled with passengers, represent the passing generations on their way into the unknown. The whole picture, which was so horrible, so terrifying, has now become majestic… Time is a splendid filter for our remembered feelings—besides it is a great artist. It not only purifies; it also transmutes even painfully realistic memories into poetry.” (Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares)

Stanislavski describes how the initial raw and painful memory of a tragic event is changed by thinking further about its consequences to the people involved. From sadness and horror, the narrator moves to fierce anger at the memory of injustice. The memory is further changed when the narrator contemplates the beauty of the surroundings and the optimism of people getting on with their lives. This adds a poignant philosophical quality to the memory. These are positive changes. The first change creates the potential for positive action in the narrator to do something about the injustice. The second change brings peace and a sense of the cruel beauty of our world.

The process of reflecting and changing one’s emotional response to a memory will take time and diligent effort. After all, these experiences were strong enough to cause emotional echoes over time. But the rewards are worth it. Being able to modify memories that haunt and trouble us, so that we gain something positive out of them is a valuable ability. Reflection can provide context, a reason for what happened, a learning that helps us grow.

This possibility depends on being able to grapple with memories and emotions. The following exercise is about learning how to trigger emotions and emotion memories intentionally.   

Exercise: Curating your mood

In the extract below, Stanislavski’s actor students are exposed to a soundscape which simulates a 24 hour period. The suggestion of time passing and the external environment changing is provided through lighting and sound - working on sight and hearing. The scene shows how stimulating the senses can stimulate emotions in turn, and change one’s state of mind. 

“First we had the light of a sunny day, and we felt very cheerful. Off stage there was a symphony of noises, automobile horns, street car bells, factory whistles, and the far-away sound of an engine—all the audible evidence of a day in a city. Gradually the lights were dimmed. It was pleasant, calm, but slightly sad. We were inclined to be thoughtful, our lids grew heavy. A strong wind came up, then a storm. The windows rattled in their frames, the gale howled, and whistled. Was it rain or snow beating on the panes? It was a depressing sound. The street noises had died away. A clock ticked loudly in the next room. Somebody began to play the piano, fortissimo at first and then more softly and sadly. The noises in the chimney increased the sense of melancholy. With the coming of evening lights were turned on, the piano playing ceased. At some distance a clock struck twelve. Midnight. Silence reigned. A mouse gnawed the floor. We could hear an occasional automobile horn or railroad whistle. Finally all sounds stopped and the calm and darkness was absolute. In a little while grey shadows heralded the dawn. As the first rays of sunlight fell into the loom, I felt a great relief.” (Ibid)  

Understanding and therefore being able to manipulate how one’s surroundings affect one’s state of mind is a powerful tool. This exercise is inspired by this idea and the extract above. It is actually a few bundled exercises about becoming aware of the emotional effect of sensory experiences. The idea is to examine the emotions triggered by your senses and how they connect to emotion memory. These are exercises you can do on your own, with no special equipment. 

• Create a sensory experience using one or more of the senses. It can be complex or simple, long or short. It is important to focus completely on the sensation. 

• During and after the sensory experience, think about the following:

1. Is the experience pleasant or unpleasant? 

2. How does the sensation make you feel? Try to be specific. 

3. What did you think about during the experience?

4. Did the experience trigger any memories? How do these relate to the sensory experience and the emotions you are feeling?

• In the future, you can revisit chosen sensory experiences to trigger the same feelings and thus work on curating your surroundings and daily experiences to positively affect your mood. If you repeat sensory experiences, note if the associated feelings and memories change with repetition.

Here are some examples of the kind of sensory experiences you might create:

Sound 

• listen to a piece of music that you like 

• listen to a piece of music you don’t like

• go outside while the wind is howling

• listen to the rain

• listen to a crowd roaring

Sight 

• change the lighting in your space

• look at evocative photographs, paintings or pictures 

• stroll in nature or through city streets and look around

Taste

• put something sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami in your mouth and savour it, e.g. cheese, chocolate, lemon, chilli, mustard

• eat an ice cream with a cone

• sip something complex and roll it around your mouth

Touch

• stroke an animal 

• place objects in your hands and explore them as if you were blind (it helps to shut your eyes here)

• put your hand or whole body in water and move it around - do this with hot and cold water and note the differences

• walk on the beach or on grass using your whole feet and flex your toes

Smell

• sniff various substances (some carefully!), e.g. lemon juice, meat stew, garbage, turpentine

• light incense and sit quietly in a room with it

• find a garden space with flowers or herbs and move around smelling them

• mow a lawn and smell the freshly cut grass

Combined

• The examples above ask you to isolate a particular sense. Choose any of single sensory experience you have had and focus on all your senses in turn. What is the effect of layering the senses on what you experience?

Turn your senses on yourself

• smell yourself after exercise, after a wash

• taste yourself, lick your skin after exercise, after a wash

• stroke yourself, play a drum beat on your thigh

• examine yourself in the mirror, looking in all the places you usually ignore, examine parts of yourself 

• listen to your voice live and on recording, sing

Try to approach all of these experiences from a neutral point of view, without prejudging them, so that you are open to what your senses engender in you. This is especially important in the exercise on yourself. We often look at ourselves critically, seeing where we fall down. Even if there are parts of yourself that you do not like, try to experience them dispassionately, and with a sense of potential. Focus on the sensory experience rather than your intellectual and emotional preconceptions of what you are. 

What is the point?

These exercises help us to develop the habit of paying attention to our senses and memories, and how those make us feel. If we become more aware of what affects us emotionally, and the emotional and physical impact of our memories, then we gain more control over how we react to the world. We can curate our own emotional and physical spaces to elicit the emotions that we want to have. We can lessen the impact of negative emotions and memories.

In the next chapter, Tempo & Rhythm Part 1: Awareness, I discuss how action, physicality and beat affect our emotions and vice versa.