Update 1.31 — “Stubbornness” instead of “sorrow”.

In this update, I decided to change one of the main emotions. It means, the emotion of “sorrow” change to “stubbornness”.

To make this change, inspired me the previous update 1.30, in which I added the so-called specific actions tendencies. The table below presents the actions tendencies that I have assigned to individual emotions.

In the general diagram of the Mandala of Characters, we can find specific action tendencies placed next to the main emotions.

The emotion of “sorrow” that I want to replace with “stubbornness” is at the bottom of the Mandala of Characters. In the following set of words and phrases:

EARTH
position, SENSATION, benefit
(sorrow/defend)
(autumn—existence and sense)

And after changing the “sorrow” to “stubbornness”, the above set would look like this:

EARTH
position, SENSATION, benefit
(stubbornness/defend)
(autumn—existence and sense)

I think it is worth asking the question now, why do I think that “stubbornness” will be a better and more accurate concept that “sorrow”?

This is very interesting because the emotion of “sorrow” does its job well and matches the Mandala of Characters. It means, “sorrow” is associated in various ways with other concepts which we can find on the Mandala.

However, the specific action tendencies that I added in the previous update gave me a new perspective. Thanks to this, I realized that the emotion of “sorrow” would be worth changing to another concept that would even better suit to the Mandala of Characters.

Emotion “sorrow” I added when I was creating the Mandala of Characters. I write about it in the study — “The Mandala of Characters—creation history”, in the chapter — “Enneagram”.

Emotion “sorrow” I added to the three main emotions that are in the Enneagram, namely: anger, fear, and shame.

At that time, I made a diagram that is worth returning to now. We can see this diagram below.

As we can see, emotions are divided into two categories:

• rejection, which is divided into:
  — fear—rejection by insecurity (unsafety), and
  — shame—rejection by lack of recognition (unappreciation, low prestige).
• enslaving, which is divided into:
  — anger—enslaving by an uncertain (unstable) situation, and
  — sorrow—enslaving by a stable (unchanging) situation (ground).

According to the Enneagram, fear, shame, and anger are the main emotions. Emotions which have a great impact on us. One of these three emotions also has a greater impact on us than the other two.

Among the Enneagram types:

• shame—prevails in types: 2, 3, and 4;
• fear—prevails in types: 5, 6, and 7;
• anger—prevails in types: 8, 9, and 1.

The Enneagram is, therefore, divided into three parts. The Mandala of Characters is divided into four parts. So, the fourth main emotion had to be added to the Mandala. This emotion that I added was just —“sorrow”.

The division into:
— rejection (dividing into shame and fear), and
— enslavement (dividing into anger and sorrow) was also created by me.

As I have just mentioned, the “sorrow” emotion that I added in the above diagram works well. However, now I think that “sorrow” should be replaced with “stubbornness”. I believe that “stubbornness” will work better than “sorrow” in this place of the Mandala.

According to the above diagram, the emotions of anger and sorrow are associated with enslavement. And here appeared in my mind doubts about the emotion of “sorrow”.

The point is that the emotion of “anger” often causes an unstable situation from which it is difficult to free ourselves. In other words, we are enslaved by an unstable situation, and this often causes anger in us.

In turn, “sorrow” can be caused by enslaving, which is associated with and unchanging situation, or “grounding. In such an unchanging (or difficult to change) situation, we may find ourselves against our will. For example, it can be like that, when it was imposed on us by other people or by a coincidence of various life circumstances. Beside “sorrow”, with such and unchanging (grounding) situation, we may also associate other emotions, such as resentment, stubbornness, fierceness, obstinacy, and so on.

“Sorrow”, therefore, can be the first stage (or first reaction) to enslavement by the unchanging situation (or situation that is very difficult to change). After this stage, however, the following stages appear that can evoke the emotions mentioned above. That is resentment, stubbornness, fierceness, obstinacy, and so on.

Thinking about which of these emotions would best reflect the reaction to enslavement by “grounding”, I decided to compare these emotions with the specific action tendencies. Actually, with one action tendency which corresponds with sorrow (or sadness) emotion. (As I mentioned above, the action tendencies I added to the Mandala of Characters in the previous update). And this specific action tendency which corresponds with “sorrow” is “defend”.

In my opinion, all the emotions mentioned above fit the "defend" action tendency. That is, action tendency—"defend" fits: resentment, stubbornness, fierceness, obstinacy, and so on. Therefore, we can also see that these emotions better than "sorrow" match the “defend” action tendency. It is because, to defend ourselves effectively, “sorrow” can be emotion, which is not strong enough. To defend ourselves effectively, we need, for example, determination, resentment, stubbornness, fierceness, obstinacy, persistence, etc.

From the above concepts, I decided to choose “stubbornness”. “Stubbornness” is a very universal concept, and it has many meanings. It can also be positive and negative. It can bring both beneficial and adverse effects. So, it can give us positive and negative consequences, effects, results, outcomes, etc. Because, when we stubbornly act noble and useful, then it is, of course, beneficial. In turn, when we stubbornly keep doing something selfish and harmful to us, then it is disadvantageous. (Similarly, the positive and negative effects can cause the other three main emotions that we have in the Mandala, namely, anger, fear, and shame).

As a Polish person who is learning English, I see there are differences between the two languages. In English, there are actually three words for being stubborn. These English words are:
— persistent,
— stubborn, and
— obstinate.

In Polish, we have mainly one word which can be equivalent of stubborn and obstinate, namely—uparty. And we have equivalent for persistent, namely—uporczywy, and this word in Polish is more used for non-living object, or something what is independent from us. It means it may have a significant influence on us, but we have limited influence on it. However, in Polish uparty and uporczywy are close to each other.

Returning to English, I think we can say that we have three stages or three faces of stubborn. That is:
— Obstinate—the most stubborn, and the most negative in meaning. For example, something or someone can be obstinate as a mule. And rather it is going to grow obstinate than giving us any chance or hope for some cooperation with.
— Stubborn—its meaning can be positive and negative. For example, it can be stubborn like a mule, child, person, problem to solve, a thing to do, etc. So it can be hard to deal with it. But it can be solved with some patience, reliability, persistence, endurance, steadiness, etc.
— Persistent—which is the most desirable kind of stubbornness. It is mostly positive, and it often shows determination in striving to achieve some goal, despite many problems and obstacles.

So, I think, from these three stages of stubbornness, I will choose the middle stage, that is, “stubborn”. And I will use “stubborn” in the Mandala of Characters as the representation of obstinate, stubborn, and persistent together.

Coming back yet to the word “sorrow”, I can now to point out another reason for replacing “sorrow” by “stubbornness”. It means, “sorrow” actually also can refer to “anger” emotion, which is on another side of the Mandala. That is, “sorrow” can also be the stage that precedes “anger”. So, it can go similarly as in the case of “stubbornness”, namely, “sorrow” can be the stage that precedes “stubbornness”. I mentioned it above.

Then, in general, “sorrow” can be the first stage that precedes “stubbornness” or “anger”. And “stubbornness” and “anger” are reactions against various kinds of enslavement. Mainly, enslavement caused by the too stable or too unstable situation.

All in all, “sorrow” is a more universal emotion, and it is worth to pay more attention to it in the future. However, at the moment, I assume that “sorrow” (or sadness) is associated with enslavement. And enslavement, as I mentioned above, includes both “stubbornness” and “anger”.

In that case, if “sorrow” is the more universal emotion, I replace it with “stubbornness”. And I will make this change in the diagram I used above.

In the bottom quarter of the above diagram, there is the area of "stubbornness" emotion. And the "stubbornness" I used to replace the "sorrow" (or sadness).

Thus, in the diagram above we can see that we have two pairs of main emotions:

• fear and shame, and
• anger and stubbornness.

I think, “stubbornness” emphasizes the opposition to “anger”, which is on another side of Mandala. There is also some kind of feedback loop between these two emotions. It means:

• “Anger” in us can be caused by someone who is “stubborn” to us.
• And “stubbornness” in us can be caused by someone who is “angry” at us.

An analogous feedback loop occurs between “fear” and “shame”. It means:

• “Fear” in us can be caused the fact that we are “ashamed” for some reason,
  (For example, we are “afraid” that something that we keep secret from others, and we are “ashamed of”, could be discovered by someone. In other words, we are “afraid” that something we hide from others, could be uncovered).
• And we can be “ashamed” because we are “afraid”.
  (For example, we may be “ashamed” that we are “afraid” of something, because others may think that it is a shame to be afraid of what we should not be afraid of. And we are afraid that it will be a great shame when somebody discovers that we are afraid of something we should not be afraid of. In other words, we hide our fear from others, and we are afraid that we will be ashamed when our hidden fear comes to light).

Besides, to the above argumentation, which was inspired by the Enneagram, we can present here the arguments based on “Fight or Flight response”. (Let me remind that the term “Fight and Flight” was introduced by Walter B. Cannon in 1915).

The “Fight and Flight response” is an evolution-based approach. Two factors result from this:

1. We humans have become the most developed species during evolution. However, in our behavior, we can still find many behaviors typical of the animal world.
2. We, humans, lived in the natural environment for a long time, where the predators were the main thread. Therefore, we had to deal with them somehow.

The reaction to the above two factors, among other things, is the “Fight and Flight response”.

In the modern world, however, we can no longer react with the “Fight or Flight response”. For example, we cannot react like this to a policeman, who will stop us when we commit a traffic offense. We cannot “fight” a policeman because we will violate his physical integrity. We also cannot “flight” (or escape) because we will act against the low, it will mean that we want to avoid a penalty for an offense we did.

In this case, living in modern society, we must respect and follow the laws, as well as written and unwritten rules, regulations, customs, traditions, etc. However, the “Fight or Flight response” is still deeply encoded in us. It can evoke various strong emotions in us, which, so to speak, “drive us crazy” in various situation.

Such specific emotions and behavior are, among others, caused by evolution. Because we, as humans, have been involved in evolution in the course of our development. For this reason, our brain contains, in a sense, old and new brain. The older part, that is, the “old brain” helped us survive in a natural environment in which we had to face various dangerous. For example, thread caused by predators, some natural phenomena such as heavy storm, earthquake, etc. In turn, the “new brain” helps us survive in a given society. When we a member of a given society “new brain” helps us to adapt to different laws, rules, regulations, customs, traditions, etc.

Our brain, of course, is one whole. And it follows that the reactions of the “old brain” are mixed continuously with the reactions of the “new brain”. So we are not able to separate them from each other.

Consciously, admittedly, we can distinguish reactions flowing from the old and new brain. However, in stressful situations requiring a quick response, we are rarely able to make some analysis and reflections about our thoughts. Then we simply do not have time, peace, or the right mental attitude which are needed to calmly think about something or something analyze.

From this, it follows that we still have to deal with reactions coming from the “old brain”, regardless of whether we need it at the given moment or not.

I got the idea of the “old and new brain” from Professor Paul Gilbert, who in his book “Mindful Compassion”, among others, places such diagram illustrating this idea.

We can see also Professor Paul Gilbert talking about the “old and new brain” on the YouTube channel. For example here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJdLIUzfDOk

The above diagram schematically shows the interaction between the old and new brain.

The old brain is responsible for:

• Emotions,
• Motives,
• Relationship,
• Seeking/Creating.

In turn, new brain is responsible for:

• Imagination,
• Planning,
• Rumination,
• Integration.

Further, in the above diagram, we also have arrows connecting the old and new brain, which show the connections between these brains, and constant communication between them.

Professor Gilbert put the word “Glitches” between the old and new brain, which means faults or disruptions in the communication between these two brains.

About various faults and disruptions, it can be said a lot. These are, among others:
— problems with difficult-to-control emotions that appear unexpectedly,
— problems with motivations or desires that occur when they should not,
— problems with relationships that is, with various anxieties and tensions associated with them, which are constantly bothering us,
— etc.

The new brain gives us many possibilities. Thanks to the new brain we can think in these ways which are in much less degree accessible to animals. However, on the other hand, it has its drawbacks. For example, our thought is often associated with high stress. Unlike us, animals can often quickly “get back to business as usual”, or “pass to the order of the day”. So, animals are able to come back to normal very quickly whenever a difficult situation ends or when a threat passes them.

Professor Gilbert, in his lectures, is giving us this example. When a zebra is chased by a lion, she is immediately mobilizing to escape. And when she manages to escape, she quickly returns to her typical activities, such us looking for food. In the case of humans it is completely different. A human, when a threat ends, keeps thinking about it for a long time. This dwelling on or rumination often extends over many days or even longer. It is difficult for a human to control himself, in his mind, he is coming back to a dangerous or difficult event many times. He also leads long considerations about what happened and what could happen? Thus, stress, associated with some difficult situations in humans, can stretch for several days or longer.

This approach, admittedly for us people, can be very helpful. For example, in avoiding threats in the future. On the other hand, however, we can have various psychological traumas. For this reason, we can strive to avoid any possible difficult situation in any possible way. Then we can feel completely unreasonable fears, anxieties, frights, phobias, panic attacks, etc., which can make difficult our normal functioning. In extreme cases, such fear or phobias can lead us to such a state that we will not be able to control it. Then we will require appropriate therapy and treatment.

Since therapy and treatment have been mentioned, the idea which is presenting the above diagram is used in Paul Gilbert’s therapy called—Compassion Focus Therapy. As the name suggests, this therapy is primarily focused on strengthening our courage to show and use compassion. However, this is not just about compassion for others and neglecting ourselves. In this way, indeed, compassion is often understood, for example, under the influence of many religions, cultures, and traditions. But unfortunately, we can devote to others too much. Devotion to others, although it is very much needed and noble, however, we do so at the cost of satisfying our physical and mental needs.

In therapies where compassion is used, we can find a lot about the fact that we need to give compassion for ourselves first. To show this, we can use the analogy to the instruction of using an oxygen mask on the airplane. It means, if we are flying with the airplane with a child, we must first put on an oxygen mask on our face, and next, we can take care of our child. If we do opposite and we put first the mask on the child, then there can be a situation that we will be not able to put it on ourselves.

Compassion in Paul Gilbert’s understanding also has many other elements, and we could talk about it for a long time. For those who want to know more about compassion, I recommend the publications and books of Paul Gilbert and many other authors who study and research compassion. For example, Kristin Neff, Christopher K. Germer, and many others.

One of the many methods that prof. Gilbert uses in his therapy is the evolutionary approach. And one of the elements of this approach is realizing that we have the old and new brain. And consequently, realizing what problems can be associated with it. I mentioned it a moment ago, using Paul Gilbert’s example of a zebra reaction. That she quickly returns to balance when she manages to avoid being caught by a lion. Unlike animals, we often need a lot of time to come back to balance.

Paul Gilbert’s—Compassion Focus Therapy—is among others is effective in the treatment of depression, excessive shame, excessive self-criticism and others. For those who are interested in this therapy, and they have not too much time to read, I recommend YouTube channel. We can find there many of Paul Gilbert’s lectures. One of the lectures we see at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnHuECDlSvE

I think that the evolutionary approach can help us realize a lot about our behavior. Among other things, the fact that for many of our behaviors is responsible evolution. The evolution which shaped our brain and the whole body to this stage in which we are now. Also, how our psyche works is largely the result of evolution.

Therefore, it is often not our fault that we feel certain emotions, and we tend to have specific reactions and behaviors.

Similarly, we can say that it is not our fault that we have our particular type of character and not a different one. Also, it is not our fault that we tend to behave in a specific way. Character or personality is also not a characteristic only for humans. Animals also have personalities, which is easy to observe. For example, it can easily be seen by those of us who have pets. Or those of us who at least sometimes have some contact with animals.

So, the human character results from both the old and new brain. Therefore, during analyzing characters, it is worth considering basic emotions and specific action tendencies, which are associated mainly with the old brain. However, indirectly they also have strong impact on the new brain.

One of the basic reactions that are deeply encoded in us is the “Fight or Flight response”, described by Walter B. Cannon. I also mentioned it earlier.

I think that the idea of the “Fight or Flight response” is in fact very accurate. For this reason, I believe that it is worth to use these reactions in the Mandala of Characters.

In that case, we can ask how the “Fight or Flight response” would be represented on the Mandala of Characters?

These reactions we can interpret as follows:

• To the “Fight response” matches the following main emotions and action tendencies:
  — anger / attack,
  — stubbornness / defend.
• To the “Flight response” matches the following main emotions and action tendencies:
  — fear / escape,
  — shame / hide.

In other words, when it comes to the “Fight response”, it can be triggered by:
— anger that will drive us to carry out the attack, or
— stubbornness that will drive us to defend ourselves.

As for the “Flight response”, it can be triggered by:
— fear that will push us to escape, or
— shame that will urge us to hide.

To better illustrate the above emotions and action tendencies, I will put them on the diagram that I used at the beginning of this update.

I will also put emotions and action tendencies on the main diagram of the Mandala of Characters.

Summarizing the above consideration, now we have two sets:

1. Main emotions:
   • anger,
   • fear,
   • shame, and
   • stubbornness,
   which were inspired by Enneagram.
2. Specific action tendencies:
   • attack,
   • escape,
   • hide, and
   • defend,
   which are inspired by the evolutionary approach concerning our main emotions and main responses to various stimuli coming from the environment.

I think that the above sets coming, so to speak, from the Enneagram and evolutionary philosophy, will give us a fascinating look at the main emotions and related specific actions tendencies.

I also think that by the change, the emotion of “sorrow” or (sadness) to “stubbornness”, emotions and action tendencies work better together. I am glad that I managed to reach this stage of the development of the Mandala of Characters. Because at this stage, I managed to find the emotion “stubbornness”. In my view, thanks to the emotion of “stubbornness”, the Mandala is more interesting and accurate.

First of all, it is about two pair of interesting opposites, namely:

1. ANGER / attack — STUBBORNNESS / defend.
2. FEAR / escape — SHAME / hide.

Arranging these pair in this way makes a kind of magnetic field between them. It means these opposites attract or repel each other, depending on “attitude” and “situation”. There is also a kind of feedback loop, thanks to which is generating energy that causes various “tensions”, “resistances”, “currents”, “blockades”, etc.

Note point 1.
Regarding ANGER / attack — STUBBORNNESS / defend.

In the case of the first pair, namely, ANGER / attack — STUBBORNNESS / defend, we have such dependencies:

• Anger can cause stubbornness. And stubbornness can cause anger.
• If we attacked, then if we can, we will defend ourselves. And if we defend ourselves too stubbornly against somebody or something, then we can be attacked even more.

Between ANGER/attack and STUBBORNNESS/defend, there are intermediate stages. These stages are FEAR/escape or SHAME/hide. Therefore, in total, we can have such relationships:

• The situation when we are dealing with an attack.
  — If we are dealing with an attack, we can be afraid or ashamed.
  — However, if the attack will last very long, then we can stop paying attention to fear or shame. For example, because we are tired of driving us into a sense of shame of fear by attacking us.
  — And then stubbornness may arise in us against the fact that we are attacked.
• The situation when we are dealing with stubbornness.
  — If we deal with stubbornness, it can cause fear or shame (depending on how this stubbornness is?).
  — However, if stubbornness will last very long, we will stop paying attention to our fear or shame. For example, because we have enough shame and fear caused by stubbornness.
  — And then it can trigger our anger and desire to attack the source of stubbornness.

Note to point 2.
Regarding FEAR / escape — SHAME / hide.

In the case of the second pair, namely, FEAR / escape — SHAME / hide, we have such dependencies:

• We can be ashamed of being afraid. Or we are afraid of being ashamed.
• We are ashamed because we have something to hide, and we are afraid that it will be uncovered. Or we are afraid of something, and we prefer to escape from it (or avoid it), and we are ashamed of it, that we are escaping from something.

Between FEAR/escape and SHAME/hide, there may also be intermediate stages. These stages are ANGER/attack or STUBBORNNESS/defend. In total, we can have such relationships.

• The situation when we are dealing with fear:
  — If we are afraid of something, we may be stubborn and not want to do something. We can also defend our fear and claim that we are rightly afraid of not doing something. On the other hand, we can also be angry with ourselves (and attack ourselves) for not doing something, and for being unable to overcome our fear.
  — If our stubbornness or anger, because we are afraid, will last a long time, it can make us tired, overwhelmed, embarrassed, etc.
  — And then we will start to be ashamed of being afraid.
• The situation when we are dealing with shame:
  — If we are ashamed of something, we can be stubborn, that is, we can insist on our shame. And we can defend ourselves against revealing that we are ashamed of something. On the other hand, we can also be angry with ourselves that we are ashamed of something. And we will attack ourselves because we are unable to overcome our shame.
  — If our stubbornness or anger, because we are ashamed, will last a long time, then it can make us tired, overwhelmed, embarrassed, etc.
  — And then we will be afraid that our shame can be uncovered.

Described by me, the interactions between emotions and action tendencies are, of course, one of the many possibilities of various influences and relationships that can take place between them.

Specifically, between the following pairs of emotions and action tendencies: — ANGER/attack and STUBBORNNESS/defend, and
— FEAR/escape and SHAME/hide,
various considerations we can make. There are many relationships between them. And between them, energy flows in various ways.

So, now we have “puzzle” or structure of emotions and action tendencies. I think this structure of emotions and action tendencies will very well lead us to various processes which can happen in our psyche.

Thus, above in this update, I exchanged “sorrow” into “stubbornness”. I think, thanks to this change, the Mandala of Characters better reflects what is going on in the psyche of individual types of characters.

Besides, what I wrote above (it means, besides what speaks for exchange “sorrow” into “stubbornness”), there is one more thing that speaks for this change. I am thinking here about behavior of the types which are in the area of “stubbornness”. These types are Dry Earth, Earth, and Cool Earth.

“Stubbornness” in my opinion suits more to representatives of these types. These types often have different kinds of both positive and negative “stubbornness”.

Since the considerations, I put above show that it is worth replacing “sorrow” (or sadness) with “stubbornness”, let us put this change to the Mandala of Characters.

Therefore, the table that I placed at the beginning of this update will now look like this:

As we can see in this table, “stubbornness” is there, where is:
— the main element—Earth,
— basic function—Sensation, and
— specific action tendency—defend (or defense).

Next is the diagram that I used in the previous update 1.30. After changing the “sorrow” to “stubbornness”, this diagram will look as follows:

In the above diagram, “stubbornness” we can find in the set of concepts and phrases that are at the bottom of this diagram. I made the same change in the general diagram of the Mandala of Characters, which is below.

References: