Joe quotes a saying he attributes to a Supreme Court judge: “I wouldn’t give you a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I’ll give you my whole world for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” This perfectly describes the emotional development journey.
For a two-year-old, emotions are simple: “I feel angry, so I’m gonna yell at you or punch you.” Then comes the complexity — learning what emotions are, identifying them in your body, feeling them, expressing them without hurting people, letting them move without resistance, discovering they’re similar to one another, finding you can love all of them. On the other side: “Wow, you just have emotions again and they’re just fluid, except you’re not run by them, you’re not controlled by them, you’re not hurting other people with them.”
This framework also explains why empathy can’t be taught intellectually. Empathy is a felt sense, like proprioception — knowing where your left foot is with your eyes closed. “How do you describe seeing green?” Logic won’t work here. This is why no one changes their mind on things like prayer, meditation, or God until they have “a change of felt sense.” The intellectual frameworks in Joe’s teaching are “just creating frameworks that make it easier to feel into or realize something.”
Related Concepts
- Emotional fluidity defined
- Experiential learning over intellectual understanding
- Welcoming, not just accepting, emotions
- Naming an emotion can become a way to avoid feeling it