Lesson #5: Part 3

We recently learned that acknowledging and accepting feelings, giving them free expression, sets the stage for transformation. I can honestly say that writing through these lessons has been profoundly healing and instructive. So many feelings have come up. I've shared some of my darkest secrets about how hard things have been for me. What a relief.

Now that I'm good at acknowledging and accepting feelings, does that mean I should vent whatever I'm experiencing? Brett says no. The psychological research suggests that unbridled expression of emotions interferes with concentration and performance. In trading, this is deadly. By yelling and bashing keyboards, I'm doing nothing to resolve the reasons for my upset in the first place.

Reflexive acting out negative emotions only reinforces them. I cannot overcome frustration by acting in frustrated ways.

Brett says that the idea is to transform feeling, not ignore it and not revel in it. His suggested way to do this is to replace one emotional state with another.

Substitute feeling for feeling, not thought for feeling.

Any stimulus stat evokes calm, focused attention can be effective as a tool for shifting emotions. The key is to evoke my yoda state--the calm focus--during periods of high frustration. I enjoy bio feedback for this type of work, and also classical music. But for me the true key is to minimize the times when I get frustrated in the 1st place. Preventive strategies are much more useful then working to quash the frustration once it's fully activated. In a relaxed state, I'll arrive at perspectives and insights that remain unavailable while I'm immersed in flight-or-fight frustration-mode.

One exercise Brett outlines, I'll have to try. Two thermometers side by side on a piece of paper. One thermometer I record my emotional frustration temperature. The other I record my temperature with respect to confidence.

The two times that I'm most likely to make the worst trading decisions is when I'm frustrated, as well as, overconfident.

When I identify an elevated frustration temperature, I can take a break from the screen and work on entering into my yoda state via breathing, bio feedback or just taking a walk. With practice, this can be accomplished within a matter of minutes and make it MUCH easier to act in a calm and planned fashion.

The key is to keep myself aware of my emotional state throughout the day. The thermometers are an easy, visual way of becoming my own observer....and trading coach.