Living in the As or Bs? - Written by Laura Facciponti Bond
Laura Facciponti Bond
Two years ago I created a number and letter labeling system for the Alba Emoting patterns. This was designed as an instructional tool for teaching the emotional patterns without providing the subjective and leading emotional word up front in the lesson, allowing the individual learning the pattern to provide her/his own subjective feelings for what the pattern evoked.
Dr. Susana Bloch - Creator of the Alba Emoting Technique
Dr. Bloch, the creator of Alba Emoting, defines emotion as “A complex functional state of the entire organism, which implies simultaneously physiological activities, expressive behavior, and an inner experience.” The Alba Emoting effector patterns provide the physiological and the expressive aspects of behavior, through breath patterns and postural and facial muscle manipulations. An individual can learn to control and manipulate these two aspects of emotion in measurable degrees.
Dr. Bloch has always maintained that the individual must offer the inner experience, which is highly subjective, challenging to control or manipulate, and cannot be calibrated or measured. With thousands of 
words available in the English dictionary for emotions, and recognizing that each of the Alba Emoting patterns, designed to evoke basic emotions, have varying expressive levels depending on the intensity of the breath and degrees of muscular intensity and movement, it is no wonder that providing one emotional word like fear or joy would limit the individual’s subjective response to the pattern. For example, a person exploring the Alba Emoting pattern traditionally called Joy, and what I have labeled 3a, might feel merry, amused, cheerful, delighted, jubilant, effervescent, festive, happy, jovial, ecstatic, or elated. An individual learning the Fear pattern, or 2b, might feel alarmed, cowardly, stunned, surprised, distrusting, shocked, insecure, terrified, panicked, or dumfounded.
Labeling the patterns with numbers and letters opened up the ability to call up and describe a pattern without attaching the limitation of a singular emotional word to a pattern that is meant to evoke an abundance of varying feelings and experiences within a larger basic emotional category.
How were the labels devised? I have always found it intriguing that the patterns naturally fall within 3 sets of cognate breathing pairs; 2 nose breathing, 2 mouth breathing, and 2 nose/mouth combination breathing patterns. I also recognized that within these cognate pairs that there was one uplifting emotion (which I labeled as A-emotions) and one negative or oppressive emotion (or B-emotions); Tender Love/Anger, Sexual Love/Fear, Joy/Sadness. Finally, understanding the theory that basic emotions are considered the core ingredient to all other emotional expressions humans can experience as they mature, with basics mixing into all other emotions (much like primary colors mix into the multitude of colors we experience in the world) I knew that the labels of the emotions should start with the numbers 1,2,3. This number labeling metaphor helps to express the theory that all other emotions beyond these first three sets launch into the infinite possibilities of human expression, similar to the infinity of our numbers. The seventh Alba Emoting pattern, Neutral Breath, is considered the pattern that is the closest a human can get to an emotionless state. For this pattern I assigned “0” (zero) to signify this essence of being emotionless, and numerically below the 1,2, and 3 patterns.
After two years of using these labels as the initial phase of teaching Alba Emoting (eventually revealing emotional words for each pattern once an individual has learned and interpreted all aspects of the patterns) I have found that most of my students prefer to continue using the number/letter labels as they refer to the patterns. Some express delight in the personal freedom of allowing their own interpretation of how the pattern feels to them. Many have a great deal of fun with a new “secret coding system” for talking about emotion and behavior. There have been many times where I came up to a group of “Alba Emoters” and heard them looking at a picture or watching a commercial and commenting, “Did you see his 1b!” or “Ah – now that is some great 1a!” And still others enjoy exploring the simple symbolism of “living in the As, as opposed to living in the Bs.” It has become a popular saying upon leaving a workshop, or sending a salutation to another Alba Emoting practitioner, “Have an A-Day!” Or “Don’t let the Bs get you down!”
I have also found that by grouping these patterns in these cognate breathing pairs that it helps a person who is a habitual nose breather, or mouth breather realize that minor shifts of tension, posture, and facial aspects can easily shift them from an A-state to a B-state, or vice-versa. A recent workshop participant was able to make some interesting observations about the common postural attitude patterns in the three cognate Alba Emoting pairs by recognizing that the 1-patterns were “giving emotions,” the 2-patterns were “receiving emotions,” and the 3-patterns were “being emotions.” She made a very astute observation, for the postural attitudes of 1a and 1b (Tender Love & Anger) are indeed focused forward and the eye contact is placed on someone or something. The patterns of 2a and 2b (Sexual Love, in the receptive mode & Fear) both have postural attitudes of leaning back, as if receiving either something pleasant or shocking. And finally, 3a and 3b (Joy & Sadness) are more inner connected postural attitudes, either allowing the inner feeling to simply radiate out, or holding an inner feeling in and down.
I believe the simplicity of these pattern labels helps to make Alba Emoting even more accessible, invites investigation and individual interpretation, and provides a simple language or code that could possibly help us all simplify unnecessarily complicated communication environments.
So, with these patterns in mind — I hope you have many A-filled days, and experience minor doses of the B-emotions!
To learn more about Alba Emoting, watch this short video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8xgdgqRsUk
