#mediaeval research

Now, if you've read my recent short story, you saw how Vlad faces his death with bravery and honour. I already explained there WHY he would need to have this mindset. But I understand if you're thinking: "He must've been a superhero, this is not something a regular human could ever do."

I have a surprise for you:

Vlad was just a regular human

Formed by very special conditions, for sure. These extreme conditions made certain that only the people that managed to have that special ideal mindset stayed alive, and so he had to develop it. An admirable feat, no doubt!

Especially given that in those times there were no books about psychotherapy that he could've learned from - they only had legends of legendary knights (and that's also exactly why these legends existed - as a studying material).

But my whole point is:

He started out with regular human psyche, and he ended as a hero. Now let's see how he achieved that.

Strap in as this will be a long ride. But it will enable you to be closer to our hero one day. (And maybe save you some money in therapy)

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Many people think that Vlad Draculea had to to suppress his emotions into oblivion.

This assumption is understandable. A voivode leading his people personally into battle couldn't give away any emotions like fear, pain, or doubt, otherwise his people wouldn't follow him.

Imagine how extreme such a situation was: you're facing the enemy army. Thousands of people, who all have the same expression written on their faces: they want your death. Before they stepped into the battlefield, they might've been peasants, farmers, fathers, friends. But NOW, when they are in a battle of life or death, they've become warriors with a single objective: to kill that person in the fanciest armour, because they've been told that if they manage to do that, they won't have to fight for their lives again tomorrow.

See, you need to kill all these people: °°°°°°° - ••••••

All these people need to kill is: you •••••• - °°°°°°°

You're standing there, looking at a living mass wanting nothing else on this earth than to end you. And you can't turn back. Because if you do, you've failed all of your people and your whole kingdom. Those people following you decided not to feel fear only because they see that YOU are not afraid.

Now, to not feel fear in such a situation sounds like quite the impossible feat. Surely, you'd have to be a psychopath, or someone who suppressed or killed all their emotions, to be able to do that, right?

Wrong.

Because as a voivode you CAN'T afford killing all your feelings!

-> see, if you were emotionless, your own people would cease to trust you!

Because how can you trust someone who doesn't feel the same as you? Such a leader is extremely dangerous. How can you be sure he'll have your best interests in mind, and that he won't kill you one day for fun? That's why in mediaeval times, psychopathic or emotionless rulers were usually soon disposed off via a dagger in the back. (A mechanism that is missing in modern society, and that's exactly WHY you so rarely see people like Vlad today - the selective pressure making these people ceased to exist)

So what then should you do? Suppress your emotions??!!

Wrong again!

You can suppress small emotions for some time, sure. But because the situations a medieval voivode would find himself in would bring such extreme emotions (see the battle situation above), suppressing these would lead to a mental breakdown.

If you suppressed your emotions, you'd become mad.

No wonder it was a favourite way to discredit a ruler by spreading a rumor that they've become a sadistic mad tyrant - that would've ment that they've failed at their job.

...the same way a dishwasher would be considered incompetent if they failed to wash dishes, as the main job of a ruler was staying on the throne without becoming mad.

So what now?!! You can't kill your emotions, you can't suppress them either...!!! What else CAN you do??!!!!!!!

I'll let Vlad teach you.

See how his mind works in the story. I've described his mental processes very thoroughly for exactly this reason. The key is there if you look closely.

(And since we know real Vlad wasn't a mad tyrant, is also why I have the balls to say "I think I wrote Vlad realistically there, this is how Vlad would act" - because I think I've discovered the exact mental mechanisms he'd have to use in order to be a successful voivode. We might not know how exactly he died, but we DO know he was successful in leading people into battle, for which he would need to deploy the same mechanisms. Want to dispute me? Sure, go for it! But you'll have to provide claims how else he could've achieved what he did)

What Vlad is doing, is the art of

transforming destructive emotions into productive ones

He's neither killing his emotions nor suppressing them. He is using them as a fuel, redirecting their energy from negative, incapacitating one, into a positive, useful one.

In short, in a scenario where human mind reacts with the fight or flight notion, he's transforming all the FLIGHT emotions, into the FIGHT emotions.

He's basically changing all the emotions that would paralyse him into emotions that will help him move forward instead:

Fear into -> Curiosity

Anger into -> Battle rage

Nervousness into -> Laughter

Sadness into -> Acceptance

Now let's look what exactly he's doing in our scenario, where he finds himself in prison, facing certain death:

First, let's see his main objective:

To survive.

He's doing all he can for that one - tugs at the chain. Considers breaking his bones to get out of shackles. Eyes the surroundings for exits. Analyses how many soldiers there are. Calculates his chances anew every time his environment changes (the cell, the courtyard, the gallows).

Only when he finds out that this objective CAN'T BE ACHIEVED, he moves to his second objective:

Keeping his honour.

Why he would have that objective springs from his mentality of a mediaeval warrior, we'll focus on that in some future post)

And he devotes everything for this purpose.

Let's have a closer look now at the three phases we see in the text, where he transforms his destructive emotions into productive ones so he avoids a mental breakdown (= looses his honour):

In phase 1, he faces these obstacles:

He finds himself in a prison cell. After trying all possible ways to escape, he's faced with the fact that he's going to die. The first thing he feels is nervousness (cue "I'm in danger" meme). And so the first thing he does is laugh.

Now that helped him get out of paralyse and focus better. What's the second emotion he feels, what do you guess?

Fear.

Yes, I know he looks undefeatable, but he's a human. He never lets it display openly, so we can't see it in his thoughts either - he doesn't admit openly to himself that he's afraid, because that would display in his behaviour, and his enemies would be able to see that. And they would use it to break him.

He cannot afford to let it enter his spoken thoughts. But he feels it. Of course he does - he's facing certain death!

So right now, he feels immense negative emotions.

Now what can he do with them?

Option no. 1: Suppress them

Now that could work for him if that fear was small, and if he would have a chance to let it out later. but that's not the case now. He's facing imminent death, and even if he'd managed to ignore it now in the prison, the stimuli reminding him of his end will only strengthen once he steps onto the gallows and faces his enemy mocking him, the crowd cheering over his defeat, and the executioner's sword waiting at the beheading block.

Option no. 2: Mindfulness

Mindfulness can help profusely, because fear is an emotion of what would happen, not of what's really happening. He's not dying right now, no, he's standing in a prison cell.

Mindfulness is an immensely effective technique, and Vlad uses it often, so that he can assess his current situation and develop a useful strategy (you can see that in the text few times). But right now, it's not that effective, because if he uses it - by realising exactly where he's now - in prison with a chain around his neck - it's only gonna reinforce the feeling that his end is near.

Option no. 3: Letting those emotions out

And that's what he does!

But he chooses very carefully what emotions exactly he'll feel, so that it doesn't lead to a breakdown

And then he finishes with a prayer, which makes him feel he had done everything he could (and it also changes the emotion of sadness that he's never gonna experience those happy moments again into gratefulness that they've happened!), and asks God to receive him in heaven, so he now feels prepared for the future.

That was challenge no. 1: getting rid of big emotions. He is now calm and can think more clearly.

Now there's challenge no. 2:

He's still reminded that he's gonna die. That feeling is not going to go away, and there's a big risk that it will rekindle those big emotions anew, in a setting where he won't be able to let them out the same safe way - e.g. on the gallows.

So he does something fascinating:

He accepts the emotion. And then tells himself it maybe won't be so bad. And that destroys the fear.

Because as we already said, fear is the emotion of the unknown. So Vlad makes the step to make it known, by imagining how will it really be like.

And maybe that it won't be that horrible: maybe he'll see his wife, his parents, Mircea. That doesn't sound so bad at all!

It's safe to be optimistic. In other cases he'd be a realist - so he would be able to develop a good strategy!

But there's no strategy to be had after dying. He can't know what awaits him. And imagining it will be bad would have just the same effect on reality as thinking it will be good - that is, NONE. So he chooses the good. And that enables him to stop fearing.

Now, the key rambles in the door and we move to

Phase no. 3: It's time he faces his last challenge - keeping his dignity in front of a crowd.

This will be a tough one.

He's prepared himself well - he managed to get rid of all the big emotions and fears and is now calm. But now comes a more stressful environment - there is his enemy trying to humuliate him. He expects the crowd to be mocking him. There's the executioner with his sword. It is quite probable all these stimuli will be attacking him from all sides, trying to make him lose his composure anew.

And so, Vlad does another fascinating thing:

He chooses the stimuli he'll pay attention to.

He expects these stimuli to await him at the gallows:

1. His enemy boasting about defeating him

2. Crowd cheering over his demise

3. Executioner's sword and the beheading block

In advance, he rationally chooses which stimulus he will focus the most on, so that he won't loose his composure and thus accomplishes his goal of keeping his honour

Now you can see how Vlad used some advanced psychological techniques to achieve the impossible ideal of a legendary hero: he managed to not break down in the face of imminent death, be it in this story at the gallows, or in real life in battles. And that's what made him so inspiring. That's why people have followed him into battle. That's why he was a successful voivode, and why we still talk about him today.

Because he was able to face death without fear, and to keep his dignity till the last moment.

And we naturally admire people who can keep their head calm in dangerous situations.

Maybe you're saying: but he did fight in the end? Wouldn't that make him loose his dignity?

Yes, he did fight, but pay attention to how: he never tried to escape (of course if a window of opportunity opened, he would've used it immediately. But as he fights it's clear that there's too many soldiers and the window doesn't present itself). He makes it clear to everyone, that he's not fighting because he's scared, he's fighting because it's a challenge. Here we see another of his mental techniques, the one that enabled him to never have been broken down by fate:

He takes every opportunity to make out the best of every situation.

Now, he could've been standing there calmly and waiting for his death. But he decided to instead have one last battle, which will bring him joy.

Thanks to all these techniques, he was able to die with a smile on his face, even though - as we see in the very last moment in his tear, he is sad that he's dying - that's more than natural.

But his secondary goal was successful.

Mission accomplished: Died with honour 🏆

Bonus: your name is now being remembered for 550 years.

And how can YOU use these techniques? Learn from Vlad.

When you face a situation where emotions are high, use mindfulness techniques to bring yourself back to reality. Realise where you are. Touch, smell, hear. Inhale and exhale to calm yourself down.

If you can't get out of the emotional environment, choose what stimuli you'll pay attention to: use the ones that won't bring up useless emotions.

And if you still can't escape high emotions, transform the destructive ones into the productive ones. And then, in safe environment, let go of lingering emotions in a safe way: