Emotional Resonance: What It Is and How to Interpret it
Date Posted: October 7th, 2008
“Emotional Resonance” is one of those terms that can be kind of vague and hard to understand. People say things like “hopefully you’ll resonate with my message” or “does this idea resonate with you?” or whatever. What do those statements mean?
Short Physics Discussion
“Resonance” in physics refers to what happens when a wave oscillating at a frequency near the natural frequency of the resonating system is applied to the resonating system. When this happens the resonating system starts vibrating too, but at a much higher amplitude than the applied wave.
Some examples:
Violin: Resonance is achieved while playing the violin when while you’re sounding one note the octave can also be heard on another string. The string you’re sounding is vibrating at a frequency close to the natural frequency of the other string so even though you aren’t playing it the other string also sounds.
Singing: Resonance is achieved while singing when you can your nasal cavities and mouth vibrating.
Bridges: See the Millennium Bridge, Tacoma Narrows Bridge (although it didn’t actually fall due to resonance), and Angers Bridge.
Glasses: If you sing a note at the natural frequency of a glass, it will break due to resonance.
TV or speakers: If your TV or speakers start buzzing at a certain volume or frequency that means that the TV or speaker chassis is resonating with sound being by the speakers.
Emotional Resonance
Now that you have an understanding of what physical resonance is, here’s how it’s related to emotional resonance. With physical resonance if you apply the same input signal (like say the sounding note on the violin) and apply it to a resonating body whose natural frequency is different than that of the input signal (a string that’s not harmonically related to the sounded note), this resonating body won’t react (the string won’t resonate). If you apply the same note that broke the glass to a plastic cup, the plastic cup won’t do anything.
Emotional resonance is when an idea causes an emotional reaction. The idea is the input signal. You are the resonating body. The idea you resonate with may or may not resonate with other people. Other people have different “natural frequencies” than you.
Some examples:
You read a book and realize that many of the ideas in the book make a lot of sense to you. You start feeling happy and excited about the book. You resonate with the book.
You go to a seminar and the speaker starts speaking in a way that makes perfect sense to you. You think to yourself “finally, someone who speaks my language”. You resonate with that person and presumably his/her message.
These two examples are both of positive resonance. That is, resonating feels good and right. Resonance can be negative too, though. See the following:
You attend a different seminar and for some reason the more that person speaks the more angry and frustrated you get. The speaker is clearly saying or talking in a way that sets you off. You resonate negatively with the speaker and his/her message.
You read an article and it makes you feel really uncomfortable. You resonate with this article.
For the most part when when someone says “I hope this resonates with you”, he/she is referring to positive resonance; that you find something in the content that makes sense to you on a deeper level.
How to Interpret Emotional Resonance
If you resonate positively with an idea does that mean it’s a good idea? If you resonate negatively does that mean it’s a bad idea? Are ideas that don’t give you any reaction not worth your time?
The short answer is no. The purpose of resonance isn’t as a litmus test for whether some idea is good or bad. The ideas you resonate with will change as you change. I’m sure you can think of one or two ideas that you used to agree with very strongly, which you now feel ambivalent toward. It’s natural and usually a good thing because it means you’re changing.
So if you can’t use resonance to decide the validity of something, what’s it good for? I use it as a starting point for exploring my subconscious beliefs. I ask things like “why do I feel so strongly about X?” or “what memory is being triggered?” or “what belief is being challenged (bolstered)?”. I ask similar questions when I don’t resonate with something that other people appear to resonate with too.
Resonance is an excellent tool for getting to know your subconscious because chances are your subconscious is what’s really doing the resonating. Your intuition also resonates with certain ideas, but until you’ve tamed your subconscious your intuition can be hard if not impossible to hear.
If this doesn’t make much sense, here’s an example that may clarify things:
Elphaba was raised to hate cats. She hates cats. She goes to an anti-cat rally and resonates positively the speaker whose speech explains at length why cats should be hated. This overrides the small voice that tells her hate is bad and this can’t be right.
Clearly the part of Elphaba that’s positively resonating is her socialized subconscious. Her intuition is the small voice that believes hate is bad. Make sense?
To sum up: Emotional resonance is when an idea produces a strong emotional effect. It can be used to communicate with your subconscious, but probably shouldn’t be used to make decisions on the worth of an idea.
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