On Emotions
Reflection on leveraging feelings to manage emotions.
The difference between emotions and feelings is often misunderstood. Delineating your emotional states from the interpretation of your thoughts (i.e. your feelings) can be incredibly empowering. Without conscious awareness of where we have control, we fall victim to downsides of frequent or prolonged emotions.
This article is for anyone interested in learning how to better manage emotions through the controllable aspects of our psychology.
Emotional regulation is a skill that maximizes thriving in any circumstance.
This is an opinion piece based on my reading of many books on evolutionary psychology, emotional intelligence, and resilience. The debate between emotions, feelings, and complexity of brain processing is never-ending. Most of what we understand about the mind is theory. The bi-directional relationship of feelings and emotions is nuanced with many exceptions (like most concepts). You won’t see any citations in this article because it is my personal hypothesis and working system to manage the primary emotions.
The intent in any of my writing and daily practice is to find actionable tools and mindsets that bring control to my life.
Feelings offer an opportunity to improve the skill of self-command. This essential skill can be applied to any life domain to encourage thriving in a world that has optimized surviving.
The Basic Emotions
Emotions are sensations in the body that are automatically generated in response to sensory perceptions of an experience.
Feelings are our conscious interpretations about our circumstance. They filter our experience of emotion creating a particular perception.
Understanding the difference between emotions and feelings can be empowering because it demonstrates that feelings are within our control. Learn to effectively manage your feelings to master emotional regulation.
The basic emotions are surprise, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and anger. None are inherently bad or good as they, particularly the physiologic processes they cause, can be beneficial circumstantially.
Surprise alerts us to threats while activating the fight or flight response. We can go from relaxed to ready because of this internal alarm system.
Disgust prevents us from dangerous consumption. When applied to harmful substances, this emotion is invaluable.
Fear allows us to avoid unnecessary risk. The skill of courage or reasonable avoidance can be governed by the power of fear.
Joy orients us toward pleasure and purpose in environments that make both difficult to consistently achieve. Fulfillment is derived from joy.
Sadness illuminates unmet expectations of ourselves or others. In the case of loss, it demonstrates our capacity for love. A loss that produces sadness teaches the importance of connection, presence, and gratitude. We only become sad over the things we care about. It also produces a change in function which can act as a signal to our tribe that support is needed.
Anger motivates risky action. It creates a sense of invulnerability. As it ramps up the stress response, this emotion can allow for extraordinary feats when adequately managed.
These emotions can also lead to unproductive reactions or misapplied feelings. Surprise can cause us to freeze. Disgust can be confused with preference and compromise discernment. Fear can cause avoidance of opportunities. Joy can become the priority and not by-product. Sadness can lead to disconnection, detachment, and despair. Anger can cause extreme irrationality and produce irreversible consequences.
Evolutionary Benefit to Modern Liability
Emotions are what make us human.
Feelings are what make us modern humans.
Evolutionarily speaking, the stress response and subsequent emotions produced by it contributed to our ability to endure in extreme conditions across the planet. Achieving the daily mission of providing for the tribe and surviving equated to thriving.
Evolutionary psychology has provided us with incredible evidence of brain development throughout the ages. Our core brain is comprised of our limbic system. Otherwise known as the emotional brain, the limbic system is our stress response center that orients us to threatening signals.
Even though our minds are now three times the size our original core brain, emotions continue to run the show when we are highly activated. Regardless of intelligence, competence, and character, our evolved ability to reason, problem solve, communicate, and adapt is suppressed when the fight or flight response ramps up.
Functional MRI research suggests that the evolved areas in our minds are dampened when the limbic system within the core brain is activated. Our neurologic wiring puts us into survival mode when emotions take over.
Ancestrally, fear taught us how to recognize threats. Disgust demonstrated what was safe or not to consume. Surprise enhanced our situational awareness and security preparation. Joy provided fulfillment despite consistent challenge. Sadness showed us we cared or expected more. Anger fueled powerful action.
As we continued to evolve, our brains continued to expand. Cognitive development allowed for rumination, prediction, preparation, and executive function. These enhanced capabilities eventually led to the creation of civilization. The rise of our species and technological innovation have almost completely removed our daily ancestral threats.
We originated from an environment where it was hard to survive. We now exist in environments where survival is passive.
Our original hardware designed to keep us alive has become the very reason some struggle to thrive. The absence of daily missions focused on survival has caused our emotional hardware to begin amplifying psychological threats rather than physical ones.
Feelings and emotions have become intertwined.
Thinking patterns, opinions, beliefs, biases, and assumptions now drive emotions. A sensory input or thought comes through and emotions arise despite physical safety. Preferences, aversions, and desires dictate the stress response and our prolonged ability to ruminate can keep us emotionally heightened to our own detriment.
We are unable to regulate emotions emotionally.
Emotions, however, can be rationally managed by the interpretation of our feelings.
Actionable Opportunity
Sensory inputs have the opportunity to be consciously considered prior to stress response activation. Emotions can be influenced by our feelings.
Our triggers can become our signals.
What are emotions but state changes? These states can be managed by anyone with adequate tools. Self-awareness allows for state identification. Conscious breath control can then regulate your physiology and rationality to inhibit or intentionally express an emotion. Like a dial, an initiated person can turn up or down the intensity of a given state.
Understand the evolutionary origin to stop being at the mercy of your emotional reactions.
Reactions are trainable. Responses are choices.
Both require reflection, reframing, and then intentional exposure.
Emotional Signals
For management and systematic improvement, we must contemplate where our emotions are coming from. There is an underlying signal behind each emotion. Contemplating these signals before, during, and after emotional experiences can begin to entrain the mental tools needed for resilience despite adversity.
Each emotion contains a core theme that possesses reflective opportunity to encourage maximized function in our ever-changing existence.
Understand where your emotions come from and you can learn how to leverage them:
Surprise
Surprise is our personal alarm system. Its purpose is threat identification. When surprised, you feel threatened. Physical threats must be immediately responded to. Psychological threats, however, only impact you when permitted.
Reflective opportunities:
What threatens you?
Is this a physical or psychological threat?
How can you train to enhance awareness and subsequent management of psychological threats?
Training method:
Premeditation of psychological threats
Personal example:
Your young child is going to have a hard time at various points today
How do you want to show up based on past experience?
Wait for the opportunity and execute
Professional example:
Knowing a project isn’t going to go as planned
What contingencies can you plan for? How can it be adapted when problems arise?
Surprise allows for the skill of authentic threat identification.
Disgust
Disgust is our consumption filter. It dictates what we consume. When disgusted, you feel a consumable is harmful. Differentiate your preferences from a safety concern.
Reflective opportunities:
What disgusts you?
Is this a preference or physical safety concern?
Are your preferences serving you?
If not, how can you progressively train them out?
Training method:
Consumption of safe dislikes
Personal example:
You align with a particular political philosophy
Intentionally read a book from a reputable source or have a conversation with a friend on the other side of the aisle
Challenge yourself to maintain an open mind and empathize with the other perspective
Professional example:
A perceptually difficult colleague prone to poor attitudes
Challenge yourself to connect with that person
Embrace curiosity in their perspective and circumstance
Disgust allows for the skill of discernment.
Fear
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