Language of Emotion

Emotion is something that we are all faced with every day. It really
is not an aspect that has an effective language and its study is
complex. It is partly complex in that it is not a science in which
predictability is the operative principle.

There is no consolidated view of emotional states and how they
interrelate outside of the esoteric and arcane traditions. Even modern
psychology is limited in its mapping of emotional states and their
interrelationships. It is arguable that even if it were possible to
interrelate emotions that it would have little value. This may partly
arise from the volatility that is contained in emotion. It is still a
worthwhile aspect of personal development to better understand
emotion.

What makes us angry and when are we compassionate and what makes us
find a balance between the two states of being ? When do we rationalize
and when do we act more intuitively and are these things that we can or
should be in control of ? What makes us want to give and to receive?

Each of these states called emotion that we enter has flux built into
it. An emotion is the feeling of change – but also more it is the
elements of change that we experience. It thus has a start point and and
end point – and somehow we are negotiating between the two (or more)
states. Emotions are satisfied when we reach one of the end-states and
remain open and unresolved if we never reach a conclusion. A good
example of this is the classic stages of grief model that says that we
start with anger and work our way through to acceptance. We can however
easily get stuck in one of the stages – and somehow people that do get
stuck experience massive physical, emotional and spiritual pains in
their lives.

Every emotion contains within itself all others. When feeling joy it
is because there is an absence of sadness – or maybe the possibility
thereof. When feeling reward – it may be because there was no
retribution. A feeling of strength will not exist without some sense of
weakness. Emotional intelligence or harmony comes when we combine and
consider all emotions within the ambit of a situation and build a
balanced state. Anxiety and fear are replaced by knowledge. Knowledge
gets overridden and informed by enthusiasm and vision. Vision and
enthusiasm get tempered by plans and desire. Desire and its related
fires gets held in check by justice, gravity and mercy. Mercy leads to
compassion that gets destroyed by fear. All of these have a real effect
on how people interact with each other and the world and in their
extremes these are powerful forces that shape history and our relations
with each other and the world.

On the other side emotion is sacrifice – you have to let something go
to move onto the next state.

For people that do not deal with emotion there is the belief that
emotions are lies and denies you things that you already have – by
masking it or hiding it from plain sight. You may feel despair at not
having – while if you observe the reality you may see that you have more
than you thought you had. Another view to this is that you need to
embrace and understand the emotions that you have – but also never to
get stuck in one state as it will lead to an unhealthy focus. By
focusing on emotions and recognizing why you are feeling that way – you
can let go of it more effectively and effectively understand the history
and current reality that have brought you to this emotion.

Research has shown that people that are more positive generally have
lower stress levels and they live longer. One view is that this is
because they are more effective at not getting stuck in one emotional
place – as any specific emotion that is carried through over time leads
to an amazing amount of stress. Any specific individual emotion, that is
left unattended will fester over time and bring harm to its owner. There
is an old saying that frustration leads to anger, anger to hate, hate to
violence and violence to death. So in each emotion there are levels
which needs to be understood. It is much easier to deal with frustration
– either remove the irritant or engage with the situation. Hate is once
again much harder and death even more.

It is our life’s work to learn to interrelate our feelings and not to
get stuck in one emotion. We must also learn that we can become more
effective at having and handling emotions and moving between these
states of being over time.

It is tempting to think of emotion as something that must be worked
on by yourself. It is true that a level of personal mastery in emotion
is critical in order to even understand what one is dealing with and to
be able to control your emotions. The real challenge comes in that
emotions are not created by yourself – but by your relations and
interactions with other people. It is thus a perpetual learning journey
on the actions and reaction of yourself and other people over time. And
while patterns may emerge – there is always an exception to any rule.
Some people may respond well to being given praise, with the intent of
creating confidence – while others may break down and cry. It may be one
way one day, and different the next. This difference is where the
emotion is happening. It is the flux and the time that we engage with
the changes.

The emotional level of maturity in each of us are is different and
the net effect is that the level at which we give and get emotions and
emotional support is different. Our reactions to the same emotional
stimuli are also at different degrees. What does seem to happen though
is that over time there is a normalization between two emotion givers to
a state in which there is a balance. If your first reaction is to not
like someone – given enough interaction, over time, there is a natural
adaptation and we all see some aspect of other as positive, or in a more
positive way. Time also seems to degrade emotions and tend to get
emotions stuck again. If you had an impression of someone a long time
ago – until you interact with them again – it seems that the emotion
surrounding that person gets stuck. It is amazing to see how fast
emotions can unravel when people interact again after a long time.

While most of these aspects above deal with how to re-act to emotions
there is a whole study that can be made on how to create and be
pro-active about emotional control. The creation side of emotion is a
massive aspect of the daily lives of people in creative industries.
Creating fear, skepticism, procrastination, blame, perception of
weakness and retribution is the mainstay of many industries.
Increasingly there are industries focused on peace, balance,
introspection, strength, action orientation, morality.

So it seems that there are some things that can be learnt about
emotions and that the language of emotions may have some terms that need
to be understood a bit better.

Some practical steps will include:

Mapping your emotional range:

• Make a list of emotions that you experience often.

• Make a list of emotions that you do not experience
  often.

• Why do you experience some of these more often than
  others.

• Which ones do you want to experience more of and which ones
  less.

• What are some of the aspects that you will need to focus on to
  experience these more or less. What practical things can be done to
  start influencing these emotions.

(Search Google for Chart of Emotions or List of Emotions if you are
looking for inspiration).

Exploring an emotion

• Ask yourself to describe the emotion that you are
  feeling.

• Document it or find some way to express it (i.e. paint it, draw
  it or some say it out loud, talk to someone about it). Don’t hurt anyone
  while expressing it.

• When is this emotion stronger or weaker and what triggers it to
  become stronger.

• In which situations does it occur more often.

• What emotion precedes it and what follows it.

• Can you react differently to the emotion that precedes
  it?

• Can you react differently to the emotion that follows
  it?

Releasing an emotion

• Emotions are usually motivated from fear, seeking to control
  others or a situation or seeking approval from others or security in a
  situation. What are you looking to achieve with your emotion?

• Is there another way to achieve the same outcome? If there
  something that can be done or actioned to move towards achieving your
  goal with the emotion. You may be shouting at people because you want
  them to stop wasting your time. This may come from a feeling that you
  want control of your finance. Your answer is the emotion comes from
  wanting lots of money, in order to feel that you have security. By
  shouting at them you feel that you are controlling the situation. If you
  focus on security – you may see that you need to spend more time with
  your family, shout less at people, start studying so that you can
  improve your CV and apologize to those that you were shouting at. Often
  the emotion blinds you to the real situation.

• What are you stuck on ? Can you at least think of the possibility
  that there may be another way to experience this whole situation. To
  achieve this – look at a time in which you did not have this emotion.
  Also – imagine what it would be like if you did not have to spend so
  much time feeling this emotion – what are some of the other things that
  you could be doing.

• By releasing an emotion you free a lot of energy and it is
  important to channel this energy constructively

It is tempting to gloss or paint over emotions. It does not help to
hide behind pain, fear, disgust, sadness, anger, pride, hate, regret,
spite and injustice or one of the several negative emotions, or grades
thereof that we feel. It is absolutely critical for our physical,
emotional and general health as humans on this planet to explore and
release these emotions in order to be better human beings. The energy so
released makes it much easier to focus on positive emotions.

The joy is that we can become more emotionally aware and adept daily
and that every step that we take this daily in many aspects of our live
and that every emotion that we deal with gets us one step closer to
being a better person.