RECOGNIZING EMOTIONS
A good start to begin our self-knowledge is to check how we act when under the influence of emotions.
There is a consensus that fear, joy, sadness and anger are primary emotions, with some authors including disgust.
Neuroscience reveals the function of each emotion:
Fear
Guarantees our survival
Happiness
It has a repeat function, we repeat what we like
Sadness
It makes us think and question
Anger
Has the function of making us understand what is important to us and why we should defend it
Primary emotions are involuntary and are automatic responses to stimuli, even if we don't know how to identify them. In addition to primary emotions, there are secondary emotions also called social.
They arise from the social environment and can be considered extensions of primary emotions. Frustration, excitement, dynamism, disappointment, anxiety, discouragement, envy, guilt, etc.
So, see examples of the unfolding of primary emotions:
Sadness (lithograph by Vincent van Gogh, 1882)
Anger:
fury, rancor, hatred, irritation, enmity, wrath, envy and anger
Sadness:
melancholy, tiredness, low spirits, frustration, unhappiness, helplessness, lack of motivation, guilt, laziness, disappointment, heartache and abandonment.
Hapiness:
high spirits, excitement, euphoria, happiness, contentment, enthusiasm and pride.
Fear:
dread, terror, astonishment, anxiety, despair, jealousy, fear, insecurity, lack of protection, worry, anguish, apprehension, helplessness, fragility, shame and vulnerability.
Disgust:
repulsion, repudiation, arrogance, nausea, antipathy, renunciation, disgust.
Recognizing our emotions through observation is as necessary as learning to read and write to live with greater capacity to face life's challenges without harm to our well-being. There are those who compare emotions to energies. With patience and acceptance, the emotion transforms.
Once we pay attention to our emotions, we are able to understand when they are intense and causing us discomfort. Remaining in psychological and emotional discomfort for a long time is like living in tight shoes. The body will feel it and become exhausted.
In order not to suffer, we often repress or deny our emotions. Question yourself every time you say “I don’t feel anything” when faced with an event or thought. This emotion will return at another time, in similar situations.
The prevailing understanding among behavior specialists is that adult behavior patterns, in general, are produced when we are children.
These are involuntary strategies for dealing with and responding to our caregivers.
We learn to divert attention from feelings, especially those considered negative, and which, in fact, are not negative, because as seen above, emotions have functions.
And as an adult, it seems that having emotion is a defect and weakens self-esteem in the face of the highly competitive system of today's societies. What we need is to be aware of what is happening to us and constantly train ourselves to regulate our emotions and be honest in our communication without, however, blaming others for what we feel.
Although technical in nature, it helps us to have a superficial notion of what psychology calls “projection”. With this, we take the focus off others and pay attention to our own mechanisms.
In projection we interpret what others think through the lens of our own needs and feelings.
Repression and projection result from the brain's function of perception.
How does your 'child self' respond?
Victimization is a defense mechanism, it often hides our difficulty in self-responsibility, transferring the reason for our feelings to others, such as guilt, for example.
Perfectionism also enters this list, whose need to be accepted makes the person obsessive about not making mistakes, wanting to be infallible in order to be recognized and have approval.
The same happens with those who have difficulty saying no. They are the so-called peacemakers, who tend to have difficulty making decisions because they are not sure of what they want. It is the exaggerated need to keep the peace at any cost, to always be a friendly and well-behaved person. People who generally respond to offenses with sadness rather than anger and therefore tend to develop depression.
Another defense is the so-called do-gooder syndrome, people who do good deeds to feel useful and stronger. On the other hand, there is the thirst for power, to dominate so as not to be dominated, when the person fears being treated badly, having their feelings invalidated. This mechanism includes aggressive behavior, both active and passive, under the layer of apparent calm, a volcano ready to explode at any time.
There are those who do not want to grow up and are always emotionally dependent on someone, they risk suffering physical or psychological violence. Excessive control also constitutes a defense mechanism for those who are very afraid. Or, even, isolation or escape which proves to be a behavior of those who are afraid of conflict and insecurity and take refuge, for example, in excessive work, distraction, etc.
