Emotions

What Are Emotions?

Emotions are spontaneous, quick and fleeting reactions to inner or outer stimuli. Emotions steer how we feel and have a strong effect on how our mood is. Emotions differ from moods because they are felt in the here and now and they usually have a specific object. Mood is a more permanent state of mind, which doesn’t necessarily have an object.

Emotions create or describe our relationships to different things and can act as energy sources. For example, the anger teenagers feel promotes their independence. Emotions also have a memory of sorts. Often our emotions derive from our previous experiences.

Remember that everyone is responsible for their own emotions. If you blame others for the way you feel, you’re not taking responsibility for your own reactions. Feelings come and go, and during one day we might have a wide range of emotions. Feelings are infectious. If you feel angry or irritated, you’ll snap at people, sulk and be cranky. Before long you will get tit for tat and cause an argument with the people around you.

Emotions Are Physiological in Nature

Tunteet sijaitsevat koko kehossa. Tunteet saavat aikaan elimistössä fysiologisia muutoksia, jolloin esimerkiksi sydämen lyöntitiheys kasvaa, verenpaine nousee ja ihminen saattaa hikoilla, punastua tai vapista. Useimpiin tunteisiin liittyy fysiologinen aktivoituminen, sillä tunteet virittävät elimistöä. Tunteet myös ohjaavat toimimaan tilanteen mukaan. Tunteilla onkin ollut tärkeä merkitys ihmisten selviytymisen kannalta. Tunnetta voidaan ajatella kemiallisena tapahtuma kehossa, jonka vaikutus aistitaan fyysisenä ja psyykkisen kokemuksena.

Emotions can be felt all over the body. They cause physiological changes in the body, such as quicker heartbeat, rising blood pressure, or sweating, blushing, or shaking. Most emotions cause physiological activation because emotions strike up our system. Feelings also steer into action which is suitable to the situation. They have been important for survival of the humankind. A feeling can be seen as a chemical process in the body that a person experiences as physical and mental feeling.

Everyone Feels Emotions Individually

Everybody feels emotions and often the sensations they arise in in our bodies can also be alike. On the other hand, we’re all individuals. Someone feels anger pumping on their temples, someone else has a tingle in their arms, or a strong feeling in their head, throat or chest. How about joy? Some feel it in their hearts, some on the top of their head, and others as a glowing feeling all over their body. How about anxiety? Is it a strangling feeling on your throat, a tightness on the chest, pain in the stomach or like a tightening band around your head? All of these sensations are possible. The same feeling can give different sensations depending on the situation.

We also have different ways of describing our emotions. Two study buddies can have the same angry feeling but the other one describes it pompously, dramatically and colourfully, as the other is being low-key and calm about it. Temperament often defines how we experience and express feelings. Even though new situations stir up emotions in everyone, the differences in our temperament explain why one person feels excited and another one anxious. It’s good to keep in mind that our inner experience about the emotion is often stronger than our visible reaction. This applies to feeling nervous for instance.

It’s important to note that the feeling is in us, one part of the experience, but not the whole person or the whole truth. Even if we think our feelings are difficult, there’s a meaning behind being anxious for example. They are in our personalities and at best, make us excel ourselves. When a person recognises their feelings and expresses them genuinely, they are seen and heard as they are. They are also able to face another person as they are.

There Are Different Tones of Emotions

There are some universal emotions which are present in all the different cultures such as joy, sadness, feat, anger, disgust, surprise, and shame. Instead of always talking about these basic emotions, our everyday life is filled with emotional experiences that bring out some tone of the basic emotion.

Mix of emotions combines several feelings simultaneously. Common mixed emotions are for example jealousy, envy, guilt, anxiety, and love. Rapid changes in emotions and getting them mixed happens all the time also. For example, in a situation seen as threatening we might feel both fear and anger. When arguing with someone close to us we might feel a mix of rage, guilt, and love.

Good or bad emotions?

Feelings either bring us or take away our energy. Often they are divided into positive or negative, right or wrong. However, these divisions do not tell the whole truth about emotions and their effects. Many of the so-called negative emotions bring about positive results in our wellbeing and quality of life. All emotions are actually genuine, right and allowed. Instead of negative emotions, maybe we could say difficult emotions.

Positive emotions

• Help us bond with others
• Make us want to help the people around us
• Give us courage to try out new things
• Make us more creative

Positive emotions like joy, love, excitement, and approval make us more proactive and release energy. When positive emotions steer us, everything goes smoothly and feels easy. A person is actively interacting with the world around them. Positive emotions are also based on fulfilled needs, which makes us feel satisfied and happy. Difficult emotions are for instance anger, disgust, shame, fear, pain, failure, and the feeling of being misunderstood. These are important emotions which inform us that there’s a conflict between the current situation and a need or a goal that is important to our wellbeing. There are often unfulfilled needs behind difficult emotions.

Difficult emotions

• Help us to recognise change.
• Keep us from harm.
• Prepare us for ending unsatisfying action and reorganising it.

For example, anger prepares us for removing an obstacle and fear prepares us for pulling away from a situation. Grief prepares us for giving up important things, people, needs, or aims. Sometimes it might be straining to make use of the feelings you think are negative. There can be heart-wrenching experiences behind them that need attention. Emotions can also make you feel stuck and activate “lifetraps”. If needed, it might be useful to seek professional help with processing your emotions.

Emotion Tools for the Everyday Life

Next, here are some tips on how to face emotions and pay more attention to them in your everyday life. You’ll also get good insights into how to deal with strong emotions. Finally, there’s a list on things to avoid when processing feelings.

Keep in mind when facing emotions

• Emotions can surprise you. You can let an emotion sink in and notice its presence. Even though the bad or anxious feelings won’t disappear, you might feel better.
• You can sense the feeling: how it affects your mood and feels in your body.
• It’s not always possible to process the feeling once it arrives or had arrived. A new situation or event, someone’s words, presence, gesture, or voice might bring up the emotion. You can process the feeling then, or if not, return to it later.
• It’s never too late to process feelings that were not confronted before.
• Pay attention to the feelings you feel stuck with. What helps you get past them (for instance exercising, going outdoors, doing fun things)?
• Listen and value the feelings that, for instance, keep you from harm.

What to avoid when processing and expressing emotions

• Intellectualising: Explaining away an event or thing that has aroused a feeling.
• Denying: Prevent feeling the emotion
• Suffocating: Denying the emotion already felt. This often leads to psychosomatic symptoms.
• Expressing your feelings without boundaries: you must have some control, not all emotions can be shown in every situation.
• Fleeing the scene: for instance, leaving during an argument can make your partner feel abandoned.
• Harmful action like throwing or breaking things, hitting someone, causing damage in general.

Keep in mind that you are always in control of choosing how to express your emotions. There’s a time and place for every emotion. They often bring us important messages about things you might have ignored or about a possibility to grow. Sometimes it’s wise to grow your tolerance for anxiety and also observe difficult emotions as part of normal life. Unless there are difficulties in your life, you might not learn to tell when you’re happy. All emotions are valuable.

Ways for facing emotions

TALKING

Talking about your feelings and sharing them are important ways to express emotions. The more you talk about your feelings, the better you become at it. At the same time, emotions become easier to accept and understand. You need trust when sharing your feelings, so you can be honest and completely open.

WRITING

Writing is a good way to vent strong emotions especially when you can’t immediately talk to someone. Writing can help you calm down and organize the experiences related to the feelings. Keeping a diary of feelings regularly might help process them. Writing about your feelings daily for a couple of weeks might help you see constant patterns behind them.

LISTENING TO YOUR BODY

Listening to your body gives you good information about how you feel. When you’re agitated it might be difficult to recognise your emotions, and concentrating on how you breathe in and out helps you to calm down. When you feel calmer, ask yourself: “What am I feeling right now?”. After this, focus on the spot in your body where you sense the feeling. Then try to name the emotion.

EXERCISING, DRAWING AND MUSIC

You can process your emotions also through exercising, drawing and music. You can make playlists to listen when you’re sad, angry or happy. Music arouses feelings and helps process them as well. Emotion-releasing exercise depends on the emotion, as frustration can be tamed while running and anxiousness by stretching.

TIMEOUT

When feelings surge up, you can take a time out and recognise the feeling but not yet act on it. If you can, move to another place to do something else to calm you down.

When your feelings cool down, wait and think. What happened? Why do I have these feelings? What options do I have to act? Which option would be the best? How should I express myself? Then act as you find best. Having a timeout helps you get space between the feelings and acting upon them.

MENTAL IMAGES

You can use the mental image technique when facing a situation that brings up difficult emotions. First imagine, how good you’ll feel when the difficult situation has a positive outcome. Then go through all the possible ways to act and choose the best one. Have a clear image about what to do and how to act. Create a mental image about yourself in the situation being confident, trusting and calm.

Please take a moment to provide your feedback.