Many people don’t like emotions because we’ve been conditioned to think they’re bad. Others avoid them because of the pain that some negative emotions can make you feel.
I used to disregard my emotions because they seemed like a hinderance to what I was working on.
But after I realized feelings are a useful tool to guide your efforts, I actually enjoy analyzing them now. Even the negative ones. Call me crazy, but pain doesn’t bother me if I know serves a purpose for a bigger goal.
How Emotions Work
Feelings cause our conscious mind to become aware of something that’s happening. If you learn to interpret emotions and discover their underlying reasons, you can actually use them to navigate your life more effectively.
Emotions can actually lead you to the root of problems and provide practical solutions to avoid recurring problems in your life. This is literally pure gold.
I used to have the emotional vocabulary of a teaspoon. So I started pausing to define my emotions and then looked up their meanings.
As my awareness expanded so did recognizing the subtle nuances that differentiate feelings. Deeper searches will tell you why you’re experiencing that emotion. From there you have a better idea of how to fix stuff.
When you devalue your own emotions you ignore vital clues that are a part of being human. Put a stop to repeating frustrations and unlock your inner compass.
I’m going to keep adding to this list every time I come across an emotion that’s not here. If you have a specific emotion that you want mapped out, let me know down in the comments.
Surface Level Emotions – The Big 6
Feeling any one of these 6 emotions is easy, but they are just the tip of a much bigger iceberg. That means you need to dig deeper.
Love
Joy
Surprise
Sadness
Anger
Fear
Emotions Below Fear
Worry
Worry makes you feel anxious, apprehensive, unhappy, concerned, nervous, uneasy or afraid.
When you’re worried you keep thinking about problems that you have or about unpleasant things that might happen in the future that cause you to feel uneasiness.
Sometimes we worry about legitimate things. But there’s other times when being worried can rob our present experience and being distracted can actually bring those fears to fruition.
I love the quote in the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them where Newt Scamander tells an apprehensive Jacob, “Worrying means you suffer twice.”
If worries crop up, ask yourself how likely is that thing to occur. If there’s a high probability, ask yourself what can be done to mitigate the unpleasantness when that event does happen. Can you prevent it entirely?
These are legitimate intuitions to prevent crises that our body and subconscious are aware of. Learn to trust them and take appropriate actions to prevent these types of things. When you do, you’re subconscious will quiet.
If your worry stems from just a general fear of the unknown, you can mitigate that by learning and understanding what to expect. Having skills and being prepared keeps a lot of worries at bay for me.
If you’re the type of person that just imagines the worst possible potentials, you might be caught in a negative loop as a specific personality type. This is the pessimistic side of the external intuition (Ne) function.
Having Ne means you can also get playful and imagine positive potentials too. The best way to mitigate what if’s is gain experience through action.
The above are instances of normal expressions of emotional worry. If you’re experiencing intense, excessive and persistent worries and fears, this is a red flag that you have an anxiety disorder.
This can be caused by different things. Check out this article to see if you can narrow down the source and start getting relief.
