DANGEROUS FEELINGS

Human beings are complex. In an attempt to understand our nature we categorize human qualities. These categories help us clarify differences but are not definitive at all:
  • Western thought divides human awareness into the spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical arenas.
  • Far Eastern philosophy and religion use the chakra system, identifying the essential elements as spirit, intellect, communication, heart, power, emotion, root. 
In reality we are all of these things all the time. But categorization helps us understand ourselves productively. Our job in living is to create balance among these sometimes disparate traits over what may be differing circumstances.
There is danger when one aspect demands more attention than the others. Each aspect has its own learning process and integrating them seamlessly is an art form. Emotion in particular can provide trouble and pain. it is worth examining to reduce damage and help us learn to use these experiences instead in useful ways. In this article I am deliberately using a wide definition for what we think of as emotion.

Why emotion can lead us down the wrong path:

Emotions are transitory but feel permanent: Whenever we are in the midst of strong emotion, we often have the sense that we will always feel this way. This is true whether the emotions are positive or negative. 

In reality, even those extremely strong feelings are temporary at best. Our feelings can change at the drop of a hat. Let me relay one example: I used to work all day and then attend a dance class in the evening. By the time I got to class I was very tired. Then after being in the class for 10 minutes my mood completely changed and I was suddenly instead ecstatic! That sense of exhaustion transformed into something completely different. Had I decided whether to attend that class based on how I felt, I would have missed the amazing experience I ended up having. Our judgement can be affected in profound ways.
Be careful about making decisions based upon how you feel: Strong emotion is one of the worst foundations for sound decision making. In each of these examples the wrong decision is made:
  • When the stock market plunges, people rush to sell their stocks. It is actually the worst time to sell. It instead is an excellent time to buy. Fear causes us to make exactly the wrong decision.
  • ​When someone falls their immediate response is often to restrict their activities so they do not fall again. Restricting activities is a terrible thing to do. It actually increases your risk of falling. Doing less turns out to be the worst decision you could make.
  • Those who have arthritis, who wake up in the morning feeling awful, frequently decide to be less active. Feeling crummy affects our logic in the wrong way because movement is the only really effective way to reduce the suffering of arthritis. Once again we allow our feelings to guide us into making the worst decision.

We get in trouble:

Emotion results in mis-thinking:
  • ​We jump to conclusions because of emotion. Strong emotion results in us skipping important steps in our thought process. We base our projections on often incomplete information and are frequently wrong as a result. 
  • We stop listening: We become blinded by our feelings and can no longer relate with reason to what we hear.
  • We misinterpret events: Our feelings color our experience. For example: We think someone is our friend when we meet someone friendly. This has become a principle method of manipulation in politics. "Vote for the person you would have a beer with" instead of who is best for the job.
  • Speeds our behavior: When in high times of emotion, we often speed our decisions, thinking things have to happen right away or else there is calamity. Always remember that increasing how fast we do anything, especially making decisions, is a red flag to endangering ourselves. We need to slow down, not speed up.
We live in an era of misinformation, fed by manipulated emotion,
using all the above principles.

The most dangerous emotions:

The negative emotions sometimes overwhelm us. As we are older, fear often takes over. Political divisiveness generates frustration and anger. Many are chronically depressed. How can we recognize what we are feeling and take action to benefit ourselves instead of create pain and harm?
Especially Potent for Those Older:
  • Fear: The most potent of all feelings. And the most destructive. Fear appears instantly and causes real disturbance. Decisions made under fear do not work out well.
  • Anxiety is stress induced. It is a chronic tension where distraction plays a key role. 
  • Depression is internal prison. Depression is hostility turned inward. We hold ourselves back from life and refuse to participate. Tremendous internal tension results with particular effect on shallowing the breath.
Hostile Expression:
  • Anger: People now are easily angered. Few are taught how to express anger responsibly and most instead lash out.
  • Hostility: The American society is currently experiencing intense hostility on many sides which erupts out into the political arena.
  • Frustration: Technology in particular generates a high level of frustration, as do other aspects of modern life. Patience is a hard learned skill but very, very valuable one, especially as we age.
Self Generated:
  • Worry: Concern over the future, over things that we have no control over. It is useless emotion, unless there is something productive we can do. Otherwise worry only causes anxiety.
  • Guilt: Concern about past experience. Another feeling that is not helpful unless it motivates us to change.
  • Panic: A spasm of the emotions. (Panic falls into a category of difficult experience generated by phobic fear.)

The trigger emotions: These emotions are very inflammatory and often ratchet up the volume extremely rapidly. They are also unfortunately extremely contagious.

Hate (hostility) and Fear: These two feelings are so strong that they vanquish all other emotion you may experience that might mitigate the situation. Hate and fear cause one major communication problem among others: When under their influence, we too often jump to conclusions, a huge red flag that causes terrible distress including being at the heart of war.

Trigger feelings are hard to stop. They are like trying to stop a runaway train. However, there is an excellent trigger breaker: BREATHE.
Strong emotion is very contagious: We see this mostly with fear and hate, but it is true to a lesser extent for all emotion. (Love is contagious too but its path is so much softer and kinder and certainly not incendiary.) The Internet is a huge source for negative inflammation. Notice how quickly a group of people can transform into a mob. Reason flies out the window. The level of emotion becomes very intense. Listening is no longer possible. And its spread becomes exponential. This quality of human behavior is often manipulated by those who want to gain power. 
Emotions stimulated by thought: We can experience emotion over what is happening in our lives right now or we can relive experiences of the past or future either from our own lives or through empathy with others. When we choose to re-experience these traumas, we often feel as strongly if not more so that we did in the initial occurrence. The extent that we decide to actively relive emotional moments determines much about our mental and physical health.

What should we do when in the midst of strong unbalanced emotion?

The most important thing to do when feeling overwhelmed is to ground ourselves. And the best way to do that is to breathe, slowly and deeply. Here are some excellent suggestions:

Here is some insight which can help. Keep in mind that the examples included are based on my own reactions to emotion. Yours may be very different. Experiment and notice where you feel each of these sensations.

Where do we feel emotion in the body?

Where do we feel emotions physically? Where in the body we feel these emotions gives us clues with how to soothe them. A few suggestions are included. Other suggestions are included in Emotion Stimulated by Thought.
  • Fear: Throat - sing
  • Depression: Rib cage - move
  • Anxiety: Belly - take action, focus
  • Frustration, Anger, Hostility: Shoulders, neck and jaw - stress reduction
  • Worry, Guilt: Head - take a walk
  • Panic: Throat and rib cage - breathe, reduce heart rate
Published March 18, 2024.