Not even like that – “What the hell are these emotions for us?”. It was in this form that this question was asked to me recently at the reception. And once again I said goodbye to the illusion that often arises in me that the emotional sphere of a person in the minds of modern people has been rehabilitated and such a question is already rare. Yep, rare.
I heard a lot of different statements: “Isn’t emotions in my head?”, “I’m a rational person and I’m proud of it, emotions are for hysterics”, “Emotions interfere with thinking”, “Feelings are good when they are under strict control and do not interfere live”, “Why talk about your feelings at all?”, “Strong feelings are dangerous and destructive” …
The overwhelming majority of such thoughts were voiced by men. I returned home, I go online – and in front of me is a site on which a young man engaged in “self-development” actively promotes meditation and – which, unfortunately, very often goes in addition to meditation – the fight against “destructive emotions”. His website is full of the words “stop”, “stop”, “eliminate”, “contain”, “win”, “overcome”, “dispose”, “handle”, “restrain”, “force”, “train the ego”, ” endure”, “throw out of your head”. He never consulted a psychologist.
Another example, only from a woman. “I am an overly emotional and aggressive person. And that’s bad. I don’t know how to suppress negative emotions in myself, because they interfere with my life and my loved ones. Literally today, because of my violent reactions, we parted ways with my young man. I sobbed all day. Here are the emotions again. There is no point in tears. No one will help me except me. And I understand perfectly well that with my screams I just got sick of him, so I want to learn how to control my emotions … “
Start over
Emotions are a mental process, and to begin with, it is important to explain what the psyche is. I am quite satisfied with this definition: the psyche is a systemic property of highly organized matter, which consists in the subject’s active reflection of the objective world and self-regulation on this basis of his behavior and activity.
In other words, a living organism that has acquired the ability to actively, and not passively (like plants or protozoa, like an amoeba) interact with the environment, reveals the presence of a psyche. The psyche does not exist separately from the nervous system and is based on the neuro-humoral (hormonal) regulation of the body’s vital activity.
If we completely turn off the emotional life of a person, then he will simply lie down and look at the ceiling – there is no energy mobilization
Why does the psyche (the ability to actively respond to the stimuli of the external world) need living matter? Imagine two conditional living cells, one of which completely dispenses with this excess, and the second has acquired it. The first will be carried by waves / wind, it will receive nutrients according to a random principle: if it finds itself in a suitable environment, it will eat, if not, it will die; it’s the same with danger. And the second one will begin to actively collect information from the outside world about the presence / absence of food or danger, and even before it encounters a danger, and will react not in a direct collision with food / danger, but when receiving signals about the close presence of food / danger.
Not a single tree has yet escaped from a woodcutter, and the point is not only that trees cannot run, but also that they are unable to respond to steps or the image of an approaching man with an ax … It is clear that the more complex the nervous system, the more diverse the ways in which an animal interacts with the world, including such an extremely important thing as the ability to learn.
Highly organized matter
Emotions are among the very ancient regulators of the behavior of a living organism in its interaction with the outside world. Much more ancient than our conscious mind, which in an evolutionary sense exists only for a moment. This is a kind of pre-rational signaling system that lets the whole organism know about what is happening either with it or with the environment, and mobilizes it for action.
The more developed the nervous and humoral systems of regulation, the more complex the emotional life of a living being (it is important to remember that the experience of emotions is closely related to hormones/neurotransmitters). Emotions work faster than the conscious thinking of a person, and much more. At the same time, emotional and cognitive (cognitive) processes are a single whole, and one cannot be separated from the other, if only because emotions are connected in the same way with information processing.
There is no unified theory of emotion, but what most agree on is that emotion is the subjective experience of the body’s reactions to various kinds of changes in the internal or external environment. For example, fear can be described purely physiologically (increased heart rate, sweating, trembling in the knees), but on a subjective level, we experience precisely fear, and not just feel that “for some unknown reason, my knees give way.”
So, by the way, it happens when the conscious experience of fear is completely blocked: the body “experiences” fear, but at the subjective conscious level “everything is in order”. So, what functions do emotions perform (I will talk about human emotions)? At least three:
Rating. For example, we experience fear when our brain, having considered all possible information in the external environment, issues the conclusion: “Danger!” The conclusion is often based on previous experience, so our emotional reactions are far from always adequate to the situation: a mentally healthy person with paranoid behavior, having become a hostage to the generalization (overgeneralization) of his past negative experience of communicating with significant people, is now afraid of all people.
Positive emotional states, such as joy and happiness, are also associated with an assessment of how things are. Can you guess why it is impossible to “turn off” negative emotions without suppressing positive ones as well? The function is one.
Motivation and energy mobilization. Emotions also motivate us to take certain actions. If we completely turn off the emotional life of a person, then he will simply lie down and look at the ceiling – there is no mobilization of energy. We all know the powerful “I want!” and accompanying emotions; nervous excitement with anxiety; a strong release of energy during anger. Emotions can also motivate “on the contrary”: “never again!”. We are ready to go to great lengths, just not to experience some very, very negative experiences.
Shame indicates a bottomless hole in terms of the inability to satisfy the need for acceptance by other people.
If we don’t care, we won’t do anything, because there is no energy. There is one problem with the motivational function. The general pattern of our psyche is the struggle of motives, when directly opposite aspirations come into conflict, which is why there is a lot of energy, but it is partially used to suppress the “wrong” incentives. You know the emotional situation when you want to buy something, but the price is very high, or you need to make a choice of one thing out of five, for example? But I really want to buy…
Needs labeling. Emotions are closely related to needs, and their third function (associated with the first two) is to provide a person with energy to satisfy a particular need and evaluate how this satisfaction occurs. For example, an unsatisfied need for security is “marked” with fear (if the threat is obvious and understandable) or anxiety (there is a threat, but it is not clear what), fear and anxiety mobilize energy to counter the threat (most often through control).
Shame indicates a bottomless hole in terms of the inability to satisfy the need for self-acceptance by other people, anger indicates a sudden obstacle to the satisfaction of certain desires. We may not be aware of the need, but at the same time experience the emotions associated with it – this is the “marking” of needs.
Emotions can be simple or complex. Simple emotions are primary, simple experiences, while complex emotions are made up of several simple ones (and are often referred to as “feelings”).
Simple emotions include: fear, anger, disgust, sadness, shame, guilt, tenderness, joy, satisfaction, curiosity, surprise, gratitude. Behind each of these emotions lies an assessment of the situation, motivation for a certain action, marking a need.
Fear: danger/avoid threat/need for safety.
Guilt: I did something bad/to atone for guilt/need to be accepted by others.
Gratitude: something good has been done to me / to reward a benefactor / a need for relationships with other people. Etc. Simple emotions can easily be translated into action.
Rational or emotional?
So, an attempt to become a “rational machine” or ignore emotions, sitting in meditation and waiting for them “to pass by themselves, the main thing is not to interfere in anything,” is an attempt to ignore the ancient mechanism of self-regulation, which also works at an unconscious level (consciousness just doesn’t keep up). Therefore, sometimes it seems to us that emotions arise by themselves, without any reason. This may be the case if you have taken psychoactive substances or if you have serious mental problems (in depression or schizophrenia, the balance of neurotransmitters is disturbed). Otherwise, emotions always have causes (conscious or not), because our psyche is in continuous interaction with the environment.
Therefore, “I don’t understand what came over me, why I get annoyed at everyone for no reason!” – this is a direct indication that some need is not satisfied, and for a long time, and instead of fighting “hysteria”, it would be good to listen to what the emotion wants to communicate. However, irritation at everyone and everything is not an emotion, but a muddy hodgepodge / okroshka from unexperienced feelings and misunderstood own needs.
When we fight emotion, we fight a problem indicator, not a problem.
As Jung said about depression, “Depression is like a lady in black. If she comes, do not drive her away, but invite her to the table as a guest, and listen to what she intends to say. When we fight emotion, we fight the indicator of the problem, not the problem. As if the best way to fight a fire is to smash a fire alarm or yell at a burning red light.
How to overcome jealousy? Do not fight with jealousy, but deal with the feeling of your own inferiority and uncompetitiveness in the struggle for a partner.
How to overcome the fear of public speaking? Do not fight with fear, but understand why you make the task of “pleasing everyone present” a priority over the task of “bringing the desired information to interested listeners.” Face that which causes fear, and do not break the alarm.
Emotions, as I said, do not always tell us the truth, because in the human psyche they are refracted through past experience or borrowed other people’s attitudes. We can see fire where there is none. But they always tell us something about our inner world, about the prism through which we look at the environment around us, and give us energy to make changes. It is important to learn how to use this wonderful tool, and not treat it like a dangerous animal, which is better to put in a cage and keep on a starvation diet.