After all, what am I feeling? – GOOD SHAPE

According to Paul Ekman, there are 6 emotions defined as basic and universal: joy, sadness, fear, surprise, anger It is disgust. Emotions are physiological, that is, we perceive them in our body. They are immediate and momentary responses, without the filter of thought, they simply arrive and generate a reaction. And they can be positive or negative: enthusiasm, happiness, calm, serenity or tension, nervousness, stress, sadness…

Feelings are the more elaborate responses we give to the emotions we are feeling. That is, emotion gives rise to feeling! They are longer lasting and easier to hide as it is something more mental and internal than emotions. It’s what we think and feel about the emotion we had.

In short: emotion is an automatic reaction and feeling is a construction of thoughts on top of an emotion. Example: you received the news that you passed the entrance exam -> emotion of joy/surprise -> The feeling can be one of relief/deserving/insecurity about the future…

Well, going back a little to the valence of emotions, the negative ones end up having stronger responses than the positive ones, which is why we remain sad, angry, stressed longer than we feel that we are happy, content and relieved. In addition, our brain is focused on the negativity bias, that is, we tend to notice more bad things than good things in our days, which makes us more pessimistic.

There are already studies that prove that meditation generates brain modulation, increasing the activities of the left hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for positive emotions. In addition, through meditation, we can change the emotions we are feeling, that is, we can get out of the negative and find a little more neutrality, which helps a lot in everyday life. So what are you waiting for to start meditating with constancy?!

But there are also other ways that we can alter what we are feeling and change our emotions, by acknowledging them! When we understand what we are feeling, we can look at the situation and look for new ways to cope and feel better, which would change the emotion to a more positive one.

It is important to emphasize that every emotion is important and it is impossible to live only happily! We can live a life seeking more well-being and self-knowledge to feel happier over time, however, one way or another we will feel negative emotions too, because they are part of it. When we try not to feel what we are already feeling, 2 things can happen: either the emotion will get bigger and bigger and take over us completely, causing a lot of suffering, or it can cause us to have an emotional dysregulation, starting to almost not feel the emotions – and then it won’t just be the negative ones, but the positive ones too!

I also want to tell you that you are not your emotion, you are you and emotions come and go. We can learn to deal with them and not be swallowed up by them. And if I can give you a tip, never label someone by the emotion they feel. Ex: that one over there is rabid. No, he feels angry and he may have a more irritable mood, but he is not anger!

It is not easy to classify our emotions, much less our feelings, after all, they are super complex and individual, but with training and constancy, we manage to learn to deal with and control them better, leading to a more balanced life and, therefore, happier!

I hope that for this week you can try to understand your emotions and write down your feelings! This way you will be able to understand yourself better and in the near future, learn to deal with all of this!!! Let’s go on this journey together!

________________________________________________________________________

Hi, my name is Priscila Conte Vieira, but you can call me Pri! I am a psychologist, speaker and mentor. I work in clinical psychology, I’m a specialist in Positive Psychology, postgraduate student in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, master in self-knowledge, life coach, NLP practitioner and also creator of the Podcast Breathe, don’t freak out (how about checking it out on Spotify?!)

I’ll be here every week, addressing themes of Positive Psychology, happiness, well-being and helping them to be their best versions, through self-knowledge and flourishing. To find out more about me and follow me on a daily basis, just follow me on Instagram! I’m there like @psi.priscilaconte See you next Saturday! See you <3