Get on the wheel of emotions

Let’s imagine for a moment that our emotions are like the big wheel that spins in the amusement park. At times, we go up, then we stop to admire the landscape and the sky, but there are also stages where we go down and stagnate near the ground. The good thing is that This cycle can be repeated countless times in real life.something that does not happen in the game, at least, without paying another ticket.

“What matters for success and a long life of achievement is emotional intelligence,” says Daniel Goleman, a psychologist from the United States, who in 1995 published a book on this topic, where he tells us how to be more avid with our emotions. .

But, What is emotional intelligence”? Perhaps you have heard of it on more than one occasion. This term, first used by Goleman, refers to the ability that people have to take advantage of what we feel, identifying and controlling our emotions. It is also based on having empathy, self-motivation and relating to others. All of this in pursuit of increasing our well-beingwhich ultimately translates into how to be happier.

Emotions are mental states that arise according to various changes in the environment, within us. There are many theories in relation to them, such as that of Robert Plutchik and this is how we return again to the story of the wheel in the amusement park.

This professor and psychologist recognizes that there are eight primary emotions, which combine with each other to result in secondary emotions.

The drawing made by Plutchik is like a flower with eight petals, each of them a different color (like those of the rainbow). Eight basic or primary emotions are the joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger and anticipation.

Each of the emotions has a specific purpose. For fear, protection, for anger, destruction, for joy, reproduction, for sadness, reintegration, for trust, affiliation, for disgust, rejection, for anticipation, exploration, and for surprise, orientation.

Another idea worth highlighting in this wheel or flower of emotions is that Feelings are neither good nor bad, but we can take advantage of them to the extent that we use them.. All emotions prepare us to react to different situations or stimuli.

Analyzing emotions more

Emotions can vary in intensity, which is why the color designated to each of the petals is shown in the flower from softer to more intense.

The combinations that can arise between the eight emotionscalled by Plutchik “secondary dyads” are the following:

-Mix between joy and fear: guilt-Combination between confidence and surprise: curiosity-Union between fear and sadness: despair-Mixture of sadness and anger: envy-Combination of rejection and anticipation: cynicism-Union of anticipation and trust: fatalism

Finally, we have tertiary dyads, which are other possible combinations in human beings based on primary and secondary emotions.

-Mix between joy and surprise: delight-Combination between confidence and sadness: sentimentality-Union between fear and rejection: shame-Mixture of surprise and anger: indignation-Combination of sadness and anticipation: pessimism-Union of rejection and joy: morbidity-Mix between anger and trust: domination-Combination between anticipation and fear: anxiety

Thanks to this wheel or flower of emotions, which perhaps seems a little complicated to understand, we can see all the feelings we feel every day captured. It is a very complete theory that is based on determining and specifying what we feel with what causes such sensations.

Get on the wheel of your emotions and don’t let them dominate you! Take advantage of the ascent to visualize your desires and the descent to know what you do not want to repeat again. Don’t stay on the ground too long… And reach as high as possible and close to the sky!