What feelings want

See, it’s not the feelings that are the problem.

It’s what the feelings want.

Primary emotions

I’ve been looking at what I’m feeling, and notice that there are three primary emotions:

Anger, Sadness, Fear.

These have lesser siblings:

Irritation, Pissed-off-ness, Anxiety.

And big Mommas:

Rage, Grief, Terror-Panic.

(For the moment, we’re ignoring weird meta-emotions like guilt, jealousy, antsiness.)

Feelings are an unavoidable fact of life, a product of shoving a soul into a chimpanzee.

(Note to Creator: whose idea was THAT?)

Stopping yourself feeling these is like… I want to use some metaphor like stopping a river with a toothpick, but, you know, a losing battle (unless you’re going to spend a fuck of a lot of time working towards enlightenment, and even then…).

However, the thing that seems to cause the damage is the action that comes from the emotions.

So what do emotions want?

Here’s my half-thought-through instincts:

Anger wants to hit out, to attack.

Sadness wants to stop.

Fear wants to protect, to freeze, to hide, and when cornered, to attack.

Feel the emotion, refrain from the action

I’m exploring if the ‘trick’ is to feel the emotion, but gently shortcut the action.

So, I can feel angry, but not attack, not physically/verbally to begin with, then maybe maybe not even inside my head.

I can feel sad, but keep quietly, slowly (perhaps) moving.

I can feel scared, but stay a little bit visible, keep a little bit of motion…

Well, it worked this afternoon

And I only thought of it (or, rather, it arrived) this morning.

I read 2 posts by 2 someones that really hit home on, well, a private issue. I was already a bit hungry, a bit tired, a bit screen-blind, and we had a house full of people.

A wave of (old) sadness appeared and I escaped to the bedroom, curled up on the bed, closed my eyes, even though I had a meeting. Just wanted it all to go away.

Then a wee small voice asked:

What am I feeling?

Sadness.

What does sadness want?

To stop.

So…

So I gently got up, opened to the sadness, but gently, quietly carried on, got dressed, kept going.

And it helped.

***

I am very interested in your take on this.

Comment loveliness:

~ Is there a fourth primary emotion? A fifth?

~ Is that what those emotions want (for you)?

~ What does this spark for you?

No right answers.

Comment horribleness:

~ Theories, especially other people’s.

So… whatcha reckon?

(PS For those playing along at home, I know this is a listening week, not an emotions week, but it might be stale in four weeks’ time, so, well, you’re getting it now.)

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