Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have . . .
— an angry Hermione tells her friend Ron in a heated Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix moment.
We can sense or discriminate feelings from small, unrelated pieces of information. This awareness enables us to distinguish threat to our safety that may not be directly inferred from what we perceive of our environment through our vision, hearing, smell, or tactile senses, but rather through what seems, at times, to be a “sixth” sense.
. . . there is now clear scientific experimental evidence that the facial expressions for anger, fear, sadness, enjoyment, and disgust are identical whether an Eskimo or an Italian is being studied. Facial expressions that register other emotions such as surprise, contempt, shame/guilt are probably also pan-cultural, meaning that these, too, are emotions with inborn genetic mechanisms for their expression. And there probably are more genetically-based emotions to discover. Candace B. Pert Molecules of Emotion p.132
The experts also distinguish among emotion, mood, and temperament, with emotion being the most transient and clearly identifiable in terms of what causes it; with mood lasting for hours or days and being less easily traced; and with temperament being genetically based, so that we’re generally stuck with it (give or take certain modifications) for a lifetime. p.132 Candace B. Pert
Emotions are instinctive or intuitive reactions to our environment. As such, they are our consciousness of ourselves in our environment. New research says there are only four emotions: happy sad, afraid/surprised, and angry/disgusted.
Feelings are the expressions of emotions. They tend to be learned over time, through experience.
Reduce Conflict: Increase Wellbeing
There is a river of dissatisfaction at the confluence of feelings and needs. And this river flows when those feelings are not coming from a knowing of the unmet needs to which they are related. When we are unable to articulate and distinguish our feelings and needs we can find ourselves in situations of conflict, anger, aggression, and violence: including that often un-articulated violence—which occurs through not speaking directly about a problem or not taking action to resolve a breach of our emotions directly with the person concerned — passive/aggressive violence. Clearly, being able to correctly express our feelings and meet our needs can contribute significantly to our sense of wellbeing.
Being able to say what we feel and need is part of a bigger picture: that of trust and safety. When we trust someone, we feel safer to be vulnerable, to show our true, inner selves. By this, I mean the vulnerability that wishes to be expressed through disclosure of our feelings and the articulation of our needs without the fear of condemnation or retribution that comes with moralistic judgements. In other words, safe from being made to feel wrong or bad, and consequently safe from expecting some reprimand or punishment. This sense of safety is also to do with being genuine and acting with authenticity and integrity. It is the sense that we are speaking with someone whom we feel is ‘real’, who is really present, listening to us, and being honest with us in what they say and do. Knowing and naming our feelings and needs contributes to our wellbeing. We feel safer to disclose our feelings and needs to a person whom we feel is being genuine.
