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Emotions play an important role in how we think and behave. Emotions help protect you and keep you physically safe by prompting you to react to the threat of danger. Basic emotions such as fear, anger and disgust don’t wait for you to think, to reason and process what’s going on. In circumstances where rational thinking is too slow, these emotions instantly warn you of danger and get you to react – through fight or flight – immediately.

Other emotions – social emotions – enable people to live and work with each other. Social emotions such as guilt, shame, gratitude and love guide and maintain interactions and bonds that bring people – families, friends, neighbours and communities – together.

Emotions also allow us to create and express ideas and thoughts that wouldn’t necessarily come about through rational thinking. Anger, for example, can inspire a dramatic painting. Despair and sadness can inspire beautiful, moving poetry, songwriting and music. Art, music and literature all provoke and inspire emotions and create an emotional connection between the art, music or writing and the viewer, listener or reader.

Emotions then, all have a positive intent; they help keep you safe, help you establish and maintain connections with others, and inspire creativity. On the one hand, emotions can focus our thoughts and behaviour and on the other hand, can enhance and widen thoughts and experience.

In Practice

Nothing vivifies and nothing kills like the emotions. – Joseph Roux

Be more aware of and develop your understanding of the physical safety and the social and creative purposes of emotions:

• Think of situations when an emotion prompted you to do or say something automatically, without thinking. Where you acted instantly, for example, out of fear, disgust or anger, you responded without thinking.

• Think of times when you’ve experienced a social emotion; an emotion that has prompted you to do or say something to manage the interactions between you and someone else.

Have there been occasions when, for example, you’ve tried to put things right because you’ve felt guilty about a wrongdoing?

• Think of a time when someone else has shown you empathy, compassion or kindness. Did it help you to feel understood, comforted or supported?

• What about the times others’ emotions have influenced you? Perhaps you’ve noticed that someone was frustrated and upset and it prompted you to offer them your help.

Think of the songs and music you like to listen to. How do particular songs or pieces of music make you feel? What music, films, poems, books, paintings inspire you? Which songs and music lift your spirits? What films, music, poems, etc. make you feel sad and reflective?

Over the next few days, notice when your emotions motivate your action, save you time, help you get something done, or help you to reach out and respond to someone else.

UNDERSTANDING THE ASPECTS OF EMOTIONS

Whether you’re aware of it or not, when you experience an emotion, it is made up of three aspects: thoughts, physical feelings and behaviour.

There’s no one specific order in which the aspects of an emotion occur, but any one aspect can affect the others. What you think can affect how you feel physically. It can also alter how you behave. Equally, what you do – how you behave – can affect how you feel and what you think.

Imagine, for example, that you came home to discover that the shower wasn’t working or the heating had broken down. Again. You’re angry. Your angry response could have begun with a physical reaction: tense muscles, increased heart rate and rapid breathing. This triggered a behavioural reaction – you thumped the table – followed by the thought. ‘Oh no! Not again. I’ve had enough of this!’

Or, perhaps you thumped the table first which triggered a physical response: your muscles tensed and your heart rate and breathing increased. Again, your thoughts follow close behind.

Or the angry response could begin with the thought ‘Oh my God! Not again. I’ve had enough of this!’ This thought triggered an increase in your heart rate, rapid breathing and tensed muscles. And then you thumped the table.

When it comes to emotional intelligence, it helps to be more aware of and understand these different aspects or parts of an emotion.

In Practice

Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realising it.– Vincent Van Gogh

Each of the situations below has provoked an emotion: anxiety, joy and disappointment. Each emotion has possible physical responses and possible cognitive and behavioural responses.

Imagine what those physical feelings, thoughts and behavioural responses might be for yourself. Could they be different for someone else?

Situation: Giving a presentation at work

Emotion: Anxiety

• Physical feelings:

• Thoughts:

• Behaviour:

Situation: Passing a test, exam or receiving a job offer

Emotion: Joy

• Physical feelings:

• Thoughts:

• Behaviour:

Situation: An event you were looking forward to being cancelled

Emotion: Disappointment

• Physical feelings:

• Thoughts:

• Behaviour:

Next time you experience a strong emotion – for example anger, joy, guilt, embarrassment – try to identify each aspect – the physical feelings, the thoughts and behaviour. Breaking an emotion down into smaller parts makes it easier to see how the different parts are connected, how they interact and how they can affect you and other people when they experience an emotion.

UNDERSTANDING THE POSITIVE INTENT OF EMOTIONS

We often think of emotions as being either positive or negative. But the idea that we should aim to only have ‘positive’ emotions such as happiness, hope and compassion is not helpful because it suggests that we should try to avoid or suppress ‘negative’ emotions such as resentment, impatience and jealousy.

The fact is, all emotions have a positive purpose. Emotions such as fear, anger, sadness and regret might not feel good but they do have a beneficial purpose.

Fear is a clear example of an emotion that has a positive purpose: to protect you. Anxiety also has a positive purpose. Anxiety about an exam, for example, can motivate you to focus, to cut out all distractions and revise. Anxiety only becomes negative if it so overwhelms you that you’re unable to think clearly enough to do the revision.

The problem is, when we experience a ‘negative’ emotion, we often have a tendency to enforce it with negative responses. Take regret, for example. The positive intent of regret is to prompt you to learn from and avoid making a similar mistake in future. Regret is only negative if you become stuck in negative thoughts, self-blame and inaction. But it’s not the emotion that is negative; it’s your thinking and lack of action!

In Practice

Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you. – Roger Ebert

Try to keep in mind that emotions serve a positive purpose. Emotions are your mind and body’s way of communicating with you. They’re trying to get you to take positive, helpful action in response to something that has happened, is happening or could happen.

• What, do you think, might be the positive purpose of guilt; the feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offence or wrongdoing that you believe you’ve committed?

• What, do you think, might be the positive purpose of anger; the strong feeling, the sense of injustice, in response to the feeling that you or someone else has been wronged?

• What, do you think, might be the positive purpose of envy; feeling resentful because someone else has something you don’t?

• What, do you think, might be the positive purpose of disgust; a strong aversion, a feeling of revulsion, nausea or loathing in something or someone?

Be aware that when you ignore, suppress or deny an emotion, when you become overwhelmed or paralysed by an emotion, you prevent yourself from receiving and understanding the positive, helpful information the emotion is trying to convey to you.

UNDERSTANDING HOW EMOTIONS ARE RELATED

Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have. – Hermione Granger

How many emotions do you think we have? Fifty? Eighty? More than a hundred? Some people might claim that there are just six basic emotions – joy, surprise, fear, disgust, anger and sadness – and that all other emotions derive from them.

Of course, there are many, many more emotions besides these six. But are emotions such as envy and jealousy really that different from one another? What about irritation and annoyance – are they the same thing?

It’s not easy to distinguish one emotion from another; to tell where one emotion ends or another begins. And when, for example, it comes to emotions like happiness and disappointment, we know from experience that emotions have different levels of intensity; that we can feel very happy or a bit happier, extremely disappointed or only slightly disappointed.

Furthermore, we can also feel more than one emotion at any one time – nervous and excited, sad but relieved – which adds another dimension of complexity to our emotional experience.

To try and understand emotions more clearly, to understand their separate and related qualities and characteristics, psychologists and researchers have attempted to categorise emotions; to show the differences and the relationships between them.

In Practice

There are four basic emotions – mad, sad, glad and scared. And if you touch those emotions then you can grab your audience, your reader. – Larry Winget

Put ‘W. Gerrod Parrott’s group of emotions’ into a search engine. You’ll see that Parrott suggests there are six basic emotions and that all other emotions stem from these six basic emotions. For example, both guilt and disappointment stem from the basic, primary emotion of sadness. Pride and relief come from the basic emotion of joy.

Put ‘Robert Plutchik’s wheel of emotions’ into a search engine. You’ll see that Plutchik has created a ‘wheel of emotions’ as a way of categorising emotions and seeing how they are related. The wheel consists of eight basic, primary emotions and eight ‘advanced’ emotions. Each ‘advanced’ emotion is made up of two basic ones; for example, contempt is created from anger and disgust. Optimism is a blend of joy and anticipation.

Plutchik’s idea is related to a colour wheel; in the same way that primary colours blend to create other colours, primary emotions combine to create a spectrum of human emotions. He suggests that each primary emotion has a polar opposite. For example, surprise is the opposite of anticipation.

Understand emotions; make links. Does Parrott’s way of categorising emotions give you a clearer understanding of the intent, motivations and behaviour underlying those emotions? Does it help you to better understand emotions such as remorse and regret, by tracing them back to the basic emotion of sadness. Or jealousy and envy back to the basic emotion of anger?

Does it make sense? Do you agree?

Looking at Plutchik’s wheel of emotions, does the combination of sadness and surprise suggest disapproval to you? Is love the combination of joy and trust? Do you think fear is the opposite of anger?