What are our key feelings, and how can accepting them enhance our lives?
The vast spectrum of emotions can be a minefield. It can be hard to know how to express the things we’re feeling, in part because being ‘in touch’ with our own emotions doesn’t always come naturally – at least, perhaps in this day and age, when putting your feelings aside in favour of agreeableness is common practice.
The task of getting in-tune with our feelings can feel like a mammoth one, but the first step in doing so could lie in identifying our primary emotions, and going from there. The thinking varies slightly on precisely how many ‘core emotions’ we have, but one widely accepted theory from American psychologist Dr Paul Ekman presents six: sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust.
On his website, Dr Ekman writes: “Emotions are a process, a particular kind of automatic appraisal influenced by our evolutionary and personal past, in which we sense that something important to our welfare is occurring, and a set of psychological changes and emotional behaviors [sic] begins to deal with the situation.”
When you put it like that, it sounds quite simple. Emotions are just things that happen to us, for the ultimate purpose of survival. Even so, many of us will be familiar with the experience of being ruled by them, as much as being out of touch with them. But does it have to be that way?
Getting to the heart of it
“In my 40s, I went through a rough patch in my life, experiencing depression and panic attacks for the first time,” says Fiona McAlister, an integrative trauma-informed psychotherapist. “Out of these experiences, I learned much that lifted me from those states, and introduced new practices into my regular routine that enable me now to maintain a well-balanced emotional and physical state. Crucially, this changed mindset, my more awakened understanding, and nourishing practices have supported me to find blissful peace of mind – a peace based securely on the knowledge that I am safe, no matter what happens in my life.”
As Fiona explains, at the heart of her philosophy was the understanding of humans’ primal need for safety – when we don’t feel safe, we cannot function fully and healthily. Just like Dr Ekman explains, our emotions are there to keep us alive, to alert us to things that aren’t safe, and it’s for that reason that getting to know our core emotions, learning our individual signs, and our triggers, can set us free. For Fiona, that’s achieved with four key steps…
💡
The six universal core emotions
Sadness
An upsetting emotional state that is linked to other feelings like grief or disappointment.
Enjoyment
Pleasant feelings that can lead to joy, fulfilment, and contentment.
Fear
An emotion designed to keep us safe, which triggers our fight-or-flight response.
Anger
When we feel frustrated or hostile.
Surprise
A positive or negative emotion after experiencing something we didn’t expect.
Disgust
Feelings of repulsion.