Last weekend we had a family celebration countryside. For this reason, I kept my promise regarding slow down and have a break. Now, this weekend, I’m back again in business, so I continue my storytelling.
Many of us think about their feelings come from a subconscious level, and we have no control. This is only partly true!
If we better understand how our feelings behavior our daily lives, we can live more balanced. Even if we think we are rational, it goes through the emotional layer.
To better understand, we will go through five basic emotions.
Joy
Joy plays an essential role in our life. It helps to enjoy moments. Take things with humor. Many colleagues from other departments notice, at our directorate, we have a happy atmosphere. Not a surprise, they love to spend time with us, to have energized. Joy helps us to understand who we are and what our purpose is. It helps to live this purpose! With joy, we can have healthy relationships, and we can find our inner peace. It inspires others and helps to develop charisma.
Many of us don’t know joy also has its shadow aspect. The illusion! When we have joy, we can easily paint a picture that looks better than reality.
Fear
Fear, in most cases, identified as a negative feeling. However, it helps many times. Fear is like death. It separates the known from the unknown. Maybe it surprising, but we need it for many reasons. It helps to be creative. Find possible solutions and a path, when you enter into an unknown field. It helps to be able to love unconditionally. Experience adventure and discover new things. Face uncertainty. Go beyond our boundaries and grow beyond ourselves.
Anger
This feeling is also categorized negatively, and I would like to show a positive aspect. Anger is a feeling which comes instinctively. Just think about the saying: My brain flooded with rage. We need anger to clearly say no, and clearly say yes. It helps us to make decisions. It helps us to be understood by others and take a clear position. It helps to be taken seriously. Initiate actions or terminate them clearly. It helps to be vital and active and have clear goals.
Sadness
Sadness helps us to let things go and surrender to the flow of life. It helps to open our hearts to the power of love. It enables us to accept things we dislike but changing them out of our control.
We need sadness to open our hearts and accept things. We can let things go. We can recognize and accept our helplessness. We can go down deep and develop our wisdom.
Shame
We need to use shame for self-reflection instead of self-abasement. We need it to perceive and apply all four powers mentioned before to ourselves. We need it to behave appropriately in a situation.
I hope this quick introduction helps you better understand your feelings and how they affect your decisions and life. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, I recommend the book of a fantastic person:
Vivien Dittmar: The power of feelings – A Practical Guide to Emotional Intelligence.
Laszlo POPOVICS 