It’s not easy for many of us to talk about our emotions because we have become so disconnected from our feelings. Much of the time my attention is directed outwards and so I’m not even aware of how I’m feeling inside. When someone asks me: “How are you?” I reply: “Fine thanks, and you?” A reflex answer to a reflex question. But the truth is that, in addition to being somewhat fine and good, I am also a complex mixture of various other shades and tones of emotions, which I cannot explain, and cannot express.
Joy
Anger
Pride
Fear
Sadness
Shame
Impulses in the nervous system are forms of energy, and this is also true of emotions, and as we know from physics, energy can be exchanged from one body to another, and it can be transformed from one form to another, but it can never be destroyed. Emotional energy is passed from one person to another and it changes both of them and connects them. Impulses in the nervous system are also forms of information, and this is also true of emotions. We need this emotional energy and information to help us to know what’s happening and how to respond.
None of the emotions are inherently negative or wrong/bad/evil. Emotions usually get labeled as positive and negative but within this spectrum of feelings and range of emotional tones, the dividing line is not between what I feel to be pleasant or unpleasant, but rather, between what serves me and what does not; what contributes to my awareness of myself and others and helps me to have more meaningful loving relationships, and what does not.
Kids are either taught to: express their emotions meaningfully; or they are forced to repress them by hiding, denying and over-internalizing those energies; or they’re allowed emotion in excess by amplifying, exaggerating and over-externalizing their upset; or they are regularly driven into a dissociative chaotic state of chronic distress. How the parent treats the child directly impacts how the child uses each of her emotions, and this consistent pattern of treatment results in these habitual emotional schemas, which form the foundation and core of the child’s personality (and/or psychopathology).