To make it short, emotions as we use the term today are just one piece of the much bigger “emotional system”… of which I have distillated 5 plus 1 main fields, which strongly interact with each other. I have put them also into the context of what our brain does with them, once they are experienced, to show, where we could hack into the system to transform it to our benefits.

1. SENSATIONS: every smell, image, taste, touch, sound and sixth sense input has an emotional connection to our memory of it otherwise we would not remember it… this is not the ONLY way, how brain memory works; but it is the most powerful one , check this out: remember your favourite ice-cream flavor, and the day you first tasted it? Very possible holiday memories will come up, and with them feelings that are connected to them, family, friends, landscapes, the breeze of the salty summerwind of the beach… now you WILL feel something, lots of images produce lots of feelings, maybe also something that makes you sad, angry or full of desire …because unfortunately every memory also has judgement and rating attached to it, that by its very nature causes a new emotion to arise, to go back, in our example: taste of ice cream takes you back to your holidays with your parents, in a time where everything was maybe a little more simple than now, where relationships were different, maybe better than now, where people like you grandparents still may have lived… and now your left brain half comes in and compares those emotional memories to your present in the here and now, and this causes a new wave of feelings and emotions to rise up…why this can be unfortunate, or in better words “unpractical”, I will explain later in more detail (also to keep you curious…) 

2. AFFECTS: are programs of instant physical reactions toward- usually- life threatening situations which let the instincts kick in. On the physical level, they are related to muscular reflexes… they have no thinking or developing time between action and reaction, they come out as soon as the instinct gets triggered , bam!! Just like that! The difference between instincts and affects is merely the direction: instincts ACT affects REACT instantly! This is also a reason why in many countries, killing a person in affect of a life threatening attack is labeled as self defense, and not seen as a crime! 

The reaction however is not without emotion though, actually these emotions that come up are very strong and somewhat overwhelming, they carry vast amounts of energy in them, because the bodily reactions (aka reflexes) might be physically quite demanding… ever heard of the story in which a mother lifted a car (!) barehanded because her child got stuck under it? 

THAT is the amount we can come up with… Studies have shown that a body which is in fear of death, produces an amount of adrenaline that increases the body-strength up to 700% !!! We literally grow 7 times stronger because of our FEAR in affect !

This of course  later triggers a  process of trying to deal with the experience by rating and judging this seemingly uncontrollable enormous energy… and can lead to the creation of an new emotions which are easier to be dealt with… usually, Shame, Guilt or in their lighter versions AFFECTIONS of laughter and humor… These new created emotions I called “CO-MOTIONS” and are introduced a little later.

 3. INSTINCTS:

The most primal emotions are driven by our instincts (the innate behavior which we never had to learn)  in our reptile brain, they are here to let us know about the four Fs of survival: FREEZE, FIGHT, FLIGHT and of course F…ORNICATION

They are instant programs that subconsciously are working all the time, and become a pattern, as soon as the life situation changes into something that triggers the 4 Fs…

Do I really have to explain each one to you? Ok for the nerds, with the example of the bunny: 

The bunny FREEZES if the cobra is too near, and moving means dying

The bunny FLEES if the cobra is far away enough to BE, but near enough, that she could BECOME lethal.

The bunny would not FIGHT a cobra, but very possibly a competitor in the salad or sex bunny-partner-buffet! 

A bunny will F…ORNICATE any other bunny if it is a possible sex bunny partner without hesitation, unless the cobra is around again..

What might be a little more interesting, that all 4 Fs are mainly driven by FEAR of DEATH or Extinction, and less than ten percent by the pure DESIRE to exist… in the CONSCIOUS mind: this has to do with the fact that we remember “bad” emotions 9 time stronger than “good” ones, which seems to be a necessary condition, if we are to avoid all the deadly cobra situations, which could make our bunny-lives so much shorter..

On the subconscious level both instinct-emotions, Fear-of -Death and Desire-to-Exist are equally strong, one could even argue, they are the same principal of EXISTENCE trying to fit into the concept of DUALITY…

Some authors (ImmanuelKant being one of them) think that all Feelings and Emotions are primarily based on these two: 

Fear & Desire (or Lust and Unlust as he called it) , by mixing them to certain amounts in our “bodypool” they transform into the whole palette of “negative” and “positive” feelings &. emotions:

FEAR (Desperation, Insecurity, Anger, Hate, …)

DESIRE (Greed, Curiosity, Joy, Love, Extasy…)

4 & 5 Feelings vs Emotions

So finally we can make the distinction between feelings and emotions, and after we made it, you will realize that until now, I have not done that in my usage of these two words in the articles so far… but this shall change hence forth

4. FEELINGS: are the more subtle cocktails of the main ingredients of our instincts mixed with the experience of our sensations and affect(ions)…They FLOW in our body from top to tale..

So for example: a fresh morning breeze can trigger the feeling of joy of a new day and the sensation of cold which in this case is connected to the fear of getting ill! But it is not an alarming feeling, it flows gently with those two components, and you will experience those components one at a time…

5. EMOTIONS on the other hand, are feelings ready to MOVE OUT of the body ( E-Motus Latin “moved out”)… they can be any kind of feeling, that has a trigger-point (which was imprinted during childhood, through strong, judgment) and whenever this trigger-point is pushed, they burst out no matter what the circumstance! They are on some level all connected to instincts of survival, but they function also under circumstances that not seem life threatening on first sight. If we take a closer look though, we can see that our mind has just “translated” a primal situation of survival to our urban environment. But Emotions are not instincts or affects. They take a bit more time to build up…on the other hand any emotion that is suppressed for too long can transform into illness, disease and injury, if they are never dealt with on the surface, where they want to move out. 

Emotions often are also described as the strong feelings, that are connected to very important experiences in our lives like, most authors refer to these emotions:

Fear,Disgust, Sadness, Desire, Anger, Joy, Love & Ecstasy (some only to the ones in bold font)

Plus 1 the “CO-(e)MOTIONS”

What is important to know here, that there are TWO forms of mindsets towards Feelings and Emotions: one is the primal instinct emotions, and the mindset towards them, which has to do with “informing the body in order to survive a situation better” and Two is … the 2ndary emotions, that come up, by dealing with the first ones… the so called “CO-MOTIONS”: A “co-motion” an emotion, that comes WITH another emotion and is usually linked to the JUDGEMENT and MINDSET we have to the first (usually we are “overwhelmed” by it and need to deal with it through the second emotion).These “commotions” now stand next to the primal emotions and usually cloud it, because our mindset does not want to deal with it. In a pleasant form this is done with laughter and humor in the unpleasant form it is done with shame and guilt. Important to know these new emotions were CREATED during our cultural evolution! They are not a natural habit!! The creation happened  through adoption of new religions, cultures and conventions, which taught, that certain feelings (which had uncontrollable energy) were “BAD” and had to be suppressed in order to be worthy and honorable in the conventional society!

They were created through centuries of  new teachings, and to a certain extent “brainwahsings” in order to make societies more controllable! (which in that time seemed to be important and maybe even necessary, we are not judging history here, we are merely showing the roots of our behavior)

But KNOWING that these thoughts and feelings were CREATED by mankind along their evolution can help the intention to UNCREATE theme!

The key is KNOWLEDGE and the willpower to do it. Transformation can happen once a hindering mindset is destroyed…. Revolution initiates Evolution…

In a culture that has an ancestral memory of several cultural revolutions, like Europe had from paganism, to monotheism, to the doctrine of science and technology and a sexual revolution in the 60ies…this might be easier…. But then it always depends on the person and his situation…. We are all unique, and everybody needs to find their way of dealing, and healing with it!

Luckily there are experts who can individualize their knowledge towards each person and give clarity through the perspective from outside….

More on how our expertise works in the next articles….

If you have any questions,… contatct us!