Emotions : Range & Uniqueness

Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you thoughts are represented through your senses. What could be a joyous event for one could be a tragedy for another and upset for yet another. Furthermore, no two people have the same representational system to a particular event, nor do they feel the same degree or singular response in a phenomenon.

We are all impacted by our emotions. A whole lot of our day to day and life decisions are made from emotions. Like the music we listen to,friends we make, social circles we mingle in and the art forms that we like. Emotions are a very integral part of being human. The type of emotion a person experiences is determined by the circumstance that For instance, a person experiences joy when they receive good news. A person experiences fear when they are threatened and these are not the only two emotions. We can experience anger, frustrations, sadness, disgust and so on. The important thing is in order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.

What we feel, in the form of an emotion, when presented with external environmental stimuli is unique to us. Let’s say for example the wedding day can be a happy event for the bride and a stressful one for the groom. In the same situation as the bride feels happy she could also feel sadness in the happiness, which basically is a secondary feeling attached to that happiness. And while the groom could feel stress he could also feel excitement for the new chapter in his life. Both have a unique response to the same event i.e. the wedding. And within the emotion there could be a secondary emotion subtly present.

That’s not all, the degree of the emotion can differ. The wedding day can bring forth a feeling of 9/10 joy for the bride and 4/10 for the groom. Clearly stating that each one of us has a unique way of experiencing different occurrences in our life and each has their own way of representing it.

What do I mean by representing??? Let's experience it.

Recall for a moment a situation in which you have experienced an intense emotional response. Perhaps you woke up in the middle of the night in a panic because you heard a noise that made you think that someone had broken into your house. Or maybe you were calmly walking down a street in your neighborhood when a car suddenly screeched in front of you, forcing you to freeze in your spot.

When I asked you to recall an event, how did you recall the same? Was it in the form of a picture, a sound, taste, feeling?

Be aware. This could be your representational system. The manner you recalled that event is the way you could have stored it and it is not just the thought but that image, sound or feeling that brings forth that emotion which then acts as a trigger for something else.

Let’s say in case of the car screeching, you could have frozen and then abused the hell out of the driver or started to cry with shock and every time you walk on the road you have a similar response system.

Our triggers and responses are often connected to events that are in the past. The only way we can recall the same is through our memory and these events are given them life through the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory or olfactory sense. Therefore, as it is our internal system, our imagination, we also have the power to alter the event by exercising our ability of changing the story through our artistry. We thereby alter the emotion related to the event and as we change the emotion the triggers that have been implanted change too.

This article on Emotions : Range & Uniqueness has been contributed by Aarti Asrani an NLP & Gestalt Masters, Alternative Health Therapist, Author and TED speaker.