What Exactly Are Emotions? Don't Suppress Them, Use Them!

It is said that we are made of flesh and blood, and dust... but we are composed of more than 60 % of water. Certainly, we are Homo Sapiens (thinking, wise man), but we are mainly emotional beings, considering our biological, chemical composition. It would therefore have been more appropriate for our species to be called Homo Motius (emotional man) instead of Homo Sapiens, or Homo Sapiens Motius, which is perhaps a new stage in human evolution.

Neuroscience teaches us that we feel before we think. Emotions are at the very heart of our life; they have accompanied the evolution of the human being. It is thanks to them that we have survived, that we have been able to develop because they are reactions that allow us to adapt to the events of daily life, whatever they are, and also to transform ourselves in the long term. Emotional experiences are in fact learning about oneself and about relationships with others. Knowing how to recognize them, name them, understand them, is to take back our power over them instead of letting them sometimes "carry us away", or trying to repress them in a corner of our unconscious.

Because we cry when we are sad, or when we are in pain... but also when we laugh. We can feel very hot and sweaty under an intense emotion, or feel frozen, paralyzed by fear. Our emotional state is like water that moves within us, that changes and can take on several different states in its manifestation depending on what we are experiencing. It is a bit like our inner weather.

Our emotional state can resemble the calm water of a beautiful lake when we are serene, or a rough sea when we are disturbed, or even a tsunami that breaks on the horizon when we can no longer hold back our emotions... Or it can bubble up like a pressure cooker whose lid has been desperately tightened to the bottom, and then spurt out of control! Like the magma of a volcano that suddenly awakens when we thought it was extinguished, a sign of intense anger from repressing in our unconscious everything we don't want to (or can't) see or express.

An emotion provokes an inner movement, it makes you move inside, and sometimes it will also bring an external movement that you will express if it is positive, and that you will try to retain, to control if it is negative... and sometimes you will even "freeze" everything so as not to feel the possible consequences.

Emotion comes from the Latin "motere" which means "to move", and the prefix "é" which indicates a movement from the inside to the outside, thus a tendency to act concretely. From there also comes the word "motor". Emotions are therefore by definition energies that push us to act, to set us in motion; they will give us an impulse, motivate us.

This is when everything is going well, because if the so-called "positive" emotions can put us into action with a beautiful, just energy, there are also "negative" emotions that can make us act impulsively, reactively and not always very right ... Even slowing us down, to the point of blocking us in our manifestation.

A person always reacts in a way determined by his or her emotional state. Thus, despite the universality of an emotion, its expression will vary according to each individual. It is normal, we do not all have the same history, the same emotional experiences. The emotion is thus associated with the personality and especially with the memories recorded in the unconscious of each one.

Emotions are spontaneous reactions to a given situation.

They can cause physical manifestations (pallor, blushing, agitation, increased heart rate and breathing rate, sweating, etc.) and psychological manifestations (thoughts, mood changes, etc.) that are temporary. Joy, surprise, fear, anger are examples.

Feelings represent a more lasting emotional state that evolves over time. Thus feelings (such as love, hate, trust, distrust, gratitude, etc.) are born, grow and sometimes change, or even disappear.

Although they are different, emotions and feelings are intimately linked. Feelings cause all kinds of emotions and, conversely, emotions can generate feelings. For example, a feeling of joy can spontaneously generate tears (emotion). If a child was frightened (emotion) when the neighbor's dog barked loudly at him, he might later develop a feeling of fear at the mere sight of a dog. This feeling may last over time, or it may change or even disappear as the child develops.

It is therefore important to understand the emotions that we feel before moving, because this is how our personality will express itself and also develop. We grew up in a kind of emotional "bath" with our parents, our entourage, at school, etc... and this will color our everyday life, in positive as well as in negative.