It's no secret that emotions play an important role in our lives. Communicating with people, you can probably notice that people show emotions in different ways, share their feelings.

Emotions are an adaptive mechanism that is inherent in us by nature to assess the situation. After all, a person does not always have time when he can correctly and accurately assess what is happening to him. Suppose in a situation of danger ... And then once - I felt something and there is a feeling that I either “like” or “dislike”.

Moreover, the emotional assessment is the most correct - nature cannot deceive. Emotional evaluation occurs very quickly and reason and logic are not "mixed" here. After all, you can logically explain anything and give a bunch of all sorts of rational arguments.

Watching people (including myself) I notice that there are situations in which people either ignore their emotions, or try not to notice them, or simply do not realize. I will not now make assumptions about the reasons for this, I will only say that without listening to oneself, to one's emotional life, a person cannot adequately and fully perceive the situation, and thereby make the most effective decision.

In ordinary life, this can manifest itself in the fact that by ignoring or repressing one's emotions, a person can create an incorrect belief for himself. For example, if a wife is ignorant/unconscious or unwilling to admit her anger towards her husband, she may take her anger out on another person or children in a completely different situation.

Or, I had a client who had this belief: “I can’t offend a person, upset him.” As it turned out, if a person gets angry, then she will experience guilt, which she did not want to meet.

In my consultations, I very often come across the emotional sphere. I once noticed that it is sometimes very difficult for people to say what they really feel or what emotion they are experiencing right now. Even if a person realizes that he has some feeling now, sometimes it is very difficult to say it in words, to name it.

One of my clients told me so: “I feel a GOOD feeling, but I don’t know what it’s called ..”.

And I decided to fill this gap on the pages of my site. Below is a list of emotions and feelings that I managed to find, I hope that after reading it, you can significantly replenish the awareness of what can happen to you.

And by the way, you can check yourself: before reading the list, I suggest you make it yourself, and then compare how complete your list is ...

People experience different emotions every day – sometimes good, sometimes not so good.
It has become so habitual that we do not even think about how and why emotions appeared in our ancestors. But they were very important!

We experience many emotional outbursts, but among them there are seven of the most important, basic emotions, without which our life would be completely different. It is about them that we will now talk.

Any emotion is involuntary if it is sincere.
Mark Twain

6. Base emotion - Surprise

Emotion, with the help of which we have the opportunity to better orientation in space, increase attention and achieve mutual understanding. Such a reaction facilitates the opportunity to consider something new in what we are already accustomed to. However, if a person is in a state of anxiety, then instead of surprise, he may experience fear.

7. Base emotion - Joy

One of the best possible emotions that supports our external manifestations. Thanks to this reaction, we reduce the distance between ourselves and other people and can interact with them. It is a reaction to receiving pleasure, or what is meant by it.

Conclusion

This is far from the whole "palette" of our emotions, especially since new ones are often added to the already existing ones.

We need to learn to understand our emotions, and then we will be able to clearly determine how we react to different events and how to behave in this or that case.

Listen to your mind - and truly wonderful opportunities will open before you!

It seems to me that if we knew from childhood what our main emotions mean, how they manifest themselves, and what exactly they are talking about, life would become much easier! And now we will catch up with you, because understanding emotions can greatly simplify life and make you wiser! Let's check!

Alas, in childhood, our emotional education was actually not given due attention. And it affected our mental health.

There were times when my body, mind and heart tried to tell me very important things for several months, but I was unable to understand it. And most importantly, emotions are very important for logical thinking, we must be able to understand what they are trying to teach us.

So, whether you're looking to lead significant changes in your life on your own, or you're insecure about your love relationships, or you just need help understanding what your core emotions are trying to tell you, a description of these top five human emotions and their subtext will help you understand yourself.

Finally, I'd like to point out that I've narrowed down my list to five basic emotions because I believe they underlie our other emotions. That is, there are hundreds of emotional manifestations that could be considered, the so-called "secondary" emotions, but they all arise from these five main ones.

So, let's begin.

1. Happiness

By default, this is our emotional reality. We feel it when our basic human needs are met. We are happy when we feel safe, connected and loved.

On the one hand, the awakening of a state of happiness can manifest itself in a feeling of calmness and relaxed contentment, and, on the other hand, it can manifest itself as a feeling of joy, bliss, ecstasy, or a feeling of falling in love.

Therefore, the lack of happiness indicates that elementary human needs are not being met.

2. Sadness

Sadness covers our body and mind when we experience some form of loss in our lives. It can be minor, like an ice cream that falls on the ground, or devastating, like breaking up a relationship or losing a job or a loved one we adored.

People go to great lengths to avoid feeling sad. But I like to think of sadness as a kind of honoring process. Just think, we are just honoring and celebrating how much something means to us when we allow ripples of sadness to flow through our body...sadness can take us anywhere from a few days or weeks to full immersion in non-stop sobbing for months when we experience significant losses in our lives.

And the truth is, there is no escape from sadness, but you, too, can treat it as a process of honor to heal yourself. In addition, allowing yourself to fully experience sadness will only make you a stronger and wiser person.

Physical symptoms of sadness often include a feeling of heaviness in the chest, tightness in the jaw and throat muscles, and tears in the eyes.

3. Sexual arousal

Of all the five emotions on this list, I would say that this is one of the most neglected. This is because many believe that sexual feelings are closely related to the state of happiness, but it seems to me that they are quite different, and sexuality should be discussed separately.

Sexual arousal is experienced differently by everyone, but the general physical sensations are often a combination of a feeling of heat in the chest and groin, visible redness of the face and upper chest, slowing of breathing, and a spreading feeling of arousal that eventually spreads throughout the body. .

Our sexual desire is one of the most powerful driving forces in our lives (after all, it is responsible for procreation). When you understand how to properly use your sexual energy, you will be able to achieve more. Our sexual energy can be transformed into creative energy, and this power is unlike any other.

It is also important to remember that sexual energy (like any other emotion that you experience) is created by you and lives only in your body. Thus, even if it seems more logical to you to think: “I saw a very attractive person, and he awakened these feelings in me,” in fact, it was you who awakened them in yourself. People can't "make" you sad, angry, or happy. You must learn to take responsibility for your own emotions. And with our sexual feelings, this works even more than with others.

4. Anger

One of the coolest things I've ever learned while studying baby development is that we can't learn to crawl until we learn to be angry (or the secondary emotion in this particular example could be disappointment). We cannot immediately learn to crawl, because we must be angry enough at our present situation, we must first be angry that we are not able to move. When we want to move, then there will be an indignation against immobility.

Experience anger and then use its power to teach.

Anger is a feeling that arises when we are blocked in some way (i.e. there is an obstacle between us and the desired result) or when something we do not want is obtained.

When you get angry, your muscles tense up (jaw, fists, large muscle groups tense, etc.) and you feel the energy trying to force that tension out of your body. Anger makes you stomp your feet on the ground, scream, or even hit someone.

5. Fear

Fear is designed to maintain security. But sometimes it slows us down too much (for example, fear of what other people will think can prevent you from building the career of your dreams). At the lower end of the spectrum of this emotion, you may experience fear in the form of nervousness, such as before a first date or public speaking.

We've all heard of the "fight or flight" principle. It is needed at the higher end of the spectrum of fear, when we believe that a threat can cause real damage (physical or emotional) to us.

Your main task is to learn to distinguish far-fetched reasons for excitement from real threats.

We hope this article will help you understand your feelings a little better. If you understand what underlies your sadness, unhappiness, anger or fear, you will be able to overcome them more easily and direct your emotions in the right direction, in which we wish you success!

It is assumed that our emotions are rooted in the so-called drives - basic physiological innate needs, such as: hunger, thirst, sexual desire, the need to remove waste products, avoidance of pain and the search for pleasure (comfort). Why such a list, I think, does not need to be explained.

But there was a need for a more effective way of mobilizing energy (strength) for survival, stimulation and direction of physical, and eventually mental activity, for the selection of signals that affect the perception of the world. Emotions and feelings gradually began to perform these functions - at least in highly developed animals this can already be observed.

• As a result, the first emotions arose, and became the basis for all other feelings and experiences - as a response to the need to survive and learn about the world.

There are many theories of the origin of feelings and views on which emotions are considered primary and basic - you can familiarize yourself with them if necessary. I will tell you what seems to me convincing and, most importantly, useful for practical application.

I highlight the following basic emotions that underlie all other human feelings. In my opinion, there are seven of them: interest, joy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and surprise. It is also interesting to note how these basic emotions were connected at the stage of their occurrence with the main processes of the individual's survival and adaptation to the surrounding world.

Interest gives rise to, motivates, nourishes and enhances the desire to explore the world around us, activity and the search for pleasure.

Joy associated with the acceptance and absorption of food and water, with the satisfaction of desires (including sexual ones), it is a reaction to receiving pleasure.

sadness- a reaction to the loss of an object that brings pleasure.

Anger (anger)- that which helped to eliminate and destroy obstacles to obtaining pleasure (satisfaction).

Fear- reaction of protection, running away or warning of possible pain or threat.

Disgust- reaction of rejection.

Astonishment- a momentary reaction to contact with something unfamiliar, unusual.

As a result, surprise leads to a rapid change in previous emotions - reactions, to a change in the previous action or its rapid cessation.

Emotions most often manifest themselves in interaction, reinforcing, suppressing each other, or flowing from one to another. So fear, for sure, was often associated with disgust and anger, and interest turned into joy. With the development of man and his ability to respond to changing conditions of life, more complex feelings and emotional reactions began to arise.

How do emotions turn into feelings?

Naturally, now the causes of these emotions have become more diverse, the situations of their occurrence have become more complicated, and a lot of new things have been added to these seven emotions. Then why is it necessary now to isolate the basic emotions and trace the causes of their initial occurrence?

All this can be used, compared with mathematics or geography, as a coordinate system. And also, using the comparison with food, we can say that these seven emotions are the main basic ingredients of our modern diverse sensory and taste experiences. And understanding their origin helps us to put these or those (and not put badly compatible) components at the right time and in the right proportions in our emotional dishes and sensual cocktails in order to prepare them competently: of good quality and for our own benefit. How is such a cocktail of experiences prepared?

The choice of this coordinate system - seven basic emotions - allows us to pick up the keys to numerous feelings and experiences, the number of which is already difficult to count. Thank God (or nature, or ourselves), we have gone far from animal ancestors. And therefore our emotional life has become much more complicated, and we already experience the above emotions not only in those cases.

A number of psychologists - researchers, as well as writers or philosophers, name shame, fear, hope, contempt, and love among the main human emotions ... No doubt, in our life these feelings (and not only) play a significant role, and the faces and actions of people are read well.

Even young children begin to express some of these feelings at a very early stage in their development. But to me, these feelings already seem to be derivatives of those seven basic ones, and therefore in this book, for ease of analysis and understanding, I will call the seven basic emotions exactly emotions, and the rest - a derivative of them, whether by mixing, changing intensity, direction, or imposing on action (more on that later) - feelings and experiences.

For example, such a feeling as contempt is formed from two fundamental emotions, like anger and joy: I am angry at the object of contempt and at the same time I am glad that I am better than him. Excitement consists of the same emotions, but in different proportions and with a focus on the future: anger at an obstacle and joy at the idea of ​​the pleasure that will be obtained as a result of overcoming this obstacle.

There are elements of anger and surprise in hatred, as well as interest. And love (one of its varieties) consists of interest and joy: interest is an attraction to an object and the joy of connecting with it (accepting it). If desired, people add fear, sadness, anger, and surprise to this feeling, and other types of love are obtained, although these two fundamental emotions are the basis of this feeling. Whatever one may say: if there is no interest or joy, then there is no love, but something completely different turns out, although it may be generated by this feeling. But more on that in a separate chapter.

Thus, by analogy with music, where seven notes become the basis for creating an infinite number of combinations of sounds and melodies, the seven basic emotions become the basis for creating endless and diverse experiences, feelings and moods.

Quite reasonably, the question may arise, but will not this logical analysis and this classification deprive our emotions of their originality, brightness and strength, will it not make our life boring and sensually poor?

But the understanding of what and how music is created from does not deprive people listening to it of the ability to enjoy melodies and sound combinations, and at the same time helps to better understand music and even compose it, improving in this.

In the same way, understanding the laws of birth and changing our feelings does not deprive us of the ability to experience them. In addition, it adds the ability to experience exactly the feelings that we choose (that is, listen to the music we need), and help others feel next to us what we think is necessary or optimal for communication (music that is better to listen to together).

Wheel of Emotions by Robert Plutchik

It's hard for me to sort out my feelings - a phrase that each of us has come across: in books, in movies, in life (someone's or our own). But it is very important to be able to understand your feelings. Some believe - and perhaps they are right - that the meaning of life is in feelings. Indeed, at the end of life, only our feelings, real or in memories, remain with us. Yes, and the measure of what is happening can also be our experiences: the richer, more diverse, brighter they are, the more fully we feel life.

What are feelings?

The simplest definition: feelings are what we feel. This is our attitude to certain things (objects). There is also a more scientific definition: feelings (higher emotions) are special mental states that are manifested by socially conditioned experiences that express a person’s long-term and stable emotional relationship to things.

How are feelings different from emotions?

Sensations are our experiences that we experience through the senses, and we have five of them. Sensations are visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory and odor sensations (our sense of smell). With sensations, everything is simple: stimulus - receptor - sensation.

Our consciousness interferes with emotions and feelings - our thoughts, attitudes, our thinking. Emotions are influenced by our thoughts. And vice versa - emotions affect our thoughts. We will discuss these relationships in more detail a little later. But now let's recall once again one of the criteria for psychological health, namely point 10: we are responsible for our feelings, it depends on us what they will be. It is important.

Fundamental emotions:

All human emotions can be distinguished by the quality of experience. This aspect of a person's emotional life is most clearly presented in the theory of differential emotions by the American psychologist K. Izard.

He singled out ten qualitatively different "fundamental" emotions: interest-excitation, joy, surprise, grief-suffering, anger-rage, disgust-disgust, contempt-neglect, fear-horror, shame-shyness, guilt-repentance.

The first three emotions K. Izard refers to positive, the remaining seven - to negative. Each of the fundamental emotions underlies a whole range of states that differ in severity. For example, within the framework of such a single-modal emotion as joy, one can single out joy-satisfaction, joy-delight, joy-jubilation, joy-ecstasy, and others. From the combination of fundamental emotions, all other, more complex, complex emotional states arise. For example, anxiety can combine fear, anger, guilt, and interest.

1. Interest- a positive emotional state that contributes to the development of skills and abilities, the acquisition of knowledge. Interest-excitation is a feeling of capture, curiosity.

2. Joy- a positive emotion associated with the ability to sufficiently fully satisfy an urgent need, the probability of which before that was small or uncertain. Joy is accompanied by self-satisfaction and satisfaction with the surrounding world. Obstacles to self-realization are also obstacles to the emergence of joy.

3. Surprise- an emotional reaction that does not have a clearly expressed positive or negative sign to sudden circumstances. Surprise inhibits all previous emotions, directing attention to a new object and can turn into interest.

4. Suffering (grief)- the most common negative emotional state associated with the receipt of reliable (or seeming such) information about the impossibility of satisfying the most important needs, the achievement of which before that seemed more or less likely. Suffering has the character of asthenic emotion and more often occurs in the form of emotional stress. The most severe form of suffering is grief associated with irretrievable loss.

5. Anger- a strong negative emotional state, occurring more often in the form of affect; arises in response to an obstacle in achieving passionately desired goals. Anger has the character of a sthenic emotion.

6. Disgust- a negative emotional state caused by objects (objects, people, circumstances), contact with which (physical or communicative) comes into sharp conflict with the aesthetic, moral or ideological principles and attitudes of the subject. Disgust, when combined with anger, can motivate aggressive behavior in interpersonal relationships. Disgust, like anger, can be directed at oneself, lowering self-esteem and causing self-judgment.

7. Contempt- a negative emotional state that occurs in interpersonal relationships and is generated by a mismatch of life positions, views and behavior of the subject with those of the object of feeling. The latter are presented to the subject as base, not corresponding to accepted moral standards and ethical criteria. A person is hostile to those whom he despises.

8. Fear- a negative emotional state that appears when the subject receives information about the possible damage to his life well-being, about real or imagined danger. Unlike the suffering caused by direct blocking of the most important needs, a person, experiencing the emotion of fear, has only a probabilistic forecast of possible trouble and acts on the basis of this forecast (often insufficiently reliable or exaggerated). The emotion of fear can be both sthenic and asthenic in nature and proceed either in the form of stressful conditions, or in the form of a stable mood of depression and anxiety, or in the form of affect (horror).

9. Shame- a negative emotional state, expressed in the awareness of the inconsistency of one's own thoughts, actions and appearance, not only with the expectations of others, but also with one's own ideas about appropriate behavior and appearance.

10. Wine- a negative emotional state, expressed in the awareness of the unseemliness of one's own act, thought or feelings and expressed in regret and repentance.

Table of human feelings and emotions:

And I also want to show you a collection of feelings, emotions, states that a person experiences during his life - a generalized table that does not pretend to be scientific, but will help you better understand yourself.

All human feelings and emotions can be divided into four types. It is fear, anger, sadness and joy. To what type this or that feeling belongs, you can find out from the table.

Fear	Sadness	Anger	Joy
Anxiety Anxiety Confusion Panic Horror Thinking Discomfort Confusion Closure hurt fright Nervousness Mistrust Uncertainty Uncertainty Alertness rejection Fear Caution Restraint Embarrassment shyness Fussiness Anxiety cowardice Doubt Shock	Apathy Indifference Helplessness Depression Despair Guilt Difficulty exhaustion exhaustion Melancholy Gloom Inconvenience Worthlessness Resentment concern Rejection emptiness Loneliness sadness Passivity depression Pessimism Lost Brokenness upset Shame brokenness Boredom Yearning Fatigue Oppression sullenness frowning	Aggression disgust Rage Rabies Anger annoyance Cruelty Envy revenge Discontent Hatred Intolerance Disgust Dissatisfaction condemnation Disgust Madness Insult Contempt fastidiousness scorn Irritation Jealousy sharpness angry Cynicism annoyance stinginess	Bliss cheerfulness arousal Delight Dignity Confidence Pleasure Interest Curiosity peacefulness Immediacy Relief revival Optimism Energy Flattery peace Happiness appeasement Confidence Satisfaction intoxication Love Tenderness Sympathy Luck Euphoria Ecstasy

And for those who read the article to the end. The purpose of this article is to help you understand your feelings, what they are. Our feelings largely depend on our thoughts. Irrational thinking often underlies negative emotions. By correcting these mistakes (working on thinking), we can be happier and achieve more in life. There is an interesting, but persistent and painstaking work on oneself.