BASIC COMMUNICATION - 2: Emotions

		Section 2
	Note: This is a sample of the course, 2 sections of 10.
	EMOTIONS Why do we have emotions?
Why do emotions exist? The ability to experience emotions is something nature has equipped us with, because it has a function: it has a survival value. We probably share the ability to experience emotions with most of the living creatures on Earth.
		Emotions differ from thoughts in a fundamental way: emotions manifest as body sensations. The brain creates the experience of an emotion by reading different processes going on in the body, as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, muscular tension, sensations from the digestive system, blood vessel contractions in the skin, facial expression, body posture, patterns of movement, voice quality, etc. These physiological processes are in turn initiated from the brain, and when the brain in certain situations repeats this neurological influence, emotional body memories are established. When one later on gets into the same type of situation, it will be more efficient for the brain to read these body memories than having to analyzing the situation each time, and the brain can, using this inner process, react quicker. If the situation represents a threat, one can therefore meet this threat rapidly and efficiently, without needing to reflect mentally - a direct survival value. If the situation represents a reward, one can get this before others that may be competing for the resource - a survival value over time.
Emotions are signals about needs In the two examples above emotions help the individual to meet crucial needs: the first need to survive in a critical situation, the second to survive over time. My emotions have thus the general function of giving myself and others signals about my needs.
		Without this ability I cannot survive at all: the scientist Antonio Damasio works with patients where all nerves from the body to the brain have been severed (those from the brain to the body are although intact, else one cannot live at all). These patients have of course lost their perception of touch, which makes it impossible for them to protect themselves against physical injuries. They have also lost their ability to experience emotions - they are completely mentally uniform, they act like robots. What surprised Damasio was although the fact that these patients had completely lost their ability to make decisions - they have no contact with what they need whatsoever, and are not able to know what they need through thinking about it. Not any needs of the body, like hunger, thirst, etc, and neither any psychological needs.
Antonio Damasio describes this, in a way adapted for laymen, in his book ”Descartes’ error”. Find it in our webshop, the Amazon page, under Psychology/Damasio. Emotions are initiated by thoughts The brain’s ”conditioning” of the body in different situations is although not ”objective”. It is done through a conscious, or in most cases subconscious, interpretation of the situation. In simple cases, as when a car is coming threateningly near, or when there is a hollow feeling of hunger from the stomach, the interpretation is straightforward, and the resulting emotion is in good correspondence with reality. But, in more complicated situations, like in the interaction between people, the interpretation can be completely correct or completely erroneous, and is in most cases something in between. The emotion in itself is always ”real” and cannot be altered in the short term, but it is not caused directly by what is going on in my external physical reality - my emotion the result of my interpretation of reality. My “inner map” of reality, my thoughts, my attitude, governs my emotional state. More specifically expressed: my thoughts (the conscious thoughts, but above all my subconscious thoughts) about my needs influence my body in a way making me experience emotions. A strict definition of the origin of emotions can therefore be expressed in the following way:
	My belief that one or more of my basic needs is met / will be met will create a POSITIVE emotion.
	My belief that one or more of my basic needs is not met / will not be met will create a NEGATIVE emotion.
Emotional Intelligence In our rather mentally oriented culture, emotions have traditionally been assigned a low value. Emotions are even seen as something irrational and disturbing, one should restrain oneself or disregard them. This section has hopefully shown that emotions and thereby our body is an indispensable part of our intelligence. True intelligence is thus based on the combination of brain and body. Having access to this type of intelligence requires awareness of one's body, and an ability to register even subtle changes, in all parts of the body. We are all born with a excellent ability to register and to experience our emotions. For some, this ability decreases with increasing age, due to our upbringing, and social and/or cultural conditioning. This leads to that our ability to know what we really need in different situations decreases. But, this ability is possible to find again, and is possible to train, by increasing one's awareness of our body and the different signals from it. It is although important to remember that emotions, even if they are always "authentic", being the physiochemical body processes they are, are not caused by reality in itself. Emotions are caused by our thoughts, ideas and notions about reality. So, when you start to train your ability to become aware of your emotions, and through this about your needs, do this by posing yourself following questions: What does this emotion stand for? Does it signal a true need I have just now, or is it an echo from my past? If the emotion is signaling a true need I truly have, I need to act on this, either by doing something and/or by communicating what I need. In those cases where the emotion is more of a conditioned reflex, caused by issues that have troubled me in my life, maybe many times, but where this is no issue any longer, this may have led to a chronic emotional state, a mood. Such a state can persist during long periods of time, and will limit you. In such a case you may benefit from learning to just let go of the emotion, and there is an e-course for this here at PsykosyntesForum: Release the Emotion. Reflect on what you have read in this section, until you feel that you understand it and have started to act on your knowledge. You will need your insights and skills in this area further down in this e-course.
	But, now we will focus on communication in itself, in a very basic way, and this will be the topic of next section -> .