RELEASE THE EMOTION - 2: The function of emotions

Why do we have emotions?

Nature has equipped us with the ability to experience emotions, because this ability has a function: it ensures survival. 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 neurologic 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 signal 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.

Lacking this ability, but still having their usual capacity for mental thought, they just
arbitralily chance on deciding something, in most cases with negative or even
catastrophic results. They have neither any ability to understand the emtions of others,
and are therefore not able to understand or even know anything about the needs of
other persons.

Antonio Damasio describes this, in a way adapted for laymen, in his book
”Descartes’ error”, ISBN 0-380-72647-5.

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 of 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:

According to this definition of emotions this is also the only origin of emotions.

Thoughts are colored by earlier experiences

As was mentioned above, my interpretation of what is going on
around me is always subjective. This does not mean that it is always
incorrect in a certain situation, but very negative experiences earlier
in my life can influence my interpretation in such a way that my
thoughts about what is going on is strongly influenced by my
memories, rather than by what is really happening here and now.

In certain cases my emotional state is the result of a
conditioned reflex - the situation resembles earlier negative
experiences, and triggers subconsciously a negative
physiological reaction in my body, which I will experience as
a negative emotion, which sometimes even can be paralyzing
and/or limiting.

The awareness that it in certain situations can be like this can be helpful in itself -
I can recognize the emotion and refrain from acting on it. But in more difficult cases,
where the emotion strongly influences me, and therefore limits my ability to think clearly,
I can become blocked, despite my knowledge about my conditioned reflex.

In this course you will be introduced to a method for being able to release limiting or
paralyzing emotional states. States that have little or no connection with what is really
going on here and now, and which limits your ability to create the life you want to have.

The ability to let go of an emotion is thus not a personal trait, it is an ability, that can
be learnt and trained. This will be an ability that you will have access to when
you need it. Having this ability does although not mean that you shall use it on all
emotions - many of the emotions we experience are connected with what is going on
and shall be taken seriously and should make us act appropriately. Otherwise we
become as Damasio’s patients - incapable of knowing what we need, and therefore
incapable of deciding anything.