Coloring Our Experiences

In the last chapter, we learned that feelings function to translate our thoughts into actions that aim to maximize reward and minimize punishment. 

Feelings do this by adding “color” or valence to motivate how we act, and by varying in “intensity” to help us prioritize actions based on importance or urgency.  

This week, we’ll dive deeper into the different aspects of emotions, discussing some of the basic types of emotions that you may experience, and what function these emotions serve. 

Emotions are tricky – so before we begin, let’s first discuss some important elements to approaching emotions.

Granularity

Some people are able to identify and label their emotions with great granularity. Others may experience emotions in a more blunt way — they feel “stressed” or “not stressed”, making it harder to distinguish between different specific types of feelings. 

At the end of the day, our level of emotional granularity is less important than being able to tell a story about what we are feeling and why. 

Valid vs. justified

All feelings are valid — whatever you’re experiencing is your experience. Often we find ourselves invalidating our own emotional states: “I’m not angry” (we say through gritted teeth). Or others may invalidate our emotions: “Don’t be sad. It’s OK” (said with best intentions, but not helpful when we are, in fact, sad, and things are not OK). Whatever you’re feeling…those feelings are real and should be understood. 

Not all feelings are justified, however. If someone uses your favorite coffee mug in the kitchen, one person may feel miffed, while another may scream for hours and break all the other mugs in the kitchen. Both the miffed and enraged emotions are valid and understandable – they are how these individuals feel. But the responses and behaviors are not probably justified given the circumstances. 

Type, Intensity and Duration

Emotional reactions can be categorized by type, intensity and duration. While the emotion type here (anger or frustration) may make sense in both cases, your average bystander might find the intensity (rage vs. miffed) and the duration (all day vs. a few minutes) to not match the situation. Nevertheless, the rage must be validated (understood) before it can be altered. Only once we validate that the rage is indeed there, and try to tell a story around it, can we start to engage with it effectively.