In our bodily reaction or experience we can feel sensation and emotions. Sensations are localized they don’t move where as emotion is felt as a moving energy throughout or in some part of the body. These emotions are like surging energies which makes us act or not act. An emotional reaction is  based on the past conditions and current perception towards situation/ self or others or in combination of self, other and  situation   .

 

One more term which is interchangeably used along with the word emotion is mood. However mood and emotion are different. Mood is a state of mind which is prolonging in nature. Metaphorically differentiated,  moods are like climate and emotion is like weather.  Lets say a person says, I am in an irritated mood – there may be no reason a person feels an irritation throughout the day or hours. A mood may get triggered due to physiological condition. An individual’s reaction and perceptions may be influenced by this mood at the same time we may experience other emotions like anger, joy or fear having a particular mood as a base.  One more differentiation I see between mood and emotion is, in an emotion there is a memory attached whereas in a mood,  it is just a state of mind and not necessary that there is a memory attached to these moods.

 

Scan the  list below.  We will be discussing the listed emotions and may be many more can be added to his list. These discussion are inspired by the book “The Book of Emotions” by Salman Akhter and my understanding of these emotions.

 

Anger Boredom Courage Disgust Envy Fear Greed Hope Resentment

Ingratitude Joy Kindness Love Mourning Nostalgia Obstinacy Pity Guilt Grief

Querulence Remorse Shame Tenderness Unease Vindictiveness Worry Xenophobia Yearning Zest

 

 

 

Anger

 

Anger is not a primary emotion. It is a response to fear, betrayal and humiliation and injuries to self-esteem. An angry person feels alive and full of energy.  We are familiar with an angry hero who fights for the injustice caused to his family or friends. In a movie we may like and identify with the angry hero who punishes the bad men. Sometimes we also feel victimized and the hero punishing the villain us gives a comfort that we can now feel righteous about the misdeeds caused by the others.

 

Anger is quite confusing, we tell our children not to get angry but we get angry. When we express or react with anger we feel remorseful and ashamed. Some people don’t feel angry at all. Is anger right or wrong?

 

Good anger is proportionate to the context eg. embezzlement by a business partner.   This is contained and finite and   when the other person makes a reparative action anger may mellow down. Bad anger has disproportionate reaction and comes in several forms:

 

Rage:- The person is out of control, sometimes physically violent and lashes out at others.  This can be disastrous because the damaged caused to the other is high and the relationship can be at stake. This is usually the frustration accumulated over a period of time and when triggered gets expressed in a disproportionate manner. Hence if a person is able to deal with hurt feelings then and there, these raging situations can be avoided.

 

 

Vindictiveness:- The need to punish the person repeatedly. We have seen in movies and in real life some people go after the other and keep creating discomfort for them and this is due to vindictiveness.

 

Displaced Anger:- This is shown on the dog or children. The anger, which could not be expressed on  the offender  are displaced on to perceived weaker targets. The offending  person (perceived) may be the  figures, who we may depend upon or we feel insecure to express our anger. We show that anger on weak person(perceived) who may not retaliate to our dumping of  emotion on to them.

 

Self Flagellation:- Is a variant of displaced anger where the person turns the anger on to oneself. This is a form of self beating and self hating and this comes from the inability to confront the other.

 

Blockade of overt aggression:- There are some people who are too forgiving and they don’t feel anger. This is in a way not good and such person will allow the other  to use him\her as a doormat. Even for forgiveness to happen one has to feel the anger other wise the forgiveness may be intellectual and not out of acceptance.

 

 

Boredom

 

An occasional boredom is normal in all of us. Some people have boredom in their blood. What is boredom? It is a combination of the six elements.

 

• A feeling of dissatisfaction, the feeling of something is not right and a feeling of not knowing what to do with oneself.
• Disinclination to act:- lack of energy and inability to change the state of affairs. The bored person craves for stimulation but rejects stimulation offered by the others. A struggle between a need for satisfaction and an inability to find it.
• Longing – but without the knowledge of what one is longing for: The absence of fantasy and not knowing what will help come out of the trap of boredom. It is like a feeling of  not knowing one’s own name and asking others to remind them of their names.
• Emptiness:- it is a feeling of deadness all around. It is like a barren field, incapable of germinating a crop of ideas.
• Passive attitude of awaiting:- something or someone will redeem them out of boredom.
• Disturbance: – they feel killed by sluggishness of the clock. A minute feels like an hour and they are desperately attempting to kill time.

 

 

 

The difference between boredom and depression
BOREDOM	DEPRESSION
One waits for world to jolt and get him back to vitality	Gives up external reality and focuses on own’s wounded feelings.
Flattened, emptied out, Fantasy less	Filled  with nostalgia, self –pity, guilt and masochistic rumination
Does not know what to do, what to feel and feels stuck	Sobs, cries, envision ways to commit  suicide

 

Boredom is not an out come of loneliness or monotony. Even when people are around the person who feels bored may not feel connected. Sometime even monotony may bring  out impulsive action and energy  but  the bored person always feels a lack energy.

 

Otta Fenichel and Ralph Greenson have concluded that the state of boredom is a shield against the recall of painful emotions connected with the past traumas and depravations. The bored person expects the world to feed and sees this as a token of love. They are like the hungry child with their open mouth always wanting the mothers’ breast on their mouth to full fill the early childhood depravation. They may sit before computers or movies and that becomes like the breast,  however not satiating their needs.

 

Courage

 

There are two types to it,  physical and moral courage.  It seems to consist of following phenomena

 

Holding on to one’s conviction or certain values ,  some people become firm about it. No matter what the consequences are these individuals are willing to live and die for it. Example Martin Luther King said, “Tell be what you will die for and I will tell what you will live for.”Truly cherishing one’s ideals, a courageous man refuses to betray his values and his idiom of life. It may be in the field of science, literature, or social interactions – they may not budge, be bribed or intimidated to be silent.

 

These people do not look for consensus and are not dependent on others approval. A courageous  person may even go against the majority opinion

.

Overcoming fear of consequence:- A courageous person does not mean he/she has no fear. In spite of fear the person is able to express or stand for one’s own conviction.

 

The adolescence bravado is different from courage as the courageous person does not show off his valor.

 

Courage refers to ‘ a conscious decision to tolerate risk or pain for the purpose of achieving a higher goal and is therefore intricately bound with ethical and moral values.

 

Disgust

 

Is a feeling we experience when there is foul smell or decayed food. This has been transferred generation after generation  to avoid edibles which are rotten. This is a biological response to bad taste and smell. We feel an immediate reaction in our face and some us may even feel like vomiting. Disgust may not only be biological ? It can also be psychological.

 

Few examples of psychological reaction with disgust:-

 

• Your most respected teacher is taking bribe to make students pass an exam.

 

• A village girl not exposed to sexual ideas sees a picture of oral sex or kamasutra pictures.

 

Freud said, “disgust is a shield of fascination”. A person shows disgust at certain events or situation may be excited about it internally. Example a person showing an expression of disgust on hearing sexual talk may also have a fancy or curiosity to know about it but due to moral upbringing  may give a reaction of disgust.

 

Envy

 

Many people don’t agree that they are envious. This is a feeling we experience

 

• when we see a friend who is well off
• when we hear a professional colleague has bought a BMW
• someone who is beautiful
• someone who has an understanding partner

 

what is common in the above sentences are the reactions to  some one having something better than us.  Envy is also a form of hatred which we are not conscious of and we may put down the person who we perceive is owning something better. A minimal range of envy may help to aspire and function as a motivator but when  it is high then it is a stumbling block. As per Freud, envy  originated due to penis envy but later Karen Horney a  psychologist presented that men also have womb  envy. As a whole the reason for envy is we see the good in others in comparison with the bad in ourselves . If we take time to observe the person whom we are envious of,  apart from the social observation to their private life the difficulties the person may experience and see the blessed part of our self then the envy feeling may get neutralized.

 

The difference between envy and jealousy is, envy a feeling involved with two people and jealousy involves three people. Jealousy:- is a propulsion to remove a rival from a triangle. example when some one is getting close to our partner, we may feel like getting rid of them – then we are experiencing jealousy .

 

M Klein suggested that Envy started at an early mother child relationship. The child felt envious that the mother is able to sooth my pain which I am not able to do to myself. If we were able to get the mother’s attention or the nurturing resource then our ability to tolerate envy will be at a  manageable level. If we do not get that mother or the nurturing resource then envy becomes intolerable. When envy is high then it gets extended to all those whom we admire. We may experience anger, insecurity and devalue those whom we are envious of.

 

Fear

 

Is a needed emotion to safe guard oneself. If humans did not have fear we would not have survived till now. Many people avoid  feeling the fear as it is an unpleasant emotion.    We need not aim at being fearless but  acknowledge fear, assess risk,  take appropriate precaution, and do what we intend  to do. There are times one may face an intense fear which stops a person from performing. Fear also ranges with severity

 

• Apprehension: -vague anticipation of a bad occurrence
• Dread:- one is facing danger with an intense reluctance to encounter the scary object or situation
• Panic :- which denotes overwhelming fear coupled with alarmed hyper-activity and physiological reactions like trembling, increased hear beat, difficulty in breathing
• Terror :- extreme fear to an extent that includes psychic and motor activity paralysis

 

Phobias:-  Imagined fears are called phobias and some of them are listed below

 

• Agoraphobia –fear of open space
• Acrophobia –fear of heights
• Claustrophobia –fear of closed space
• Erythrophobia- fear of blushing in public

 

Counterphobics :- are people who deliberately face the situations they are scared of.

 

 

Greed

 

Greed may be defined as  excessive and reprehensible acquisitiveness. Gandhi mentioned, “We have enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed”. Why greed is seen in this perspective is because the person accumulates more and the sharing is imbalanced.  Greed has the following components

 

1) Hunger: – A sense of pressure associated with urge to accumulate more

2) Inconsolability: – The greedy person never gets fulfilled no matter how much they get

3) Ingratitude: – Since nothing is enough for them they are never thankful for what they have received

4) Selfish: – the greedy person is prone to disregard others in order to get what they want.

 

Greed is not only money, it can involve other material acquisitions like cloths, jewelry, art, antiques, food and intangible acquisitions like fame, power, sexual liasions.

 

The possible reason for greed is

 

Growing up in poverty during childhood. But this is not the only reason as many people who grew in such conditions demonstrated generosity. These are people who were deprived of love, praise, support and belonging. This loss has left a hole in the individual psychic and this gets filled with anger, guilt at anger, sadness, intensified appetite and inexperience with feeling of satiety. Giving more and more to a greedy person is not going satisfy but if we help them to cry their heart out for what they lacked in childhood and what the child inside lacks then the possibility for resolution is high. What we need to be aware is there is a child in us who may feel greedy but instead of looking down if we can embrace and be kind then the chances of we judging other people  to be greedy can become less and this act of kindness may be healing.

 

Hope

 

Is the silent fountain of life energy . Hope gives us energy to go forward or look forward in life. If we don’t have hope then we miss many things in life or may be life itself. There are two types of hope.

• Realistic hope :- this is based on reality check, competence and eligibility to the opportunities of life.
• Magical hope:- is a dissonance between ones wish and what they aim for. A person who has failed in 12th grade, not studying well in a college thinks of quitting and seeking admission in a prestigious institute. It is a sign of magical hope. These people think some event or meeting some body will make a magical transformation and every thing will be different from then on in their life.

 

Similarly there is conscious and unconscious hope:- Conscious hope is I want to earn well, have a good social status. The unconscious hope is make life meaningful. Another example conscious hope may be I want to come first in exam and unconscious hope is achieving developmental needs and may be getting the admiration of parents.

 

Hopelessness also falls into 2 category, healthy hopelessness helps us to decide and change direction. When there is hopelessness one may feel a despair but instead of making more and more efforts to correct a situation one can opt out from the situation and accept the loss. Unhealthy hopelessness is a when a person has options to take some meaningful steps in life but they don’t do it. What we need to understand is hope is a well spring in us and we need to use our wisdom to learn from our steps and keep taking new steps with hope.

 

Ingratitude

 

When people don’t express or gesture a thankfulness after receiving a favor. Many times when we  have given and done something for another and we felt very incomplete because they did not express a sense of gratitude. The difference we need to keep in mind is, expecting others to be obligated and expressing gratitude is different. The person who makes the other obligated makes them feel guilty and expects others to reciprocate to their demands. When this is not done as per their expectation they may be critical on the other who received the favor. A person who has shared something for the joy of sharing may feel upset when someone does not express gratitude but they may not make the other feel responsible for their feeling of discomfort.

 

Why do people have difficulty in expressing gratitude ?

 

• They have to let go of the cynical perspective they have towards the world.
• Many people are generous and we cannot claim that we are the only good person around.
• When other people are satisfied with what they get and when they are able to share, it challenges the position of not enough and the need for greed.
• We may feel that we may have to compensate for what the other person is doing hence may keep thinking what to give back or feel a pressure that we need to be grateful to them and forget to express gratitude.
• Some people always have to be in a giving position and when they are in receiving position it takes away the pride and hence unable to show gratitude

 

There are people who always ask more, never get satiated nor do anything in return. There are some who may construct a different inappropriate meaning to what other person gives. When the family members particularly spouse or children are indifferent to the expression of gratitude then one may feel painful

 

One of the perspective as a reason for ingratitude is, people who are unable to show gratitude  are children who grew up feeling resentment and deprivation.

 

 

Joy

 

Joy is used as a word to communicate happiness.  As per Salman Akhtar, joy is one form of happiness and joy cannot be equated totally with happiness. Joy can be experienced as different facets as well as a part of development.

 

Facets of Joy: –

 

Elation- is an uplifting emotion experienced based on ones wish being fulfilled. A boy may feel elated when his proposal of love has been accepted by his girl friend. India wins an important cricket match or a passing of an exam for a person may give an elated feeling. The common theme in experiencing elation is, the trigger for joy is from an external source.

 

Efficacy: – A joy experienced as an assertion based form of happiness. It involves self-assertion and self-confidence. Example one who has made a good presentation and has done a satisfying work may feel efficacy. This also involves a feeling of pride on ones capacity of, “I made it, I said no and set limits”

 

Ecstasy: – This could happen as a merger with higher than self-connection. It could be a communion with the now or with nature or any experience of oneness. Ecstasy could be a transcending experience due to mediation or prayer also.

 

Contentment;- Freud phrased it as “ happiness of quietness” this is an outcome of satisfied feeling when we see our work is yielding result or after a meal.

 

These are different facets of joy. Is sex joy?

 

Sex is a combination of all forms of Joy

 

When someone gives consent to have sex it gives elation and when sexual orgasm is experienced it may be ecstasy. Post- coital experience may be a sense of contentment.   The act of sex can be pure joy and hence sex can be a combination of many and range of joys experience.

 

Joy experienced along as a development process:-

 

Childhood game “Peek-a-boo” when the mother hides her face from the child for few seconds and comes back the child laughs. The momentary feeling “I can exist on my own” gives confidence and a joyous feeling. Upright locomotion and acquiring other skills gives immense joy for the child who wants to exercise and learn new things continuously. For an adolescent a feeling of doing things on their own like going to different place, being in a boarding camp or going to college, later becoming a parent and having the first child also gives a immense joy.

Recall the time of joyous moment

 

Are the times what brought Joy is also brining Sorrow?

 

Kindness

The dictionary meaning refers to affection, sympathy and forbearance. However it has many dimensions to be understood to know what is kindness and to practice it. I see the word “Kind” which means similar or a collective expression example “Mankind”. In my understanding when we don’t see others as the way we see our self we cannot learn to be kind. This is in line with the expression of Jesus, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Example If don’t want to be treated disrespectfully then it applies to me also,I am not supposed to treat others with disrespect. One example in my life is, “when someone is sick I am angry, I move away from them but the question I ask within me is, “How I would like to be treated when I am unwell? I would like to be cared and supported and then I also choice to render the same to other who are sick around me and this is an act of kindness. Every one of us have to find what  kindness means to them  context by context and there are few ingredients mentioned by Salman Akhtar to make a kind a gesture.

Accepting individuals, as separate individuals in their own right: – This is not forcing other to get shaped as per our values and desires. This is respecting other as a whole along with their “Good, bad, strength, weakness, culture, developmental and tradition”

Having a charitable view:- Viewing others act of mistake or misdeed with an charitable explanation. An example a friend did not invite you to his daughter wedding. Instead of blaming, the possible self explanation could be, maybe he was overwhelmed with the arrangement and hence could have forgotten gives a different experience than the self talk of, “My friend did not value me”

Keeping others in mind : When we call and mention during a travel we were thoughtful of remembering someone or buying something which a person may like can be an act of kind gesture.

Letting go of one’s claim on others:- To give up the resentment  caused due to real  or imagined injury by others.  As per TA when we collect stamps we are nurturing the injury and righteousness position over others. To let get go of it and let bygones be bygones will help  sort out the past,  and then we have a choice to engage in friendship or not to engage in friendship. However to forgive or reconcile we need an apology from the other, otherwise it is difficult sometimes to let go the resentments of the past. Gestures like, rape, abuse or murder are intense and hence forgiveness may be difficult for such acts.

Treating others with generosity:- Being generous with the girl friend or kith and kin only is not generosity. It means expending yourself in action, or giving time and supporting others at required times. These are also gesture of kindness.

Kindness in excess can be harmful. The kindness is harmful when we don’t think from a perspective of kindness as per the here and now context. Since we express kindness from our conditioned way  it may not be helpful for self as well as others.

Kindness towards self?

When we are not able to be kind to ourselves the chances of us being kind to others is limited. How do you treat yourself when you have made a mistake? Or not live up to others expectations or when you compare yourself with others.

Exercise: – how do you show kindness? How do expect others to show kindness towards you?

 

Love

Is there a place in world where love is not spoken about?. Love is the most expressed emotion in the form of scriptures, movies or novels. Like how moisture penetrates the thick wall during the rainy days love somehow enters a young heart. When we speak of falling in love or love is blind, all these represent that we idealize the person whom we love. We look only at the good parts and later when the reality dawns then the same person who was idealized has becomes not so great. Hence love is our own projection and we fall in love with our own creation painted on the other. Though we know this, we want to be in denial as this feeling of love is necessary and gives a high when experienced. Once I had a conversation with the young girl who is in love with the guy in her class. This boy owns a particular brand of bike and she liked all the bikes with that brand. Though it gives a great feeling,  let’s see the other side of the coin love brings. “ We are never as vulnerable to pain as when we are in love.’ An indifference from the lover seems a great blow and one feels despair till when the lover gives attention.

 

Love has few facets

Friendship:- when we have concern, curiosity and caring feeling towards a person and not sexual desire then it is friendship.

Lust:- when we have a erotic longing but no affection then it is lust.

Combination of both friendship and lust are in an optimal levels can be defined as love in a man woman relationship. We shape loves expression based on the roles we play.   Love between parents and children will be different from love between siblings. Divine spiritual experience is love between man and god an experience of  love towards all living beings.

Love curtails freedom and at the same time brings a sense of mutuality. Many people desire for unconditional love but no one knows what it is. Eckhart Tolle mentioned says as long as one is limited to the past conditions then one may not experience unconditional love.

Abnormalities in love:-

Inability to fall in love:- These people have difficulty for closeness. The condition is, “I will never put my head down but someone has to love me’’. They fail to idealize the other, lack spontaneity and they lead their lives on a coldly factual basis. They have difficulty in losing themselves which is a state required to fall in love

Inability to remain in love:- These are people who cannot take the disillusionment of love. When the charm of love reduces these people cannot accept and then they move to other relationship. These people want to experience the thrill of love and not willing to extend it to understand the realizations love can deepen in a person. These are people who mention, “I love the process of love” because they are not willing to see the surprise love can bring. These people think that may lose their autonomy when in love and hence they fear being in love.

Falling in love with the wrong kind of person:  These people choose an alcoholic or other difficult people. They believe through their love they can change the person but all these are to reinforce that they don’t deserve to be loved. Even falling in love with too aged person or people in long distance are the wrong choice.

Inability to feel loved: These are people who live in fantasy relationship. They connect with the other through their fantasy and not through reality. Hence they are not able to experience love. It is like love is around them but they can never feel being loved. This is due to the belief one carry about their sense of lovability.

Inability to fall out of love when reality warrants it:- There are situations where the partner is not respectful as well as is abusive,  but some people get locked and keep clinging to other.  Somehow they feel insecure  to create new life,  holding on to familiar and hurting relationship.

 

Mourning;–

This may bring a visualization of people in tears, with flowers on the last ceremony of the dead one. People talk about how he was healthy a week back or they talk about what could have been done to save the person’s life. Some people may also advice other people to take care of their health, all these are reactions to the loss of loved one. When we lose something we experience sadness, but when we know we will never get back what we have lost, then that sadness becomes grief. The reaction to loss is sometimes anger, guilt, depression or symptoms like loss of appetite, sleep loss or having a sense the person who died is alive or doing what the person whom we lost was identified with,   are all symptoms of grief.

 

When people mourn they are making sense of the loss and it can never come to a place that we have mourned enough. However when the natural course of healing grief is not interrupted then a person may replace the loss through other meaningful ways. This makes the wounds fade but the scar remains indicating the story of the person who lived with us. There are situations people hope to get back the lost one and such bargaining is also part of the morning process. There are pre grief and post grief. Example when one of the family members has been suffering for a long time then we know we will lose them one day and we start grieving when they are alive. When they are gone the intensity of grief is less.  The way to sometimes connect with the person whom we lost is through the in animate things they used .

 

The things belonging to lost ones fall in 3 categories. 1) The things which can be thrown away 2) things which can be sold or given to others 3) the things like jewels, properties or awards been owned as a family possession  and passed on to generations. Sometimes being in touch with these objects helps to loosen the frozen grief,   mobilize this energy and integrate the loss. Some people take on the pains of the person whom they loved. An adolescent girl started suffering with stomach ache after the death of her pet dog which also suffered with stomach problems.

 

The loss does not mean only death, it could be loss of health, break in relationship, friendship or even loss of achieving a dream can lead to grief.  Loss is acceptable if the grand parents, then parents pass away but if the children pass away they parents get affected and experience survivor guilt. There are some people who are not willing to accept the loss of the other and they continue as though nothing has happened but in a way they are avoiding the pain of the lost one. Grief brings intense emotional and physiological reactions when grieved well the morning will transform to hope and acceptance, “Such is a way of life” In my understanding grief helps to integrate the loss also helps us make sense of the preciousness of the lost relationship.

 

Nostalgia:

A gold plated memory of the past. Example of when we talk about our missing feelings of the good old college days. We only talk about the great situation and we miss those times. We forget memories of scary exams, terrifying teachers and boring class. We want to feel at home and we feel homesickness and that is nostalgic. So we need to be aware that what is glorified about the past is not true. Salman Aktar quoted Nostalgia as, “A grand illusion about the little illusions of the past. The religious or the political leaders can propagate the same nostalgic effect. As though the times of Jesus or Krishna or the historical moments with Gandhi was great and we get seduced to get back such past in the present and  We need not fall pray for such ideas. This is also applicable after a break from relationship where we were not being treated well. As the time passes  we start accounting all positive side of the relationship and we long to  get back to the relationship only to get hurt again. When we feel nostalgic let’s take a balanced view about the past, as it was a mixture of comforts and discomforts.

 

Obstinacy:

Obstinacy  is a way of stubbornness when one maintains one’s viewpoint. There is a difference between firmness and obstinacy. People who are firm respect change, context by context and they may reconsider their firmness and has a choice to be flexible. Obstinate people are not willing to take other peoples’ perspective and hence create a struggle for themselves and others. Some people are fond of their beliefs so much they are not willing to look for any counter evidence which may challenge their beliefs.

 

3 types :  Obstinacy that was considered immature mentioned in olden days were the immature expression of child, women and king. A child throwing tantrum and women demanding certain things or the ruler demanding created more problems. However this cannot be biased with gender specific as men are also obstinate.  Being obstinate   is an outcome of emotional immaturity. This also has a root in the childhood as the mother demanded that the child  practice restrictions. The child took an either/or position and hence would not give up to mothers’ demands. Later this became a habit – to become obstinate to whatever is being told and which is relevant to the current reality. If the child is able to learn “and & and’” instead of ‘either or’ or say now openly than to resist passively could be a healthy development. Salman Akther believes two peoples obstinacy can became dangerous. One is of scientist and other is of politician. A scientist must be able to refute his own hypothesis, being rigid to single perspective will not help and distort observations. When politicians   are maintaining obstinacy for their fragile ego the cost is trauma for the entire nation. A matured person is firm as well as flexible.

 

 

Pity

 

Pity is a state of not owing the strength and the choice one has in life. When we express ourselves in a pitiable state we expect sympathy from others. The problematic part is we invite others to be  rescuers or to persecute us which may  maintain us in a victim position. When we pity others we gain the position of one up ness and we have a glee when we pity others. The glee is I am not in such pitiable state. When we are in self-pity the glee is we have made other people respond to our needs. I would like to use the observations of J Haley quoted in strategies of psychotherapy.

 

 

There are 3 types of relationship.

 

Type 1: Complimentary relationship

 

We expect the other to comply and when they agree to it then it is complimentary relationship.

 

Type 2 : Symmetry  relationship

 

We may expect the other to comply but the other may relate as equal or some even times competitive then it is no more complimenting by symmetrical .

 

Type 3  : Meta complimentary relationship.

 

Here the other person defines how you have to respond. These are ulterior messages and very subtle to notice. The position of pity also fall in a way to define how the other has to respond to ones request. This is a  manipulative way  to make other people take responsibility in handling our situations. This is not helpful for the person indulging in pity as well as for the other who is trying to help them to maintain their self pity.

 

 

Querulence

 

There is always something to regret or have grievance about. These are people who are sensitive to faults around and the difficult part is they  hold on to it so much that they don’t see the other persons point of view. There will be always something to complain about how they are treated.  When they make such comments  if you don’t  respond to their criticizing  view then that also fuels their querulousness. Though they are argumentative they are actually avoiding  facing their inner depression. However the bitterness these people carry make other people move away from them and this leads further chance for the querulent  behaviour. These people are not able to forgive or forget events of  a long and past wound. The past rift incidents seems to be fresh in their view and comes as conversation into the present. In this way they carry the 3 p which were the reason for depression. P- permanent, P – pervasive and P-personalize things. Their childhood experience of neglect, unfair treatment at childhood, beaten by parents, being treated as their step child and early exposure to ethnic or religious prejudice can be reason to harbor querulence in life. Their  communication being querlent is , “I am not bad and I am not guilty” and they want to prove this and this makes thing even worse as they become driven to it or even sometimes manic about it. These people need enemies so that they can maintain their position of complaints. All of us feel the need to put down what other does and this is done as a part of gossip but when these extends beyond limit then may lead to querulousness.

 

 

Remorse

 

We cannot understand remorse without understanding the emotion guilt. An action against or which harmed a loved one or whom we care for leads remorse. The thought, imagination, wish or an act  to break the rules of family, tradition, culture creates a conflict within and then possible emotion is guilt.  Guilt is a nagging unpleasant feeling and making a person with an experience of morally culpable.  The connecting line of guilt with the childhood is, when we are young, we wish that people who come in between our desire or gratification do not exist. We may even sometimes think, “May be if this person dies it will be easy for me to get my needs met.” These wishes towards the care takers instigates guilt from the young age itself. These emotions manifest and replay some of the childhood deeds or punishment when we have acted against the regular norms. When we feel guilty we may want to confess but when we feel remorse we may want to cover-up. This covering up leads to secrecy and the later shame  develops over these acts . Remorse gnaws the soul and lowers self esteem. A person due to the feeling of remorse may sometimes get into drinking or suicide attempts. There is always anxiety along with guilt and regret associated with remorse.

 

What is a way out?

 

Guilt:-

 

When one feels guilty then forgiving oneself and seeking forgiveness from others who have been affected can be a healing process. Confess to the victim and seek their acceptance. Since guilt is attached with adhering to the rules, it is important to clarify whether the relevance of the rules to the current context. There is also a difference between guilt knowledge and guilt emotion. Guilt knowledge is a learning from an act which is worth carrying but just harboring guilt feeling may not help a person. When a person is feeling guilty they repeat the same behavior or similar acts which reinforce guilt. As per transactional Analysis guilt can be racket feeling covering up other authentic emotion.

 

Remorse:-

 

First to acknowledge that an act of us is harmed the one who we care for. The second step is making a choice of sharing this with the  other. Sometimes stating can lead to reactions from the other and hence a self reflective and soul searching process in necessary in handing with remorse. Check with the offended  one for a  compensation which you can offer to make a reparative process and this compensation may be material or in any form. Sometimes material compensation may be seen by the other as being less considerate and what we need to keep in mind is remorse cannot be shrugged off easily it takes time and the path is long.  Yet steps dealing with remorse are worthwhile in developing maturity in relationships.

 

Shame

 

Bradshaw differentiated two types of shame. Toxic shame, which has become part of our identity and another one, is a shame, which we go through, and sometimes helps to aspire for discipline and change. Shame is a mixture of feelings like anger, fear, sadness, envy and more can be sensed as a subjective experience. A person may exhibit behavior like reacting to slightest of criticism, preempting to shame others or use a bandage of grandiosity, self-glory, intense ambition to be successful and develop a narcisstic position to be loved and admired by others. An over-compensation through perfectionism and flamboyance showing off their cars or other luxury may also be a cover-up to feeling of shame.

 

How do we know we are experiencing shame. Imagine you are meeting an elite group and you find your dress is wet after your visit to the toilet or you made a loud fart. At this moment we feel a suddenly exposed.  The poem at the young age, “Shame, Shame puppy shame all the girls\boys know your name” is an example how one becomes exposed through others eyes. Till then we were flowing with the environment. Shame is associated with real or imagined, how others may think of us or not able to live up to the standards.

 

Shame is usually a visual storage in brain  and not auditory. Usually when we experience guilt we may hear a voice but  shame  is visual. The second stage when experiencing shame is to become self conscious and the third stage is a person may become lonely, anxious, sad and experience rage. Shame cannot be shared with others and hence one has to bear it all alone. The fourth stage is to hide one self and withdraw from being seen by others. Unlike guilt where one feels to confess, in shame one feels like running away and the  reflexivity is to cover our face with our hands. Shame could be experienced when one feels the car owned by them is a cheap one or appearance of one’s body image, their small house, financial status, dress and the classes in society.

 

During the developmental stages between the mother and child, the child may experience shame when making mistake or clumsy acts or unable to tie shoelace. When the parent also demonstrates that they also make mistakes then the child feel accepted and manage future failures in living up to expectations. When the mother gushes with excitement whenever the child shows a development motor movement or expression, this interferes with the child’s ability to interface the evolvement with the self experience. This distracted experience of the child also makes the child feel shameful. The comment or reducible on the child’s body or gestures, maximization of ordinary failures of the child and the excitement of the parent interfering  the child’s self integration can lead the child experiencing a lonely and a shameful experience. When a person experiences such shameful emotions the healing part is to with draw the shame out and get acceptance from a maternal resource.

 

 

Tenderness:

 

Is a combination of soft heartedness, caring genuinely about people and a low-keyed compassion.

 

Soft heartedness is mellowing down ones narcissism and also wish, imagined or actual grip on others. This is being open to perspective of others.

 

Caring genuinely about people:- Eric Erickson asked Sudhir Kakar for the Hindu term for care and got the answer as not in one term but in 3. 1) Dama (restraint) , Dana (charity) and Daya (mercy). Erickson translated these 3 to English as “to be careful ,to take care of and to care for”

 

Low keyed compassion:- benevolence and empathy accompanied by tenderness is not having any drama or being loud. It is a subtle emotion and operates quietly.

 

Viekka Tahka, a prominent psychologist in Finland, says,   “tenderness is an emotion arising from the empathic sharing of loved one’s pleasure while leaving the pleasure itself for the other person. Letting the other keep the pleasure is followed by a second pleasure arising from the knowledge that one has contributed to the others happiness, and such silent sacrifice constitutes a centerpiece of tenderness.

 

Unease

 

The feeling resides midway between anxiety and worry. Anxiety is an apprehension about something may go wrong even though  the future is not clear and worry is cognitive pre occupation about what if this or that goes wrong. Unease is not linked with future like anxiety or worry. It is not connected with something ominous is going to happen, it is about something not fitting, something is missing or inappropriate. what is wrong or not fitting is not clear but the person is not able to be in harmony with the setting or people around him. Unease is like having two parts, one part wants to belong and the other does not feel belonged at skin. It could be due to parents being different personalities. There are two types of unease, acute unease which changes when the trigger is altered but the chronic unease is when people do not feel at ease at any situation. It is like this is born along with them. Example some people feel unease at a marriage or a religious setting, they feel if they are not a part, it not right and they are not able to be a part of it. Dealing with unease is not easy. These chronic uneasy people become part of marginal communities to avoid the unease of not fitting into the main stream.

 

Vindictiveness

 

We all get hurt in life. Sometimes it is due to miscommunication or someone leads us to an uncomfortable situation. We may express our annoyance and anger. The other may apologize and we may forgive the other  bear the hurt and heal it over a period of time.  Some people carry their wound ever green and inflict pain to others. We all sometimes feel like taking revenge and incidents like rape, abuse, sexual abuse being beaten, unfair treatment can all influence a revengeful act. We may do something  to take revenge on a person hoping   it may give a healing effect. But if it involves a consistent need to inflict pain to the perceived or real villain then one’s life can become miserable. There are some personalities who are vindictive and do not know limits and this person may poison oneself through vindictiveness.

 

 

Worry

 

 

Is needed at one level and in another level it can strangle a person. The symptoms of worry are preoccupation with what may go wrong associated with anxiety. This affects a human in 3 ways, emotional intellectual and somatic.

Emotional:-feeling of nervousness, irritability and a sense one cannot escape from bothersome preoccupation.

Intellectually:- looped with the thought what if something may go wrong and all measure to fix the problem is  futile.

Somatically, there is restlessness, inability to sit peacefully in one place, pacing, difficulty falling asleep, and a loss of appetite. Chronic worrying is associated with loss of weight and other adverse effects upon physical health. The immune system of the body is  vulnerable to such stress. Blood pressure can also rise, leading to many complications.

To not to worry at all is also a problem. When we don’t give attention to injustice or corruption or global warming etc it is also not  healthy. An appropriate dose of worry turned to remedial action can help a person or a community. To make worry as an enemy or ally is in our hands.

 

Xenophobia:–

 

This has a origin to a  Greek word, Xenos which means strange and phobia an inordinate fear. Xenophobia denotes excessive apprehension of strangers and foreigners, and those how are ethnically, religiously, and racially different from oneself. The unease when encountering meeting such strangers are admixture of anxiety, unexplained fear, dislike, and even hearted. This can lead to avoidance, prejudice and worse violence directed towards those categorized strangers.

 

This can be identified by limiting oneself to relate with one ethnic group and not willing to look in to others way of life. This leads to knowing oneself and being sufficient and having a simple life but what they may lack is a diverse experience. To overcome this it is important to have friends with other communities and know their culture which can broaden ones understanding of self and others.  When harboring on aversion towards  strangers leads to forming an ideology and then writing ill about them, attacking them physiologically or psychologically gets instigated. When xenophobic enhances this leads to “Villan Hunger” where the person are group indulges in attacking and killing people. When political flavor is given to such act a person may even kill others, involve in communal, riots, mass killing and genocide without a feeling of guilt or worry about the consequences .Killing others feeds ones megalomania and creates an illusion of  being  merged with the idolized leader.

 

The origin of the xenophobia could be due to the earlier stranger anxiety though it cannot be co-related directly. Stranger anxiety is in the child even before 8months, they know who are the primary care givers and when lifted or comforted by others apart from the primary care givers the child may cry or protest. This is the first identification of strangers. However this stranger anxiety may  get converted to a prejudice. There could be due to many variables and one of the reason could be a person having a  personal frustrations and unequal treatment in social and socio economical  setting . When a person is depressed, hurt and angry, and  when fueled by speeches of leaders pointing at others caste or religion can make abnormal reactions in oneself and in a community.

 

Having this information one cannot come to a position that other is prejudiced and I am not. All of us have these two sides. A prejudiced side and another is a flexible side.  The prejudiced side contains omnipotence, arrogance, aversion to knowledge of reality, and hearted and differences. The no prejudice  side contains potential of  flexibility, humility, curiosity about self and others, and a fundamentally pleasant and bit sad seeing human difficulties while encountering the world at large. It is which side gets triggered and used determines a person becoming overtly prejudice.

 

Yearning

 

Yearnings has a roots at Latin word eager. Yearnings signify a tender   or urgent longing.  Tender is associated with mournful or anguished expressions and urgent longing has a risk if we do not satisfy the demand.  Yearning to feel complete by getting a company or the feminine male integration depicted as Arthanariswarer, a longing to feel complete through an opposite sex.

 

There are normal yearnings and abnormal yearnings. Normal yearnings fall under two stages 1) childhood yearnings and 2) age appropriate gratifications. Yearns like being noticed, or attention from the beloved or age appropriate longings to complete a degree, to get a car or child. How much ever we get these the intensity of it diminishes and again we may feel not satisfied. There is no harm about these normal yearnings. Since certain childhood yearnings are not fulfilled with a person’s current achievement they may have to grieve through it to integrate unfulfilled wishes. This is not the case with abnormal yearning, it is towards  drugs cocaine, alcohol, power at any cost, chain murderer, rape etc. Such abnormal yearnings cause destruction  to self and others.

 

Zest

 

Zestful people bring enthusiasm they carry a infectious joyful presence. Zest is like a sunshine it is radiant at the same time it is clouded by other emotions. However a zestful person gets back to their exuberance. This is different from people who are in boredom as they bring low energy and dullness. Zestful people are infectious with their enthusiasm. While this is a normal zest, abnormal zest is connected with unrealistic goals and ambitions. These people can take decisions which can harm themselves and others as they are blind to the practicality of their ideas. The change from normal zest to abnormal zest happens due to disruption of mothers care at young age. Example A mother care disconnected  due to a new born or a loss for the mother which made her depressed interrupted the supply of care. When such incident  happens and  when they  get care or what they want  there is a fear they may lose it again and such deprivation creates them over react leading to abnormal zest.