Emotional animals

I am determined to give a new life to this open online space. The basic emotions, that will be the topic. Because I have learnt a significant aspect related to emotional education. Contrarily at what one could think about what emotional education is, we cannot just educate our emotions by changing what we feel, because an emotion is something that we cannot control. It is an innate response that our organism, our physical body, gives as a reaction towards something that demands a quick no thinking action. That is why the totality of the animal world can feel these basic emotions too. So my dogs can experience themselves happiness for going out, sadness for being alone, and anger among each other because both of them want to be the leader. But they cannot reflect about the emotions that they are feeling, they cannot think: “ hey, I am quite happy today because Marta has let us run free, and yeah, that sensation was amazing…”

basically because they do not have complex language to reach that kind of reflection. On the other hand they are just living the present moment without speculating about it, a capacity that is high demanded nowadays, that we often feel trapped by our monkey jumping mind. This trait of being present is a fantastic animal characteristic. They do not spend – or lost- time over thinking about how reality could be understood, managed, controlled. That is part of human cognition, the capacity of reflecting about ourselves and our environment. And that is what leads us to having self-conscious emotions, as are pride, embarrassment, shame…we feel these emotions because we are capable of thinking about ourselves and the possible consequences of our actions , and also because we have been socialized in a determinate world, with certain patterns of behavior, that our caregivers first, and people that surrounds us later, has transmitted us. For that reason the self-conscious emotions are not universal but cultural. You can be proud of yourself here in western society if you individually have reached the success in terms of social recognition, economical security and so on. And in other cultures where the collectivity has more value, you maybe will feel proud of sharing your goals with others with the aim of going forward together. Of course this is not so extreme, but it works as an example to show how our culture also plays a central role in self-conscious emotions shaping. Where I want to go with all of this? I want to be aware of the potential that human beings have processing emotions. We cannot avoid having the basic ones, they are not good or bad but they always have a function. We tent to judge ourselves for having some kind of emotions, and that does not go anywhere. We have to use this second step, the capacity of reflection, to manage these instinctive responses in order to build a more comfortable transition place for us. The thing is do not take anything personally, nether your emotions. Do not blame yourself for feeling them, listen to them and try to find a reasonable explanation to go forward meeting yourself and giving legitimacy to the way you feel. This does not mean that you have to give yourself permission to have hilarious emotions, the emotions are there, and you have the responsibility to manage them with the awareness of knowing more about yourself and treating yourself good.