Jade walked in with a huff. She slammed the door, and threw her bag on the kitchen counter while struggling to manage her powerful emotions. Her partner looked at her with alarm. “What’s wrong with you now?,” he asked.

Jade screamed right back, “Stop bothering me all the time.” She rushed to her room filled with intense anger bursting into tears. Jade felt terrible for being unable to control this powerful emotion.

Emotions help us survive and connect. Often, these dictate one’s decisions, behavior, and may influence thinking patterns. A human being goes through a gamut of powerful emotions that are difficult for many to control. So, how powerful are emotions? Well, emotions can even compel one to perform an action depending upon the intensity of the emotions felt at the moment.

Understanding Emotions and Feelings

As the stress level increases, so does our need to understand and manage emotions. The fast-paced world has led to higher levels of loneliness, suppression of emotions, and stigma around certain powerful emotions. Emotions have often been labeled as positive or negative. However, not every negative emotion may have negative consequences. Not everything is “good” or “bad”. Recognizing and managing emotions also includes a  deeper need to change the beliefs that are attached to some emotions. With this blog, we explore 8 emotions that are termed or perceived as negative and how you can manage powerful emotions.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you’re the one who gets burned.”

- Buddha

Which are the 8 Core Emotions?

1. Happiness

Happiness is an emotion that tops the list of everyone’s goals. One often chases the goal of being happy in every moment. Happiness cannot be a constant state of mind. The pursuit of happiness can even lead to sadness in some. That’s because attaining one’s goal may not bring in happiness as determined by a person. This means one needs to dig deeper to understand the concept of happiness. Happiness may be moment-to-moment, fleeting, and disappear to reappear again. Fewer levels of happiness make people wonder if they are falling short of their goals. Therefore, they experience sadness or disappointment for not achieving this state of “being happy”. What brings you greater peace and contentment? If you feel happiness is avoiding you, there is a need to explore yourself. What fills your heart with sunshine? What brings joy to your life? You can feel happy by practicing gratitude, bringing a sense of calmness, installing hope, and sharing love with self and others.

2. Love

Love is within all of us. It’s a transformational emotion that can come and go as per the situation, and mood. It’s an energy that stems within. Love itself has various shades that can often leave the human mind intrigued. Love can be a strong feeling of affection towards a partner, child, family, friend, or even a pet. Romantic love may be mixed with shades of lust, concern, affection. Powerful feelings of love can take a negative turn with an extreme need for attachment, expectations, and desire to receive the same love in equal intensity. Although this may be perceived as negative, you can examine your emotions closely to understand what lies deep beneath. It can also be that your own needs lie unmet and you are leaning towards another person for the completion of these needs. Deeper love requires commitment and mutual trust along with acceptance. Love is an emotion that plays an important role in one’s mental well-being and physical form.

3. Hate

Hatred is also a powerful emotion that causes feelings of intense anger or fills a person with resentment. Hatred is often associated with hostile behavior. The emotion of hatred may be linked to many deep unresolved feelings. Despite hatred being a negative emotion, it can make a person delve deeper into the ‘why’ of hatred that gives many answers to this complex emotion. E.g.: A person may feel tremendous hatred towards a partner. Here, he/she needs to explore why this emotion occurs? What are the circumstances in which they are present? What can be done to resolve the situation? If the hatred is due to an expectation that a partner “needs to understand” and act accordingly, it is important to use communication to resolve the emotion. In this way, negative and powerful emotions such as hatred can be converted into a learning lesson.

4. Shame

Shame is looked at as a negative and powerful emotion. This brings with it low self-esteem levels and increased feelings of guilt. Shame is also painful as it makes a person want to hide oneself from the world. This emotion turns the attention towards self while imagining the entire world is probably pointing fingers towards the “wrong things” done in life. The emotion makes a person blame the self constantly or place the blame on others. Shame however can be utilized to explore self-beliefs. For example, if you feel ashamed for not doing your duty at home due to a higher workload in the office, you may need to explore areas to rectify the situation. You may need to find solutions to delegate tasks at work and home that ensure you live a balanced approach towards life.

5. Guilt

Guilt makes a person feel remorse about their action. Guilt may appear in many forms and can bring with it feelings of sadness, grief, or may drive a person towards isolating himself/herself from others. A person experiencing guilt has been convinced they have done some harm to themselves or others. It can also occur frequently if the person has a habit of placing blame on themselves. Guilt also brings with it feelings of regret. This may be centered around a mistake made or simply a wish that things could have been better in life. E.g.: Having regret means you may feel sad for having chosen the wrong profession. You may even feel upset for having relocated to a different city. Regret often causes one to dwell on the past and may cause further disappointment and guilt. The powerful emotion of guilt can however be used to feel accountable as well. You can explore values and beliefs to know what has caused this guilt. You can relook these beliefs to find greater peace in life. Regret and guilt can make you think about what you need to do to make better choices in life. The emotion can help you realize the steps you need to take to address the main issue. This ensures you develop the power to utilize choices available to the best of your ability.

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6) Anger

Anger is natural and is often a powerful emotion used by people to ‘survive’ in a situation. Anger happens when one needs a natural wall of protection. Anger can range from mild to strong when needs are not met. This causes frustration levels to rise, or one may even feel threatened. However, anger is often a cover for the authentic emotion of feeling afraid, sad, lonely, or threatened. Allowing anger to manage you is not a good sign. Yet, there are ways you can use anger to shift your mindset to control powerful emotions. Learn to identify the triggers. Mostly, the triggers are associated with the past and cover authentic emotions. Find out if your needs are being met, reframe your thoughts when you say, “I hate myself, I am so angry at myself.” There is a need to maintain an internal dialogue to keep your thoughts in check. You can even work towards healing your anger.

7) Fear

Fear has many shades. A constant fear of things, people, situations, or fear of the unknown only causes higher levels of anxiety. Fear when mismanaged can be destructive to one’s well-being. Fear is often a part of our instincts. Fear can also be learned by self or imbibed by parental figures. E.g.: You may fear dating as you’ve had an abusive experience earlier. However, fear can be healthy if it motivates you to build courage to face the fear. You can use fear to ask yourself what is it that you can do to overcome this emotion? Fear can bring the focus back on being stronger, and developing higher levels of trust with self.

8) Sadness

Often looked at as a negative emotion, sadness is normal and experienced during stressful situations. Sadness when expressed through crying or venting out feelings brings with it a sense of relief. Sadness does pass with time but prolonged sadness can turn into depression. We humans have a tendency to avoid feeling sad as we’ve often been told, “Stop feeling sad.” Yet, sadness is natural and it can remind us of many positive things. Sadness can be used to know what is truly important to us, what is the purpose of life, how we can add meaning to it. It helps us feel real and adds motivation to perform actions that add value to life. Sadness may also increase levels of gratefulness as it brings attention and appreciation to what is. Sadness makes one compassionate while increasing levels of empathy.

Managing powerful emotions is tricky! Building mental strength is the key to finding solutions for an empowered life. However, the journey to manage powerful emotions can never be alone. You need a guiding light that shows you the way to your desired outcome.

Come, build your mental health with Mental Strength Professionals. We have worked with numerous people in the areas of depression, anxiety, stress, divorce, and more. We firmly believe that every problem contains its solution while recognizing and managing emotions. So, if you find these powerful emotions overwhelming you, contact us for a counseling session at: +91-82-60-11-22-33. Ping us on Skype at this number: 9055565758

Let’s begin the conversation. Let’s talk.