Name this emotion: a person’s heart is racing, their pupils are dilated, their perspiration is increased, and their digestion is stopped. Some of you might have named the emotion of anger. Some of you might have named the emotion of fear. Still others might have named the emotion of surprise.
Fascinatingly, every emotion we experience is based on the limited number of physiological responses listed above. In essence, emotions – whether “good” or “bad” – call our parasympathetic nervous system (our fight or flight response) into action. We have an extremely limited set of physiological responses for a wide array of emotional labels.
Emotions are, essentially, our subjective reaction to the physiological reactions of our pupils, heart rate, perspiration, and digestion. Then we add a twist of cognition.
We answer the question, “what do I think I am feeling?” For example, if we experience the symptoms listed above and see our friends shouting, “Happy Birthday” we generally call our primary emotion surprise and then add the emotion of happy. If we do not like such parties, we still might use the primary label of surprise, but add the emotion of anger.
In other words, we feel this limited set of biological events, we look around and appraise the situation, and then we apply the label. The label determines our subjective emotional experience. Based upon our interpretation of the surrounding events, we experience these physical events as pleasant or unpleasant. Interpreting emotions as pleasant, causes the body to return to homeostasis (back to its normal state) more quickly and, because we are not concerned with protecting ourselves from some threat (real or perceived), we use up fewer physiological resources.
What is even more interesting is that the label can be changed, and by changing the label, we have the power to change what we are experiencing.
This is extremely important when we consider how freely we use the words worry, anxiety, and fear. We use the words worry and anxiety when we are less sure of the reason of source of our concern; the concern is more amorphous. We use the word fear when there is a specific source. One psychologist, Todd Pressman, PhD, has suggested that all anxieties and worries can be categorized into five core fears: abandonment/aloneness, loss of identity, loss of meaning, loss of purpose, and fear of death.
What makes this interesting to me is the idea that if we label more things fear, rather than worry or anxiety, we actually increase the number of strategies we can use to resolve the situation. Let me stress again that all three labels are emotions and all three will, physiologically, result in the fight or flight response. But when we label the emotion as fear, we tend to either feel paralyzed (leaving the “field” emotionally) or we feel powerful and ready to “fight” this dreaded enemy. The focus on “fight” calls us to action and provides opportunities for successful resolution.
So, if we fear an exam, we can “take flight” by dropping the class or we can “fight” to succeed by reading, forming study groups, going for tutoring, etc. If we are anxious about our future if we fail an exam, we are paralyzed by the anticipation of all these potentially negative consequences. If we fear that if we fail this exam, our future will not be as good as we hoped, then we can make the preparations to guard ourselves from that outcome.
Each psychological perspective has a method for fighting our fears. Behaviorism advocates exposure therapy, which involves facing the fear. Once they face that fear, and once those fears are unsubstantiated, the person gains control over the fear. Psychoanalysis involves tracking the source of the fear to a childhood trauma, to a moment when our pursuit of pleasure/happiness was severely punished, an event that led one to fear similar abandonment in the present situation. Humanists examine fears through the lens of ideal/real self and use “should statements” as the clue to the discrepancy between those two parts of who we are. The fear, for them, is often that we will not be loved if show our true selves; we must always present the ideal – an impossible standard for anyone. We fear the conditions that must be met if we are to be loved by those important to us. Cognitive psychologists focus on the irrational aspects of our fears, pointing out to us that most of what we anticipate never happens. In fact, a study done by The University of Pennsylvania revealed that 95.1% of what the participants’ worried about/feared never happened.
That last fact is very powerful. I have encouraged many of my students and clients to write down their fears and to record if it actually happened. We then discuss whether the energy expended in the anticipation of the feared event was “worth it.”
Invariably, the answer is no. Ultimately, it helps them to recognize that the things we lump into worry/stress/fear reduce our resources. They keep our fight/flight system on alert for too long, depleting the ability for it to react when actually needed.
What they often find helpful is the idea that we can re-label those earlier emotions. We can be excited about the upcoming test/job interview/party. We can be joyful about the opportunity to demonstrate what we know. If/when things go wrong, then we can use any the techniques discussed above to fight our fear and resolve the situation.
I think we can sum it up by saying if we focus more on solutions than on the worry/anxiety/fear itself, we will gain control over it and use it to make our lives, and the lives of those we love, better.
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