How We Think About What We Feel

The role that language plays, can operate in two opposing directions; the words we chose can either isolate and harm rather to embrace and help a person.

A popular belief is that emotions exist inside us as a pre-programmed response waiting to be expressed, however I believe that there are many people that may agree that our emotions are constructed in a different way using experiences from our past. In other words while those experiences may be fixed- the things that happened to you, happened to you - they can be repurposed throughout life and lead in new and positive directions. This can ultimately help us to understand how we think about what we feel. It is certain that there are some emotions that we can pinpoint; we know exactly how we feel and why: angered by betrayal of a cheating spouse, saddened by the loss of a loved one, afraid of an impending challenge and happy because of an accomplished goal. This is fantastic because we can describe our feelings with precision, it gives us information to act on. At other times our feelings can only be described as a hopeless muddle and its in these instances that we can merely describe our feelings as BAD. These unintentional feelings are a version of depression stimulated from those negative past experiences, if those negative experiences can been avoided, how do we pave the way for the brain to have the ability to make the fine distinctions amongst these emotions. In a 2015 paper titled "Transforming Unpleasant Experiences by Perceiving Distinctions in Negativity," Author Kashdan, Barrett and Patrick McNight conclude, "Emotion differentiation is a skill. Those more adept in constructing granular, precise experiences will be better able to deal with them, no matter the intensity."

Tim Lomas has embarked on a journey to discover the finer shade of our feelings by looking at foreign words to capture something that we don't have a particular word for in English. Some of the words studied when translated require a few words or even a phrase expanding the boundaries of our world accordingly. We no longer are constrained by only the emotion labels- or words- of our own language.

This should be fun and interesting...

Since we are the generation of constantly absorbing new words here are a few new concepts describing emotions to add:

- Schadenfreude, German word for the feeling of pleasure one takes in the misfortune of others

- Gigil, Tagalog Austronesian language, the irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze people we love or cherish

- Iktsuarpok, Inuit, the anticipation one feels when waiting for someone so eagerly that one keeps going outside to check if the person has arrived 

- Sisu, Finnish, having extraordinary courage and determination in the face of adversity 

There are hundreds more that have been documented by Lomas who is the co-author of Second Wave Positive Psychology: embracing the dark side of life - they are not just curiosities... the power of all language is undeniable... 

So, yes, this all makes any discussion of the exact nature and influence of language tricky-but exciting too- language could be the way...like mentioned above, when we can describe our feelings with exact precision it gives us information we can act on. 

Embarking into the dark unwanted negative past or BAD feelings associated with labels and words that are pre-registered to project negative responses, such as depression and anxiety, might aid one, while hurting another... However like, Author's Kashdan, Barrett and Patrick McNight conclude:

If the risk is worth the reward; I believe that Richard Branson said it best: