The Four Basic Emotions and their Triggers

Did you any time think how many emotions a human being can feel?

Psychological research says we can feel hundreds of emotions and even thousands!

So, wouldn't it be difficult to recognize hundreds and thousands of emotions of others and of ourselves?

Definitely it is going to be a difficult job!

So, what do we do?

If you have seen the animated movie, "Inside Out" (2015), you will easily understand what the main emotions are: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust.

Psychologists had been saying that there were eight basic emotions. Later on psychologists reduced the basic emotions to seven...six...and even to five. However, quite recently, psychological research has accepted four emotions as basic emotions.

The Four Basic Emotions and their Shades

1. Often, we feel pleased, contented, amused, cheerful, delighted, excited, elated and ecstatic... The intensity of these emotions may vary, but all these emotions are grouped under one emotion i.e. HAPPINESS
2. We also feel  disappointed, upset, moody, heart-broken, miserable, sorrowful, depressed... In spite of their variation in intensity, all these emotions can be grouped under one emotion i.e. SADNESS.S
3. We also feel irritated, sulky, annoyed, frustrated, mad, irate, outraged, enraged, furious...These emotions can be grouped under one emotion i.e. ANGER
4. We also feel anxious, worried, nervous, frightened, apprehensive, panicky, petrified, horrified, terrified...These emotions can be grouped under one emotion i.e. FEAR

Emotions and their General Triggers

Dr. Paul Ekman, the world's authority on emotions and facial expressions, says that every emotion has a reason or a broad trigger which he calls a 'theme'. The following are the triggers for the four basic emotions:

1. ANGER: The general trigger or theme for anger is that we get angry when things don't go the way we planned. For example, we get angry with the salesman for getting a delivery late. A father gets angry with his son if he does not do as he wishes. 
2. FEAR:  The general trigger or theme for fear is that we get frightened or afraid when there is a threat to our welfare. For example, we get worried when our health gets affected. We are nervous before an exam or presentation. We get terrified when we see a car coming to hit us. 
3. SADNESS: The broad theme of sadness is that we become sad when we lose something. For example, we get sad when we lose a purse or money. We are sad we break up with friends. The most intense feeling of sadness one experiences is when a loved dies.
4. HAPPINESS: The general reason for happiness is when things happen our way or something good happens to us. For example, we are happy when somebody accepts a friend request. We are happy when we get a promotion or get married to the love of our life.      

How can we Recognize these Emotions?

Recognizing these emotions is easy and difficult at the same time. It is easy because we recognize other people's emotions all the time without our knowledge. For example, we know unconsciously when somebody is angry or somebody is sad. Only thing is that we don't do it consciously. The moment we try to do it consciously,  it becomes difficult unless you master it. The following are the basic signs to recognize the four basic emotions:

1. SADNESS: When someone becomes sad, we observe a certain sagging in the body posture and a lack of energy or enthusiasm. When it comes to the facial expressions, the inner corners of the eyebrows go up and the lips get widened and turn downwards.
2. ANGER: When someone is angry, their posture becomes upright and they look strong. They often clench their fist or point a finger. As per the facial expressions, the eyebrows come down; the eyelids go up and the mouth and the jaw become tense.
3. FEAR: When someone is afraid, there is a slouch in the posture as opposed to anger. In the facial expressions, the eyebrows are pulled up and the eyelids are pulled up too; and the mouth is half open.  
4. HAPPINESS: When some one is happy, the most common thing to observe is the smile. In a genuine smile, not only the muscles around the mouth relax, bu also the muscles around the eyes contract. In body posture, one becomes relaxed and the body opens up we feel happy.

Observing body language and recognizing the emotions of the other person will surely benefit us as it helps us empathize with the person. And sometimes it can help us in making a decision as to run away from the person or  show that we are not happy with the person or situation. 

References

• 'Emotions Revealed: Understanding Faces and Feelings" by Paul Ekman, 2004.

To learn more about emotions and for Emotional Intelligence Coaching, contact the author. The author is a Psychotherapist, Life Coach and Behavioral Communication Trainer.

The Body is the Medium

The Body as the Primary Communicator

What our body communicates is more powerful than what we communicate orally i.e. through our words and voice signals

Understanding Body Language becomes crucial in every important interaction in life:

• A psychologist or psychotherapist understands the negative patterns of behavior and feelings the client is struggling with, by observing the client's bodily reactions.

• When we meet a person for the first time, we can say if he is a cheerful kind of a person or gloomy kind of a person by looking at their facial muscles and body posture. 

• A person talking to her friend knows whether her friend is happy with what she is saying or not by looking at the eye movements and facial expressions

Dr. Mehrabian's 7--38--55 Rule of Communication

Dr. Albert Mehrabian, an Iranian psychologist researched on non-verbal communication in the 1960's and came up with a rule for face-to-face or interpersonal communication. He proposed that there are three elements that contribute to the happening of communication. The three elements that contributed to our communication are: Spoken Word, Voice Signals and Body Language. He concluded that the three elements contributed to the happening of communication in the following ratio:

•          7% by Words 
•          35% by Voice Quality (Tone, Pitch, Volume and Pause)
•          58% by Body Language

From the above chart, we can understand the weightage Body Language carries in face-t-face or interpersonal communication.

The Different Aspects of Body Language

Body Language gives a lot of clues to understand a person and his or her personality. There are many aspects of body language that psychologists study. However, the following are the most elementary aspects of body language: 

1. Body Stiffness or Muscular Relaxation: When we meet some people, we know that they are very stiff and their body is uptight. We know immediately that these kinds of people do not mingle with others that easily and we know that we cannot make friends with them easily. We all know communication with such people is difficult because they do not open up easily.
2. Body Vibrations or Energy:  When we meet people, we also experience certain vibrations from them. We know how energetic that person is as well as the dominant emotion of that person by these vibrations. We speak in terms of positive vibrations and negative vibrations we get from people.
3. The Breathing Signals: By observing the breathing, we can understand the emotional state of a person. For example, a short and irregular breath indicates anxiety and tension while a deep and slow breath indicates calmness and composure. A sigh can indicate desperation or relief and a sniff can indicate disgust. 
4. Carriage and Gait: The way one carries his body around and walks can tell a lot about his personality. We can differentiate between a person who is arrogant and a person who is low in confidence by looking at the way he or she walks.
5. Sitting and Standing Postures: Posture reveals a lot about a person's mental state. Erect and square shoulders indicate a confident personality while a bent spine and drooped shoulders indicate somebody who is not very confident.
6. Gestures: The way we move our hands is called a ‘gesture’. A gesture like a sharp throw of the hand can indicate anger while folded hands can indicate disinterest or caution.
7. Facial Muscles and Expression: The face is an index of not only the mind, but of the whole personality. Paul Ekman, the world's authority on facial expressions, says that there are 43 muscles in the face representing different emotions. (https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-physiology-of-facial-expressions)
8. Eye contact and Eye Movement: The eyes can express a whole range of emotions-from a sadistic look to a secret smile. The way we move our can also indicate the thinking and emotion of the person.

Body Language and Script Analysis in TA

Transactional Analysis says that person’s body language and their script are related. A person’s script can be studied by studying the signals he or she is sending through their body language. Dr. Eric Berne calls these ‘Script Signals.” 

Six Therapeutic Ways That can Improve your Body Language

Since body language is a reflection of one’s personality deep down, we need to take steps that change the person inside out. Hence I am suggesting some activities that change the person inside out and that way change in body language happens.

1. Focus on Improving your Posture:  Posture is just not a reflection of one’s confidence; it is a reflection of one’s belief s about oneself and the world. A person with a stooping body posture thinks that he is not good enough as a person and that he cannot handle the world. People with stooping body posture can benefit by doing yoga. Yoga can improve the posture of a person considerably. Even other ways like Physiotherapy Exercises can help one in straitening the spine.

   

   Yoga

2. Release the Pent-up Emotions in the Body: From the point of view of therapy, our body is carrying the pent-up emotions that have been stored since our childhood.  Hence one needs to focus on releasing these pent-up feelings rather than just focusing on outward actions. Massage is one way to clear our pent up emotions. Any kind of massage can heal, but therapeutic massage can have better effect.   Massage relaxes the body muscles and it helps one in becoming a happier person. In that way, massage also cures a person of her script. Massage releases the emotions suppressed in the body and can make a person come out of their emotional past.
   
   

   

   Massage

3. Relax the Facial Muscles: As I mentioned earlier, the face is the index of personality and can show the beliefs and feelings of a person. The level of relaxability of face indicates how happy a person is and whether she has any behavioral issues. One of the best ways to relax the facial muscles is practicing the full-blown smile. In his book, “What Do You Say After You Say Hello?” Eric Berne talks about the smile of the Fijian Islanders. He says “a genuine Fijian smile starts slowly, it illuminates the whole face, it rests there long enough to be clearly recognized…”  Paul Ekman says, in a genuine smile, almost the whole face is illuminated in

   

   A Full-blown Smile

   which even the eyebrows and the skin between the upper eyelid and the eyebrow are involved.
4. Get Rid of your Fears:  Our fears also inhibit us from being free and relaxed. Most people have the fear of facing people; most also have the fear of speaking or appearing in front of a group. Once we overcome these fears, our body and face relax and we communicate better with the body. The posture can improve as well as our gestures can be spontaneous.
5. Engage yourself in a Passion or Hobby: Engaging oneself in a hobby or a passion also relaxes the person as they forget themselves in that activity. Often, the passion or hobby heals the emotional blocks of the person and they become relieved from their negative emotional patterns. This improves their overall body language.
6. Develop Intimate Relationships: Love is the best therapy. When we have intimate relationships, we become free of our negative past. Once we are free of our negative past, our body language improves as our body learns to relax and trust the other person

Besides all the methods above, getting psychotherapy is a systematic way to get rid of our inhibitions and contaminations in thought and feeling. 

• Transactional Analysis (TA) Therapy, in particular, will help a person to systematically dismantle their prejudices and delusions and thus release the body of its emotional built-up. 
• Body Psychotherapy or Somatic Therapy which works directly with the body releases the body of the emotional stress accumulated in the in the body. As a result, the body language of a person will be more relaxed, more confident and stress-free. The posture, gestures, facial expressions will improve and muscular relaxation will happen and breathing will be deep and stable.     

How is our Life Script Formed?

In my previous post (3, April, 2020) I have discussed about Life Scripts. As per Transactional Analysis, a life script is a plan you made for your life, in all probability, by the age of six and obviously it was made without maturity and awareness.

How does a Child Form the Script?

The Script is formed based on the experiences that the child has with his parents or caretakers in his childhood. Based on the experiences and the way the child has been treated, the child makes certain decisions about his life.

Some of these decisions can be:

• I will end up being a loser
• I will be a loner (a lonely person) all my life
• I will live a life without love 
• I will work hard all my life (I will never enjoy life)
• I will go crazy (i.e. mad)
• I will be successful whatever the struggles 

The Parent's Role in Forming the Script

The parents provide the experiences for forming the script. The child comes to certain conclusions about itself based on the interactions with its parents.

For example, if the parent rejects the child repeatedly when the child attempts to approach the parent for a hug or consolation, the child will form a belief, "I am not worthy of love" or I am worth nothing." Based on these experiences and similar experiences in his life, the child builds a 'Loveless Life Script' or  a 'Loser's Life Script'.

The Role of  Parental Commands in the Formation of Script

In the course of bringing up the child, the parent (i.e. both parents) unknowingly gives certain commands or directives to the child. These commands have the power of a curse or boon on the child. These commands are powerful  for the child because the parent is like a Fairy God or Goddess or all-too powerful Witch. These commands can be compared to the curses given by our Gods and Goddesses or Sages who were inconvenienced or irritated. It is like a curse given by Goddess Bhoodevi (Goddess of Earth) to king Karna in  Mahabharat ( a Mythological Epic in India).



Some of the commands can be:

• Kill Yourself 
• Be a Fool or Dud
• Go Crazy (mad)
• Don't be Happy in Life
• Don't be Successful (You will never be Successful)
• Work Hard all your life
• Become a Drug Addict
• Don't Be Close to People (Never have Close Relationships)

In the course of time, the child collects evidence to reinforce his Script Beliefs in his interactions with others. Whenever someone does something like its parents did, it will strengthen its beliefs and reinforce it script.

Thus, based on the experiences and the commands given by the parent, the child builds a script and these beliefs and the decisions of the child get reinforced with later experiences as the child is inclined to collect evidence which supports his script beliefs and reject those experiences that do not match its script beliefs.  Ultimately, one lives one's a pre-determined life and meets one's pre-destined end or death as decided in the script.

Can we Break the Script and Rewrite it?

Yes. our Script can be broken and rewritten to live a life of autonomy. Transactional Analysis offers the tools and techniques to break one's script and live a script-free life. Eric Berne, the originator of Transactional Analysis came up with a tool called Script Analysis. Using Script Analysis, one can become aware of one's script and take action to break the script and live a script-free life.

To learn about Script Analysis and Transactional Analysis Therapy, the readers can approach the author of this blog @: karunakararaobotcha@gmail.com.    

Developing Emotional Sensitivity for Better Relationships

Are you Sensitive to your Partner's Emotions in your Relationship?

Emotional Insensitivity

Many of us are insensitive to the emotions of our partners in our relationships-be it a husband-wife, friend-friend, colleague-colleague, peer-peer or parent-child relationship. Some people are blind to the emotions of the others, sometimes. Some other people are blind  to the emotional state of others all the time. Or  Some others can tune into the emotional state of the partner, but they cannot empathize or respond appropriately to their partners. 

I would like to give some examples of emotional insensitivity from my counseling experience:

• One client I was counseling confessed to me that her husband has never understood her feelings for the last fifteen years. 
• A student I was counseling told me that she has been trying to get a hug from her mother for the last 9 years, but in vain.
• A parent told me that his son was grossly insensitive to the emotions and concerns of the parents in the family.

How does it Matter?

Emotional Sensitivity Matters. For, If you are insensitive to the partner's emotional state, you cannot respond to it appropriately. As a result, the relationship gets deteriorated.

• For example, your partner is angry with you for something. If you also get angry with her just because she is angry, then it leads to a clash. In this case, you are not taking time to understand why she is angry with you. As a result, you never get a chance to understand her emotions and you never get to bond with her emotionally.   

On the other hand, if you are sensitive to your partner's emotions, you can respond to the emotional state appropriately and the relationship gets strengthened.

• Taking the example given above, your partner is angry with you for something and you take time to tune into her feeling of anger and you discuss with her and tell her that you understand her feelings, then the emotional bonding strengthened between you both.  

Tuning into the Emotional State of the Other Person

Emotional Sensitivity

The ability to sense the emotional state of the other person is called empathy. Empathy is the ability
to get into the perceptual world of the other person and experience their feelings.

Five Things you can do to Develop Emotional Sensitivity

1. Listen not just to what the other person is saying, but also to what they are feeling: When we listen, focusing on feelings is more important than focusing on content or information because relationships are all about emotions rather than information.
2. Experience the emotion of the other person by imagining yourself in their position: This is what is called empathy, the ability to get into the emotional world of the other person.
3. Focus especially around the eyes and lips of the speaker while they are talking: Observing the eyes and the lips is essential to understanding the emotions of the other person because the eyes and the lips are the areas where the subtlest of emotions can be gauged.
4. Tell them that you understand their feelings and show it in your later interactions: This communicates that you are sensitive to their emotions and that you care for their feelings. 
5. Spend time with the people in your relationships:  For,  spending time with the people in your relationships not only shows that you care for them, but it can also help you to enhance your emotional sensitivity towards them.

The more you do the things above, the more you expand your Emotional Sensitivity Radar (ESR). We will discuss more about the ESR in the later posts...

We Write our Life Scripts by the Age of Six...Really?

Our Life Scripts

A Movie Script

Have you ever seen a movie? Does a movie run on a pre-decided script or the plot changes while the movie is being played out?

We all know that the plot of a movie runs according to a script written before.  

What if I tell you that each one of our lives is like a movie and the script of this movie was written by us by the time we were six years of age? The most important thing about it is that you are author of your script. This is true because that is what most schools of psychology vow to.

The Script in Real Life

In concrete terms, it means that our personality and behavior patterns are formed right when we were children, in all probability, even before we were six years of age. It practically means that we run our adult lives based on the decisions and beliefs we formed in our childhood.

This is shocking to believe, but this is true in real life. Let me give you some real-life examples:

• Ravi is a 30 year-old software engineer in a reputed company. However, people mistreat and insult him every time. If we ask him why he allows people to treat him that way, he says it's OK and the underlying belief is that he is not important when it comes to others. So he bears all the insult and mistreatment because it was written in his script that he will bear all mistreatment.   
• Rajni is a  student studying 10th standard. She hardly studies and fails in most of the subjects. If you ask her why she does not study, she says she will fail anyway in the exam, so why study? The underlying belief is that she is destined to be a loser, anyway.  This happens so often because she has written a script of a loser for herself.  

The people above are acting and behaving from a belief and behavior pattern that they developed when they were young.

Can we Change our Scripts?

The answer is yes. The fortunate thing about the whole process is that it happened without awareness when we were young and we can change that with awareness.

Transactional Analysis (TA)

TA (Transactional Analysis) is a psychotherapy model which predominantly subscribes to the concept of life scripts. TA says that as children, we write a script for our lives and we run the rest our lives according to the script. It says, we write the script to the extent of:

• Whether we will be winners or losers,
• Whether we will get love in life or not,
• The kind of job we will do, 
• The kind of person we will marry, 
• The kind of feelings we prefer, and 
• Even how we will die.  

How to Break our Script?

We can break our script by becoming aware of our own decisions and beliefs which are the underlying cause of our script and then understanding the circumstances under which we made those decisions about our life.

TA therapy provides the tools and techniques to break our script and write a new script for our lives so that we can live life to its fullest potential.

In the upcoming posts, we will discuss how a script is formed and how to break it.