Emotions are crazy

Emotions are amazing things that force people to see who we are. We can only partially control them but even in doing what we can to control them they still make us feel something we may not want to feel. They also make us feel things that we might want to feel, the sensation of butterflies when you are nervous, for example can be a good thing in one case or a bad thing in another. In either case however you can’t stop it, it is just there. You can control the situation at times that is causing the butterflies but if it is a situation that is out of your hands they are just there to feel.

What are emotions? I like to think that they are our inner self telling us something. Our soul, if that’s what you believe we have, helping our body see what it feels we need to see. An emotion of sadness is one that we feel for many different reasons. You could feel it because you have lost a loved one, or maybe you just feel it and you don’t know why. If the latter is the case I would say there must be a reason a trigger something that made you feel sad. What was it that made you feel that way? Was it a thought? Did you wake up and just feel it? Kind of like the “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed” theory. Another emotion is joy, maybe you feel very happy or joyful just going through your day wanting to smile. Would you then suppress that joy if someone told you a sad story as not to force them to not want to confide in you? There are so many emotions I cannot even touch each of them but what are they? Are they us? Are they thoughts? Maybe they are something else helping us, keeping us from making mistakes or misguided choices driven by the influence of those around us.

I read the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and in my reading I had a moment of clarity on the subject of behavior. He discusses Human Nature in it and the origins of human nature. Were we built one way with instincts that are fine-tuned throughout life? The answer is obviously within what you personally believe as far and faith and origin.  However an interesting thought it that emotions help determine our behavior in situations we face in life, even from early childhood. An example would be a small child that might feel fear from something and in turn runs and hides and maybe cries. The emotion was fear and the reaction was to hide. Now as we get older we learn to face our fears and overcome obstacles.  The question however is, what drove the emotion in a young child that has not learned of the dangers of the world?

Emotions are controlled in some people however some seem to let them run rampant. I am a good example of a person who lets this happen. My boyfriend is always telling me to control my emotions and relax, to stop spending so much time thinking. I am not sure if he is right or I am. I like to think and if I feel something it should be acknowledged and addressed. A person who is in an angry mood then might choose not to speak about it and stay away from people. A different person with the same emotion may want to take their anger and yell at someone or something. The same emotion is handled differently by both individuals. One suppresses it and the other embraces it. Neither tries to solve it and address the cause. Then there are those that embrace the cause of the emotion and tackle it. For instance a person who was charged a fee for something they feel they didn’t deserve might go to the business and attempt to correct the issue. When they do this a person can either walk in and yell in anger or reason with the representative to make their case.

So what makes one person handle a situation different than another? Why do I choose to rethink every thought or feeling before choosing to act on it? Why does another person choose to act now and think later? It could be upbringing. It could be our individual Human Nature defined over the years by us and the lives we have lived thus far. The only real answer is that there is no answer only speculation. We can choose to control our emotions, suppress our emotions, over think them, or maybe just act on them in the moment.

This is the Beauty of what makes us who we are as individuals. We are all different and what makes us different is who we are. What helps in defining who we are is how we react to situation. Emotions are at the center of how we react and feel at any given time. They are the Beauty of life.