Emotions, Moods and Reactions

We have a unique capacity to envision an immense variety of possible future states. This allows us have ideals and strive for them, to plan, to learn and grow… and to want things.

In an essential way this orientation toward the future is what makes us human. We can imagine something we want to achieve, something we want to avoid, something we want to have, and then we can plan and aim ourselves toward achieving, avoiding, or gaining possession of whatever it is.

But there’s a downside.

What if I want something that other people have, and I don’t?

What if I want something that I had in the past but no longer have?

What if I expect to have something, but don’t end up getting it?

What if I want something I can’t have?

That gap, between what we have and what we want, can inspire us to strive, to persevere, to lean into our lives more… but it can also make us miserable.

One of the main causes of depression – along with loss, feeling stuck, and certain poor habits – is when we strive for goals that we cannot achieve. I don’t mean goals that are difficult but that, with enough work and grit we may very well achieve; I mean goals that are genuinely beyond our abilities.

The desire to achieve things, to have things, to make things happen that are beyond our capacity is extremely common these days – and may be one of the reasons depression has been increasing.

Images and expectations for perfection and unrealistic success have been increasing. Social media shows posts of people enjoying lives of adventure and perfect happiness. It’s natural to want to share joyful images and triumphs; but the cumulative effect in this online format is to present a world in which none of us actually lives; where everyone is happy and successful, always. This can lead to a greater focus on image and external displays of success rather than internal satisfaction.

Young people are more likely now than in the past to believe they’re going to attend graduate school, or agree with the statement: “I will never be satisfied until I get all that I deserve.” And in 2005 a third of American teenagers said that they were going to be famous someday. These are all examples of expectations that, for most people, will never be met.

If we expect to have a certain kind of house, a certain kind of car – or a certain number of houses or cars – but we don’t yet have what we expect, we can either work on it from the outside by striving to get those things, or from the inside, by adjusting our expectations.

Striving is wonderful. Earned success is one of the deep satisfactions of life – as long as what we’re striving for is genuinely achievable and reflects our true values.

But to the degree that we tie our well-being to the outcome of our striving, we’re also focusing on things outside of our control. We may work hard, do everything right, and still not reach the specific outcome we desire.

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About a hundred years ago, Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik was sitting in a café in Vienna waiting for her coffee refill. It never came. She noticed that her waiter had an excellent memory for all of his customers’ orders, but somehow had forgotten her coffee.

Bluma set herself to the task of investigating this phenomenon further. What she found in her subsequent studies was this: People tend to remember the details of things exceptionally well when those things are unfinished. She had already paid her waiter, so he had forgotten about her because he was finished with her as a customer.

What is unfinished haunts us. It stays with us, nagging us to bring it to completion. There is something immensely useful to understand here.

Bluma theorized that incomplete tasks create psychic tension within a person, which motivates them to complete those tasks. Painful memories of the past often have a quality of regret. Regret for having had to endure some sort of trauma; for having missed out on a relationship we might have had; for having done something that went against our values… or having not done something that mattered to us.

What is fascinating is that these painful memories seem to lose their energy as soon as we do something in the present, so that we are no longer perpetuating what was painful in the past. If we are lonely, and have been lonely for a long time, the emotional energy of our loneliness dissolves as soon as we begin having the kind of social interactions we have been longing for.

The reality of our past loneliness doesn’t disappear, but the sadness and the draw to ruminate on the memory of it does.

Another way of thinking about this is that, having longed for them, once we begin to have the kind of satisfying, loving relationships in the present, the emotions of sadness and loneliness have done their job. We’ve changed our behavior so we aren’t perpetuating any longer what was painful in the past; the memory no longer has the meaning and purpose that it had before.

In a larger sense, when we’ve been stuck in emotions from the past, once we complete the action that was unfinished, or learn from the painful event so we change our behavior, or reconnect with what was lost or frozen through the trauma, the function of the recurring emotions has been completed.

We can spend a lot of time thinking about what was missing when we were little, or what we wished would have happened; our many desires unfulfilled, things we left unsaid, support we longed for that wasn’t available or wasn’t strong enough.

I’ve known people who spend a good percentage of their lives absorbed in such memories. Their self-concept, their sense of “who I am,” becomes wrapped around “how it was,” until the two are nearly indistinguishable. This is not a good way to live.

The way through is to change the ongoing hurtful patterns that were established in the past, and that we are continuing to some degree in the present. If I was lonely when I was younger, and it haunts me still today, are there ways that I am behaving that are keeping me lonely now? Is there anything I can do to change that? If I felt bad for having not completed certain things in the past, are there ways I am still leaving similar things unfinished today? Can I find a way to finish them?

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A relationship can have complex and unique needs at any given time, so there isn’t really a one size fits all panacea for troubles. But of all the specific actions we can take to improve our relationships, I have found none that apply as often or as effectively as this:

Be playful.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But it’s more challenging than meets the eye, and there are clear guidelines for it to work:

We have to approach play as allies, as a member of the same team; we have to be for our spouse, our child, our friend, our co-worker; and the play must have a spirit of love, kindness and optimism, as opposed to cynicism or sarcasm. There cannot be bitterness or resentment clouding the play; it’s the combination of creative, interactive flow and positive emotions that elevates us.

If you’re up for the challenge, you’re in for some pleasant surprises.

In over four decades of working with couples, families, individuals, and teams, I’ve found that playfulness is one of the clearest indicators of how things are going. When I meet a couple who are playful with each other in this way, even if their troubles are big ones, I know that the chances that they’ll prevail through whatever they’re struggling with are extremely good.

On the other hand, without playfulness, even small troubles can be overwhelming.

In part this is because a high ratio of positive to negative emotions is essential for a happy, successful relationship (at least 5:1 for couples; 6:1 for teams), and play is an expression of positive emotions. But there’s more to it than that.

When we’re feeling hurt, afraid, irritated, angry, worried, or anxious, our focus narrows, and our thinking constricts. We zero in on the acute source of our troubles. There are times this is necessary; but more often we can get stuck in a kind of negative tunnel vision that limits our ability to connect, to love, to feel joy.

Play is energizing, and it can help to broaden our thinking and expand our focus, allowing us to see possibilities we may not have been aware of before.

Like exercise, it can be hard work at first to get ourselves to decide to play, but once we start, the fun of it can ease our stress, soothe our irritation, and quell our negative thinking toward others.

And, as Plato said, You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Once we’ve established playfulness as a habit, and built it into the culture of our relationships, it becomes more natural to go there, even when there’s trouble or misunderstanding. Well worn paths are easier to follow. But what if we haven’t been playful in our relationships? How do we start?

There are two obstacles to overcome:

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For some, happiness is a word that conjures up visions of selfish people concerned only with their own pleasure; but this sort of hedonistic approach to happiness is a recipe for serial bursts of pleasure at the expense of long-term happiness.

When I speak of happiness, I am describing a much richer concept; more akin to what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia or “success at being human.”

One of the central elements for living well is how we relate to other people. In this regard, happiness is literally the opposite of self-centeredness or self-absorption. In fact, contrary to many Las Vegas advertisements or Hollywood-lifestyle fantasies, self-absorption is a key ingredient for depression, and single-minded focus on personal pleasure is a recipe for long-term misery.

So here’s the single most effective thing we can do to get an immediate and significant boost to our genuine happiness – and to set the stage for a deeper, long-term happiness as well. It’s simple. It’s not mysterious. But it is substantial:

Do something kind for another person.

It’s wonderful to be on the receiving end of kindness, and kind acts build trust and create a wonderful atmosphere in which to live, work and flourish.

But as much good as kindness does for others, it also does wonders for us on the giving end. Kindness and happiness go together like Astaire and Rogers; Lennon and McCartney, Peanut Butter and Jam… You get the idea. Kindness and happiness build on each other and reinforce each other. We know this from experience; but it’s nice to also have some research to back it up:

In a study by Otake, Shimai, Tanaka-Matsumi, Otsui, and Fredrickson, “Happy People Become Happier Through Kindness,” the authors found some important results:

1. Happy people have more positive memories, and more motivation to recognize and perform kind behaviors
2. People become happier, kinder, and more grateful when they simply count their own acts of kindness for one week

Happiness and kindness reinforce one another. Not only do happy people pay attention to and perform more kind acts, but by simply counting our own acts of kindness over the course of a week, our happiness increases, and we become kinder and more grateful as well.

Counting our acts of kindness is a specific, tangible exercise that we can practice.

I am not advocating counting and hoarding and bragging about our kind acts or keeping a ledger to show others what a wonderful, kind person we are. This is an exercise that focuses our awareness on our own kind behavior. Since we get good at what we practice – for good or ill – by paying attention to our kind acts, we get better at thinking about and noticing kind acts. We thereby build awareness of the intrinsic feelings of joy and increased happiness that comes from doing kind things.

One of my favorite writers, philosopher Eric Hoffer, said it well: “Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.”

This is the creation of a benevolent cycle. We do a kind act, feel the joy of it, notice the joy we bring through the doing, and it becomes more attractive for ourselves and for the recipient of our kindness to do more kind acts, feel the joy of it… And the benevolence builds.

There is one important caveat to this, however.

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Learning to feel, understand, and use our emotions is central to mastering the complexity of life. Our emotions become much clearer and easier to use the more we pay attention to the physical sensations that go with them.

For many of us, emotions are something of a mystery. On the one hand, they can be delightful; they give life meaning and depth that would be impossible without them. On the other hand, they can be uncomfortable; they can hinder and disturb us; and anger in particular can sometimes cause a whole lot of very big trouble.

How do you know you feel afraid? Is your breath more shallow, your chest tight, your belly vibrating?

For many of us, the first sense we have of fear is when we’re already overtaken by the emotion, uncomfortable with the need to avoid or endure something that feels threatening.

In the case of panic attacks, the physical process leading to the emotion of panic can start much earlier than the panic itself. A tightening of our chest, a constriction in our breathing, can lead to a change in CO2 levels in our blood as early as 40 minutes before we feel anything! By the time we’re actually panicking we’re already in trouble, with an intensity of emotion that can be genuinely disabling.

Often, panic is not about an external fear at all, it’s a physical response to feeling like we’re suffocating – because the CO2 levels in our blood are telling us that we are.

If we’re prone to panic attacks, and we’re aware of when our breathing initially becomes shallower, at that point we can gently deepen our breathing when we notice it. Doing this can quite possibly avert the panic attack entirely.

How do you know you feel angry? Do you feel tension in your muscles, tightening in your jaw, an intensity of physical energy in your body? For those with anger issues, it can feel like a switch just got thrown, and the anger floods in, becoming overpowering, and leading to potentially dangerous consequences.

That’s because overwhelming anger is a function of the fight branch of our sympathetic nervous system, and it can kick in within about a 10^th of a second to protect us from mortal danger. At least that’s its function – but we can get lost in it for a variety of reasons when there is no such danger.

Part of the solution to anger that is out of control is to pay close attention over time to what triggers that anger, and to the very earliest physical sensations signaling that anger is beginning to arise, and before our fight system is activated. Avoiding those triggers and using those early sensations as a signal to stop and redirect that emotion are keys to taming and retraining the anger response.

How do you know you feel joy? Does your breathing deepen, do your muscles relax; do you feel lightness and a pleasurable vibration in your skin? Often we just have a sense that we feel happy, but we may not have the words or the awareness of what’s happening in our bodies which is an integral part of that joy. In many cases, those physical sensations can help us feel even more joyful… and it’s hard to imagine a downside to that.

Emotions in general involve not just a feeling, but also an impulse to move. And that impulse to move is something that happens outside of our conscious awareness.

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What we want, and what we end up liking when we get it are two different things. They each involve different parts of our brain, and different states of mind.

Understanding this difference and bringing more consciousness to what you think you want can save you a huge amount of time, effort, and money.

This last bit is important, the amount of money we spend on things that we want, but then end up not liking, can be huge. It can make the difference between financial ease or financial stress; a sense of abundance or a sense of desperation. It can make it possible – or impossible – to save and invest.

I’ve had clients who, though they make plenty of money to live very well, end up feeling desperate and on edge financially – because they spend more than they make, buying things they want.

This doesn’t need to happen. It’s a simple enough math problem, easy to solve on paper – just don’t spend more than you make, right? But desire is a powerful motivator, and our emotions can mislead us hard with this one.

What happens is that we focus too much on what we want, thinking (and feeling strongly) it will bring us comfort or relief or happiness. But what we end up with is things we don’t even like very much, plus the significant stress of sustained financial anxiety and regret.

The difference between what we want, and what we will like when we get it is what researchers Dan Gilbert and Tim Wilson call “Miswanting.” We have a strong bias toward what we want, and we often aren’t very good at predicting how we’ll feel once we get it.

We focus too much on the wanting – which is exciting and offers the promise of satisfaction, joy, or relief – and not enough on the reality of having whatever it is. When we have something that we’ve wanted, it might be nice, but it’s usually a quieter, less emotionally revved up feeling. Which is different from what the higher rev of our wanting leads us to expect.

The antidote, as with many things, is to bring awareness to the part of the experience we haven’t been looking at.

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