Being happy while feeling sad
Since a long time ago that psychology and neuroscience try to unravel the secrets behind human emotions. There are studies that point to the existence of a small number of primary or basic emotions and many researchers (like Turner and Plutchik) think furthermore that emotions had an important role in our species evolution. However, there are no common ground just yet regarding those topics. Some studies point to various ranges of basic emotions that vary between four and ten different emotions.
From what I have read i’m very keen with the four main emotions idea: joy, sadness, fear and anger. I believe that the remaining, more complex emotions are generated from those four and within them we can find the key to comprehend our emotional states.
Many times we are undertaken by one of those emotions without realising it. Recently, Tico wrote about jealousy and how she lost control of that feeling in a period of her life. Feelings are conscious interpretations of emotions. Jealousy is nothing more than fearing that the people you like like someone else more than they like you.
Unfortunately many of us learn since early age to suppress our most basic emotions. Not long ago, through lots of self-analysis and some external help, I found out that I’m very prone to suppress sadness. That tendency has many reasons, being one of them the example (or the lack of it).
Just like all other basic survival tools, we learn to manage and control our emotions since early age and by example. I don’t recall ever seeing my mother sad, except when loved ones died. My mother had a 9 to 5 job, was divorced and raising two daughters. I guess it was her defence mechanism, a way of showing herself and to others that she was strong. She transformed all the sadness into anger. Even her fear was always a bit concealed by anger, therefore I can only remember of her as joyful or angry. In fact I also saw my father sad only once or twice, although I have seen him joyful or angry more often.
Unfortunately, sadness (just like fear) is seen as synonym of weakness in our society and despite knowing that that isn’t true (in fact dealing with fear and sadness mean strength and maturity), I also have the tendency to suppress that emotion. Just like my mother used to do, when some event causes me sadness, I immediately “recycle” that emotion and transform it into anger, without being aware of that. I realised that not long ago, as said previously.
One thing that made me recognise this struggle of mine to deal with sadness was meeting someone that had suppressed their anger during most part of their life. This person was born into a much different family to mine, in which what was frowned upon was to express fury, rage or indignation, where no one ever screamed nor got upset.
There are people who suppress their emotions with joy because they have grown up or lived in certain contexts where being joyful doesn’t seem to be proper and many others suppress the fear because they think that expressing this emotion makes them seem less brave. What in fact happens is that suppressing emotions creates problems and emotional imbalances.
In many available bibliography on basic emotions, “joy” and “happiness” are used as synonyms and there’s where I venture to disagree. In my opinion joy is an emotion, in other words a set of physical and psychic reactions that are triggered by an occurrence (that can be interior just like a memory or exterior such as an argument). I don’t consider happiness an emotion but instead a state or way of being in life.
Consequently I do believe that one can be happy and have sad moments or be unhappy and feel joy at times because those concepts are not opposite and do not preclude one another. To me happiness has to do with being in peace, with a constant satisfaction and to accept life unwinding in from of us. On the other hand, joy is related with fun, excitement or enthusiasm.
In my first article i briefly talked about an episode where I finally mourned my mother’s death. It wasn’t immediately after she died but a few years later, during the funeral of a close friend’s mother. In that moment I felt truly sad, for my friend and her sister (because I knew exactly what they where going through), for her grandmother (which cried of pain, the poor lady) and for me (I could not bare any longer the dam that was holding on so much sadness inside). But at the same time I felt peace, I knew that my friend and her family would overcome the pain, I knew that ends bring new beginnings, and felt a huge relief by letting out all of that sadness. I learned that I kept being a happy person, maybe even happier than before.
A huge finding of mine in the most recent times was to understand that, in order to be happier, one of the things I need to work on myself is allowing more sadness. It seems like a contradiction, but it isn’t. I know I still have a long way to go because I keep having issues dealing with sadness but think that with diligence I’ll get there sooner or later.
What about you, do you suppress any of those four basic emotions or think you can deal with them all? Think about an emotion that makes you feel uncomfortable or if there is any emotion from which you tend to run away. Question yourself if you tend to transform an emotion into another one just like I do. Do you also think that happiness is something else than a momentary emotion like joy? Or you do you reckon that the two are the exact same? Have you ever felt sad and happy at the same time? As always I would love to know your opinion regarding all of this.
