Emotions are more than Feelings
An important goal of looking at your life, meaning and important things of life, and dealing with it is - from my point of view (and I am a stoic) in general is to learn to control what we can - our judgments and beliefs and what we do with our lives - and let go of the rest. This is a lesson I experienced and learned by my stoic way of living and looking at challenges. For that matter, learning to separate what we can control and what we can’t is an important life lesson for us all - I think.
Recently I heard of the ABCs of Emotions
I am firmly believing that how we deal and think about life and challenges in life have a determining effect on our emotional states. And as I think in pictures and structures - like the ABC model - I heard of lately.
A = Activating life event .... that cause / bring on the trigger for an emotional response, reaction, or feeling
B = Beliefs (sights, opinions or judgments) we make about the event
C = Consequences ... positive (happiness, joy ...) or negative (anger, anxiety, guilt, sadness, worry ...)
The life event, occurrence, or incident is what it is - our emotional response, reactions and feeling to whatever happend depend on the significance, implication, weight and meaning we read into them.
In other words, life experiences are filtered through our response systems that, in turn, trigger our emotional responses.
Someone who insults or criticizes you may be a bully, but their words don't have to make you angry. We all face disappointment and sadness in life and need to deal with it, but not magnify it to the point that it overtakes our lives.
“Stuff" or challenges happens in life, but experiences are filtered through the thinking brain before emotions occur, overwhelm, or over roll us.
Or in other words, how a given event affects us depends on the meaning or interpretation we impose on it. A case in point: The same event—a pregnancy, for example—may be experienced as a joyous or calamitous event depending on whether it is something welcomed or dreaded—that is, what it means to the individual given their life situation.
And we know 3 Components of Emotions - again an ABC
As emotions are more than simple feeling states - they are complex mental states comprising three basic components:
Actional and behavioral component, the first "side" of the emotional coin, is the outward expression of an emotion - such as gestural behavior or for example smiling when happy or approaching someone we love or moving away from a feared object or situation.
Bodily component in the form of central nervous system arousal, as when you experience your heart go aflutter in the presence of a love interest or when you tremble in fear.
Cognitive component, which includes the subjective feeling of the emotion, which we label as fear, love, joy, anger, and so on, as well the judgments we make about our life experiences that trigger emotional reactions (back to this in a moment).
Finally I wish you and myself ...
to have the serenity and the strength
to accept the things you can not change;
the courage to change the things you can,
and the wisdom to see and know the difference.
More about: Stoicism, Self-Awareness
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