We are sentimental beings . Feelings are part of our nature and throughout the day we experience countless of them. Joy, sadness, worry, jealousy, compassion… Feelings make us who we are. They give us humanity and allow us to socialize with other people.
Without these feelings, we would be nothing more than a collection of organs and tissues struggling to survive. Thanks to this ability to experience them, humans differ from animals in the sense that we do not just eat and reproduce.
To feel alive, we want to feel. And these feelings can be both the door to fully enjoy life and our worst enemies, even overwhelming us and hindering our normal performance.
But where do feelings come from? Are they the same as emotions? What types are there? What is the biological purpose of being able to experience them? In today’s article we will talk about feelings, which are, ultimately, those mental processes that give us humanity.
What are feelings?
Traditionally analyzed from a poetic and metaphorical point of view, feelings can also be interpreted from a scientific point of view . And is that absolutely nothing that happens inside our body is the result of chance. Everything serves a biological purpose. The feelings included.
Feelings are mental processes, that is, an experimentation of events that are born inside our brain and that are just as real as seeing, hearing, hearing or smelling. And it is that feelings arise when a series of specific neuronal connections are made within the brain.
We say that feelings are what make us human because they are born from consciousness, that is, from being able to interpret what happens around us in a more complex way than other animals do. Humans are capable of linking sensory experiences with emotions. And these emotions with specific states of mind. When it comes to this last point, we talk about feeling.
Feelings are the thoughts that arise after experiencing an emotion and that, due to hormonal changes derived from these specific neural connections, our physiological state changes. Feelings shape our hormonal levels and are born from the rational interpretation of what happens to us and from the anticipation of future events.
But what is the difference between emotion and feeling?
Let’s imagine that we are going down the street and we see a thief robbing an old lady. What will happen in our brain? First, visual information will reach the brain with a clear message: “there is a robber there.” The human brain (and that of all animals) is capable of interpreting this visual information and giving rise to an emotion, which is nothing more than a cerebral response that has the objective of changing our behavior.
In this case, the emotion that the brain will generate is fear: “that robber can also hurt me, I have to flee.” For this reason, it is most likely that, guided by this primitive emotion that is fear, we will leave there.
And this is where all the animals would stay, just like when they are chased by a predator. They run away without further ado. Without thinking. The problem is that humans do think. And by thinking, we are capable of, once we have experienced the event and the emotion, we interpret what has happened.
And at the moment in which we interpret the emotion, when we are no longer in the middle of this primitive response such as fear, our conscience leads us to think things: “could I have done something?”, “What would they have thought of me? “,” What if they hurt the lady? ” Right now, we are feeling. We are having a feeling. Which is surely the fault.
Therefore, emotion and feeling differ from each other in the sense that emotion is a primitive physiological response (more intense but less prolonged in time) that is born after perceiving something through the senses, while feelings are something as well as “complex emotions” that arise from rationally interpreting what happens and the emotions we experience. The feelings are less intense but more prolonged in time.
Therefore, we can consider a feeling as the state of mind generated by having experienced an emotion. And these feelings are different in each person, not only because the brain varies a lot in terms of anatomy, hormones and chemistry between individuals, but because each one has lived different circumstances and has different memories that will be used to interpret each situation.
Emotions are more common among all, as they are normal responses to a stimulus. The feelings depend more on each one because they are born based on our values, past , future prospects, education, etc.
What are feelings for?
Do they really have any biological utility? The answer is a resounding “yes” . And it is that absolutely nothing that happens inside our body (brain included) is coincidence. And feelings are no exception. And let’s see why.
If we compare ourselves to other animals, humans are very physically weak. It is only necessary to see that, in nature, newborns have to seek life as soon as they are born. It took us at least 10 years to be minimally independent to live without being looked after at all hours.
We are not good hunters, we cannot stand cold or heat, we are not fast, we are not strong, we are not good swimmers … What has nature given us? To compensate for this lack of physical resources that, in principle, would mean the extinction of our species, it has given us a unique good: consciousness.
Not only intelligence was born from this awareness, but the ability to feel and see how other people feel. This emotional intelligence, which is the ability to perceive the feelings that others express, is nothing more than a survival strategy.
All feelings respond to something, either to socialize with our species or to promote changes in ourselves. Every feeling has a utility. Feeling hope is the brain’s way of making sure we want to stay alive. Showing gratitude is the way to connect with others. Feeling angry is the way we show that we don’t like something and that we want it to change. And the list goes on.
Feelings , therefore, serve a lot: to drive changes in our own behavior and to get what we need from others.
What are the main feelings?
The human brain is undoubtedly the most complex organ in the body. Therefore, it is not surprising that the experimentation of feelings is also very complicated both to understand and to make classifications. Be that as it may, these are the main feelings that humans can feel , worth the redundancy.
- Love
Love is a positive feeling that is born from affection towards a person, animal, object and even an idea. It is born from the subjective evaluations that we make when analyzing something that we perceive.
- Sadness
Sadness is a negative feeling that is born after interpreting and analyzing situations that have previously led us to feel painful emotions.
- Euphoria
Euphoria is a feeling that is born after some hormones have changed our physiology and have led us to experience a “rush” of energy and vitality, so we interpret everything around us as something wonderful.
- Admiration
Admiration is the feeling of pleasure that arises after analyzing the successes or positive aspects of another person, but in a healthy way, without envy.
- Hate
Hate is a negative feeling of enormous repulsion towards someone that is born after this person has done things to us that we interpret as negative or has hurt us.
- Envy
Envy is a negative feeling that arises from analyzing what has something and wanting it but in an unhealthy way, linking this desire with a discomfort in our body.
- Jealousy
Jealousy is a negative feeling that arises from well-founded or unfounded speculations that make us fear losing someone we love.
- Affection
Affection is a positive feeling that is born from, after analyzing how we relate to someone, observing that we have connected on an emotional level.
- Pleased
The liking is the positive feeling we have towards something or someone that, after coming into contact with it, due to its characteristics and properties, generates pleasant emotions.
- Hope
Hope is a positive feeling that arises from, after analyzing situations and future prospects, reaching the conclusion that it is possible to achieve the goals that we set ourselves.
- Optimism
Optimism is a positive feeling that comes from analyzing our situation in life and considering that what the future holds for us is good or, at least, that we are on the right track.
- Gratitude
Gratitude is a positive feeling that we experience when someone does something good for us and we are grateful to them.
- Anger
Anger is a feeling similar to hatred but less strong in which, after someone has done something to us that we interpret as negative, we feel repulsion towards it.
- Outrage
Indignation is the negative feeling that you experience after exposing ourselves to something that, in our opinion, is unfair, either towards ourselves or towards another person.
- Impatience
Impatience is the feeling that our brain generates when we want something at a certain moment and it seems to take longer than normal.
- Revenge
Revenge is a negative feeling that consists in that, after someone has done something to us that we consider harmful, we want to pay them with the same currency.
- Satisfaction
Satisfaction is the positive feeling that you experience when, after searching for something, it is finally achieved.
- Compassion
Compassion is the feeling linked to empathy, that is, the negative thing we feel when we put ourselves in the shoes of another person and analyze the pain that may be suffering.
- Joy
Joy is a feeling similar to euphoria although less exaggerated. It is the set of pleasant sensations that we experience since we consider that everything that surrounds us is good.
- Guilt
Guilt is the negative feeling that appears when, after analyzing our behavior and conduct in a specific situation, we come to the conclusion that we have gone against our values or social norms.
- Resentment
Resentment is the remaining feeling that remains towards someone who in the past has generated feelings of indignation, revenge, hatred, anger, etc.
- Rage
Anger is the negative feeling related to a high degree of irritability. It is what we feel when, after analyzing a situation, we consider our rights or those of the other person violated.
- Concern
Worry is the negative feeling that arises after, due to the analysis of the consequences that our actions may have, we consider that something may affect our integrity in the future.
- Despair
Despair is the negative feeling that arises from, after analyzing our current situation, considering that there is no way to move on and to overcome a harmful event in our life.
