The Emotion of We and Me Part 3

 

This week we are spelunking, exploring the experience, of emotions.  We are tapping into the original operating system of feelings.  We’ve engaged an exercise of being curious, asking why we feel what we feel.  Not just once, but several times trying to go deeper into the cave of feelings.  Yesterday we named and noticed that there are six main emotions that all of us experience in the course of a week, or day…or sometimes a rollercoaster of an hour.  I asked you think about times you felt fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and surprise recently.

 

Those six do not exhaust all the emotions there are.  Some suggest there are over 400 emotions a person can feel.  You can feel calm, centered, content, eager, bliss, cynical, edgy, courageous, compassionate, curious, forlorn, embarrassing, powerless, remorseful, weary, and worn out.  I encourage you to click here for the Hoffman Institute for a list of the 400 emotions.  Read over the list, especially the ones in bold print, and ask yourself when the last time was you experienced that emotion.  When was the last time you felt:

Acceptance/openness

Alive/joy

Angry/annoyed

Courageous/empowered

Connected/loved

Curious

Despair/sad

Disconnected/numb

Embarrassed/shame

Fear

Guilt

Hopeful

Powerless

Tender

Unsettled

Grateful

Fragile

Stressed/tense

 

I pray this longer list might continue to guide us to feel the feelings that are stirring and swirling within every human right here and now.  Amen.