Befriending the Enemy: Understanding Why We Have Emotions

“No offense, but I have no idea why we’re talking about this.” I’ve been seeing Tom and his wife Claire for about five sessions now, and it isn’t going well. Or at least, it isn’t going where Tom had hoped. “I came here to get the spark back in my marriage, and all you therapists want to talk about are feelings. This has nothing to do with how I feel or how she feels!” Claire’s eyes widen and roll before she takes a breath and looks out the window.

“I’m sorry” I say, “maybe I’m not understanding.” Tom sighs dramatically and complains “I just want to feel that spark again…that enthusiasm I used to have. All we need are tools to get that back. We don’t need to talk about how we feel.” Tom and Claire have spent weeks on sensate work, attempting to strengthen their desire, but to no avail. Claire has been trying to tell him how this work has felt to her: hopeless, confusing…even disrespectful at times.

Not only had Tom shut Claire out, he didn’t recognize that his own longing, fear, discontent, and irritation were all emotions that needed to be heard. He had put such a wall up against his own emotional responses that he had almost disconnected from them entirely. It hadn’t occurred to him that improving his sex-life and saving his marriage might mean that he and his wife would need to communicate their emotional needs to each other.

In the end, Tom wasn’t willing to do this. His marriage fell apart over the next few months, and his wife filed for divorce. She later told me, when she came in for one last appointment on her own, that she just couldn’t live the rest of her life with someone who had no idea how he felt and had no interest in how she felt either. “It was just too sad” she said. “Too terrible and lonely to be with someone who honestly didn’t care about how I felt anymore.”

Emotions are not simply a slippery, mercurial load of nonsense. They are vital pieces of data. They are hard-wired and hard-won. They are the things keeping us alive, keeping us sane, and sometimes driving us crazy. Emotions tell us when we are on the right path and when we have strayed from our core values. More times than not, I have found myself explaining that even ‘negative’ emotions are necessary and important to feel. Jealousy, anger, sadness, loneliness. They all let us know when we have unmet needs.

Whether, how, and when we meet these needs is up to us. The emotions, however, are not going to go away on their own. They simply aren’t meant to. Until we act in a way that meets the emotional need, the emotions will continue to prod us. They get stronger and louder, much like the child I often use as an analogy. Just like that young, helpless child asks, pleads, whines, cajoles, or screams at you, your emotions have a job to do, and they aren’t leaving you alone until they get it done. Whether it is allowing us to think deeply, get space, be seen, or be safe, the emotions you feel aren’t going anywhere until you find a way to listen and act on them.

When we view emotions as irrational, unhelpful, or tertiary, we quite simply miss the most vital parts of ourselves and others. Shutting them down or ignoring them causes us to make bad decisions, our relationships suffer, and we can become our own worst enemy. When we feel resistance or resentfulness toward our emotions, it is important to build our understanding of why the occur in the first place. Emotions are layered and multi-functional. They serve three primary purposes: a) to identify a need to ourselves, b) to express this need to others, and c) to motivate or facilitate an action.

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First, let’s talk about what emotions actually are. Emotions are the initial, automatic internal feedback mechanisms which help guide us by making us aware of a need that is lacking, or alternatively a behavior that should be reinforced. If, for example we are alone too long, we might only realize it has been a long time since we got together with friends because we feel lonely or bored. If we find a particularly good brand of dark chocolate, we might be flooded with a combination of surprise and pleasure which lets us know something good has just happened. We even store memories according to what kind of emotion they elicit, and I’ll speak more to this in a later chapter.

Next, let us speak about emotional intensity. Emotional signals aren’t all created equal. Or at least, they aren’t equal in how we experience them. The degree to which we feel our emotions is described, quite specifically, by whether we call them preferences, desires, or urges. Each of these describes the strength of your emotion. It may be that one emotion seems to be gently washing over you, quietly letting you know of a need to be met someone in the future. However, another emotion might seem like an ear-slitting siren, pushing you to act on a need before you can even think clearly. Each of these- preference, desire, and urge- describe the urgency and severity of the emotional need.

Let’s start with the gentle level of emotion: Preferences. These are individual inclinations inform us that we like something more than another. This inclination cannot occur without our emotional input. We might describe this as a fondness, a weakness, or a favorite, and these are all driven by our emotions. Through our experiences and imagined responses, we unconsciously work to avoid negative emotional reactions and seek positive ones. This leads to Emotional Tagging, where the memory of an emotional experience leads to a preference for that experience in the future. Think of whether you prefer milk chocolate or dark chocolate, summer or winter, adventure or relaxation. These are your preferences, and they are elicited directly from your emotional experiences. They help gently guide us. A soft nudge toward an informed guess.

Desire is quite different. A desire is a state characterized by a yearning or longing for something. Often marked by emotions such as longing, craving, or passion, desire is much stronger than preference. It can elicit feelings of excitement, anticipation, or even frustration and discontent in the absence of the desired object or outcome. Desire doesn’t just act as a mild nudge, it acts as a motivational force that drives behavior. It compels people to take action to fulfill or obtain what they desire. This can include simple desires like hunger leading to eating, or more complex desires like aspiring for a career goal.

How we tolerate desire can impact our life dramatically. After all, desire can vary greatly in intensity and duration.

Some desires are fleeting and easily satisfied, while others are intense and long-lasting. Delayed gratification is a skill, and an essential one for anyone who wants to be successful at….well, anything. Holding our desire in check while not ignoring it allows us to be driven, but not rash. It allows us to notice the emotions we have, the outcomes we want, and to plan intelligently how to get those outcomes and emotions satisfied. Think of a time you gave into desire and compare this to a time you delayed satisfaction until you were ready. How do these compare? It is likely that while the first memory was lovely and satisfying for a short while, but may have been followed by regret. The second memory might be less dramatic, but overall more fulfilling and consistent with who you are and what you want.

An Urge is the strongest element of emotion. This element of emotion doesn’t whisper guidance or push for motivation, it shoves you right out the door. An urge is a strong desire or impulse to act in a certain way, immediately and impulsively. It is an intense, sometimes overwhelming feeling that can drive behavior. They arise suddenly and feel pressing, demanding immediate attention or action. We often feel strange physical sensations when we experience an urge. A pang of hunger, a push in the chest, or a tension in our fists.

While urges might seem to bypass rational thought, there is a mental and emotional melding here. This includes recognition of the urge and, in some cases, a mental debate about whether to act on it. An urge typically pushes towards a very specific behavior. This could be something benign, like the urge to laugh at a joke, or potentially harmful, like the urge to engage in risky or violent behavior. However, at its core, an urge is indicative of an underlying need or issue, such as a need for relaxation, emotional expression, or physical activity. Understanding and handling urges, especially when they lead to negative or destructive behaviors, is an important aspect of emotional awareness and management.

The distractions of daily life, trauma, stress, neural imbalance, or simple bad emotional habits can often make us blind to the moment-by-moment ebb and flow of our emotions. Sometimes we aren’t aware of just what emotion we are experiencing, while other times we don’t notice the emotion because we only pay attention to the great big, loud ones. Just because some emotions are smaller than others does not mean they aren’t there. In fact, the truth is that most of our emotions begin quite small. Unobtrusive and gentle, these emotions signal a subtle push rather than shouting at us.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and most trauma-informed therapies all implement strategies to improve our awareness of emotions as a vital part of recovery from depression, anxiety, trauma, and mood dysregulation. In fact, this is a primary focus in much of the therapeutic world. This focus is no mistake. The mindful awareness of our emotions is a fundamental part of being a well-adjusted person. Struggle, stress, and general downward spirals are often marked first by being unaware of our emotional needs.

While there is no hard and fast rule defining and categorizing our emotional needs, let us agree that these needs are universal. Anthropological, cross-cultural, linguistical, and neurological studies have formed a solid scientific foundation demonstrating the universality of these needs. Moreover, we have evidence from the heart of each culture in the form of folklore. Stories of love, longing, adventure, and kindness allow us a window into how these needs are managed and met in cultures around the world.

Social scientists have generally categorized these needs into the following groupings:

 Love and Affection

The need to feel loved, valued, and a part of someone’s life.

 Belonging and Connection

The need to have meaningful relationships and a sense of connection with others.

 Validation and Support

The need to feel accepted and validated for who you are, including your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

 Security and Safety

The emotional need to feel secure, safe, and stable in one's environment and relationships.

 Empathy and Understanding

The need to be understood by others, to feel that others empathize with your experiences and emotions.

 Respect and Recognition

The need to be respected and recognized as an individual, including one's boundaries, achievements, and contributions.

 Autonomy and Independence

The need to feel a sense of control over your own life, to make your own choices.

 Purpose and Meaning

The need to have a sense of purpose, meaning, or direction in life.

 Growth and Self-Esteem

The need for personal growth, self-improvement, and the ability to like yourself.

 Play and Freedom

The need for relaxation, fun, and leisure activities that provide pleasure, creativity, and exploration.

Meeting these emotional needs is vital for mental and emotional health and overall life satisfaction. But when emotional needs are unmet, we receive an ever-increasing emotional signal. The more important the emotional need (or the longer it is been neglected), the stronger the signal. These signals might not always be pleasant, but they are simple. And they are specific. They act as our internal compass, indicating exactly what we need.

Recognizing what we feel is akin to reading the compass correctly. For instance, feeling joy after a job well done reinforces behaviors leading to achievement, while the sting of regret can serve as a cautionary tale to our internal selves, steering us away from repeating that mistake in the future. f we remain unaware of or misinterpret these emotions, we miss out on these vital cues, potentially leading us astray. When Socrates urged us to “Know Thyself,” this may be what he meant. It is the first step to an awareness of who you are. Our values, preference, physical needs, memories…almost everything about us is driven or informed by emotional responses.