8 Basic Emotions by Robert Plutchik

 Today, I would love to talk to you about your primary basic emotions.

As part of emotional intelligence, your self-awareness means being aware of your emotions. How do you feel, why do you feel that way? And what do others feel and why do they feel that way?

And knowing how to name your emotions is the first part of that emotional self-awareness. Because what ends up happening most of the time is that we mix emotions we label them incorrectly. When you feel sad, you might say: "I'm frustrated". When you feel angry, you can say that "Oh my God, I am just so disgusted". So, if you are using these mixed feelings, and mixed emotions, and incorrect labeling of your emotions, you'll never be able to understand yourself at a deeper level.

For that reason, I wanted to talk about this video of emotions that Robert Plutchik created back in 2001 so that you can become even more aware of your emotions. If you're ready. Let's go.

WHEEL OF EMOTIONS BY ROBERT PLUTCHIK 

As you see, he gathered eight primary emotions altogether and he paired them with their opposites. These are all opposite polar’s of emotions and that's exactly what we are going to talk about right now.

1. FEAR 

Fear is the most significant emotion that we feel because, in our brain, There is a very important part that is responsible for our survival “Amygdala”. Amygdala has to protect you from all kinds of dangers, and all sorts of threats that are about fear. 

When you feel fear, you might start with apprehension. It may not be that deep, but if you go a little bit deeper, if you lose control of the fear, you might even go into terror. So, you need to understand that fear is the reason why you stopped doing what you want to do. Also, it is the reason why you don't even start chasing your goals and dreams. And fear is, the reason why you don't even start relationships, you don't start businesses because it is big. It is your survival, it is biological.

2. ANGER 

As you see, anger is the Right opposite of fear on the Wheels. Why? Because when you feel fear, you diminish, your power, you let go of your power. You feel helpless and hopeless, and just like a turtle, you get smaller, whereas on the opposite side.

When you have anger, you get bigger even physiologically speaking. Now, you are ready to attack and fight that anger because the anger motivates you to do bigger behaviors. And that's exactly why it is on the opposite side.

When your amygdala is triggered, it is either a motivating fight or flight response, fight is anger, right? You're so angry you’re going to fight with it. Fear is the opposite of it. You're just going to diminish your power and you're going to give up.

3. SADNESS

I would like to remind you that these are the primary human emotions, which means even a baby, a one-year-old baby feels them. These are not advanced emotions, such as doubt, humility, empathy, or optimism. So, this is a very basic emotion.

Sadness is on the opposite, polar of joy. When you're sad, you're frowning when you're happy and when you're joyful, you're smiling. And also make sure that when you are sad you are not considering yourself helpless or fearful those are extremely different emotions. And you want to be very, very careful. How exactly do you feel?

4. DISGUST 

Disgust is a primary emotion for all of us. And as you see disgust is on the opposite polar of trust. Disgust is when you feel anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty. Therefore, when you feel disgusted, you need to ask yourself, what is the root of this emotion, and why do I feel that way?

You need to label it correctly so that you can find ways to reverse-engineer it and turn it into the opposite of it, which is trust. And trust has something to do with faith.

5. ANTICIPATION

Anticipating means that, you know you're expecting that's an expectation. So, anticipation as you see is on the opposite polar of surprise. When you're surprised, it's all unknown and uncertain. When you anticipated, you have certainty. So that anticipation gives you power.

Tony Robbins always says anticipation is power, even in business and relationships. If you can anticipate, what can go wrong and if you can prepare yourself to overcome those challenges and whatever goes wrong so you are not prepared. You're anticipating, it cannot stop you.

6. SUPRISE 

you know, how have you changed your physiology, facial expression from anticipation to surprise, anticipation is more of a flat face right?

Like you're anticipating it and surprises like wow you're, you're surprised, and that's surprise is not supposed to be always positive. You can have very negative surprises like problems and challenges in life that you don't anticipate, but they show up. And that gives you a surprise and babies have that face as well. That's why they're called basic human emotions.

7. TRUST

Trust is one of the deepest parts of our core, where we open up and attached to another human being or to another situation where we feel safe, and there is no danger so that we can turn trust into admiration, acceptance, and embracing.

When you trust the process, when you have faith in what is going on, in the timing of your life, you will be able to accept and stop arguing with your reality. And that is one of the greatest skills that you can ever have.

8. JOY 

When you bring joy, when you are joyful, life has a positive meaning. When you have joy, you have ecstasy. When you have ecstasy, you have bliss and it comes from serenity and peace. When you have joy, you can have all these positive emotions and override the negative ones.

So why is it important to know? All these basic emotions? Like I said, again, most of the time, unfortunately, we name them incorrectly. And when you name your emotions incorrectly, there is no way to understand your human behaviors and the root causes of them. 

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