Feelings and Anxiety
Emotions are important. They help keep you alive and aid in achieving your goals. Emotions also protect you from dangers and can provide a sense of satisfaction and joy. At the same time, emotions can be challenging and hinder your ability to connect well with others. Therefore, it makes sense to pay attention to your feelings, gaining insight into which emotions and experiences are linked to your behavior, and what meaning and significance you attribute to these feelings, experiences, and reactions.
Your feelings and behavior are regulated by three systems in the brain. Have you ever heard phrases like “we usually…” or “it’s easier to…”? Or have you ever pushed so hard to achieve a goal that you burned yourself out? If so, you’ve encountered these systems. Do you also understand their purpose and interplay? You can learn more about them here.
Are you familiar with emotions such as anxiety, angst and nervousness?
If so, you’ve encountered the threat and protection system. Its purpose is to protect you from dangers. This system also exists in other mammals and is regulated by the emotions of anger, fear, and overvinde angst. When these emotions take control, fight, flight, freeze, or surrender behavior is triggered. Your thoughts may be influenced by thinking such as “better safe than sorry,” “it’s easier to…,” and “we usually…”. These thoughts arise to protect you from dangers. While they are beneficial to have, they can also interfere to the extent that they hinder you from doing what you truly desire.
The threat and protection system are marked by conflicts. You cannot both fight and flee, so you may become passive or adopt a strategy of maintaining status and power. The strategy aims to preserve self-confidence but can also lead to social angst, low self-esteem, and hinderance in achieving goals. Try, for a week, to note when during the day you had thoughts like “better safe than sorry,” “it’s easier to…,” and “we usually…” or similar thoughts. This will provide insight into situations triggering your threat and protection system. With this understanding, you can better assess whether these thoughts prevent you from achieving your desires or if it is reasonable and realistic for the threat and protection system to be active in protecting you.
Are you familiar with feelings of desire and energy?
I hope you are because it is a good feeling. This feeling comes from the motivation and engagement system. The purpose of this system is to guide you toward essential resources like food, warmth, territory, and alliances. The system controls your desire, and you experience an energetic, pleasurable, and stimulated state. The downside of the system is that it can also lead to dependencies, such as exercise addiction or intoxicating substances.
The system can also manifest as being energetically engaged in avoidance behavior, i.e., avoiding dangers, challenges, and obstacles. Alternatively, it can result in symptoms of overload and burnout. To overcome conflicts and potential dangers in this system, it must be in balance with the other two systems. In modern Western societies, you can easily overstimulate this system. As a small exercise, write down things you want and how strongly you desire them. Do you feel it is necessary to check social media or news multiple times a day? Is it important and necessary to be highly engaged in your appearance, friends, work, family, and leisure activities? Then, it’s your motivation and engagement system at play! It gives you a good and engaged feeling, which is positive, but you cannot be there all the time. You also need the last system: The system for satisfaction and social security to avoid symptoms of stress.
Are you familiar with feelings of satisfaction and well-being?
I hope you are because it is a good feeling and essential for balancing your emotions and keeping yourself healthy. The system for satisfaction and social security is at play here, and it needs to balance the threat/protection and engagement/motivation systems.
When it’s not necessary for you to fight or flee from dangers or be engaged in obtaining access to resources, power, and safety, the system for satisfaction and social security comes into play. The purpose of the system is to regulate the other two systems, providing you with a sense of well-being and that you’re not striving for something.
Among larger mammals, this system is well-developed. Its purpose is to develop sociability, shaping and supporting good cooperation. The system is necessary to maintain kindness and friendliness toward others.