February 25, 2016
Hi and welcome to this video. In this video, I want to take a few minutes to talk about “positive emotions.” And I emphasize the word “positive” because that word is an assessment. It’s just an opinion that we have about certain things in life. And- and in this case it’s going to be an opinion, or an assessment, about the emotions.
Now where I come from and the training that I did with my coach training from Newfield Network an emotion is something that visits us all the time. In fact it’s the human body that experiences emotions. And what’s really interesting is that that unique observer you and I are of the world, that unique observer that looks out from our eyes, looks out from the window to the soul, that unique observer is the one that’s going to interpret every single emotion that the physical body experiences.
And this comes into play with the two models that I use with in Ontological Coaching and that is the OAR model which stands for Observer, Actions and Results. And the BEL model which stands for Body, Emotions and Language.
Our Human Body Experiences Emotions
So the observer that we are consists of the body, which experiences emotions, and which in turn get to be interpreted. What does this have to do with “positive” emotions? Well I want to show you this one quick slide that I have available for you. And this slide is Dr. Robert Plutchik’s “Wheel Of Emotions.”
Initially Dr. Plutchik had these eight emotions—just on the- on the second ring of this flower—and you can see that every petal of each flower has a range of emotions. So for every eight, that’s the basic, on the second ring, there is also a more rarefied, or a- maybe a higher expression of that particular emotion. And of course there is even a deeper feeling of that emotion. So altogether there is a range of expression of these emotions.
And one thing I want to point out is that, based upon the combinations of these two primary emotions, we get even more emotions of—in this case—optimism and disapproval. So what Dr. Robert Plutchik worked on was pairs; pairs of opposites. And in this case, for example, “joy” is opposite the emotion of “sadness.” And the emotion of “trust” is opposite the emotion of “disgust.”
And so as you take a look and this wheel of emotions, which of these emotions do you assess to be “positive?” And which of these emotions do you assess to be “negative?”
“Positive Emotions” - Expressions Of Energy
Now what’s really interesting for me is that emotions are particular types of energy. In fact the word emotion comes from the French root [“émouvoir”] which means “to be put into motion.” That is to say “E”-motion, the energy within that emotion, is something that puts us into motion. So it doesn’t matter whether the emotion is assessed to be positive or negative. That energy behind that emotion is going to cause us to move in a particular way; it’s going to cause us to take certain kinds of actions.
Now the outcomes of those actions that we take, the results of those actions that we take, that is once again going to be interpreted by that unique observer that you and I are. And that interpretation is going to determine whether or not a particular emotion, has that particular energy which is either positive or negative.
So the idea behind all of this and what it is that I wanted to share with you is that emotions are neither good nor bad. They’re neither positive nor negative. It’s just that they have a certain kind of energy to them, a certain quality of, in some sense, a vibration.
Because let’s go back to that slide again. And you’ll notice the emotions here. Now just take a look at these emotions and identify for yourself what each of these emotions mean to you. For example if you are in the emotion of “joy” say, what kind of energy do you think you’re going to have for yourself? Will you be jumping up and down? Will you be like dancing and meeting with your friends and expressing yourselves in a wonderful way, in a way that becomes satisfactory, that has meaning and value and potentially even happiness for you?
Now contrast that with the emotion of “sadness.” And once again I want you to really embody this emotion; that is to say, just really deeply think about it and notice how it expresses itself within you?
How does sadness show up in your life? This sadness, does it make you jump up and down? Does it make you want to interact with your friends, your family, your peers, your coworkers, your colleagues and even within your community; how does that make you want to interact?
And you’ll notice in the energy vibration, the energy level, the potential for certain types of actions are very different from the emotion of joy say, versus the emotion of sadness. And this is how emotions show up in our life.
One of the claims within Ontological Coaching and within the coaching that I do actually is that we, each of us, you and I, every single human being, by virtue of having a human body, is going to experience an emotion at all times.
The only thing is we may not know what emotion we are in at that time. Because we may not know the vocabulary around that emotion, we may not know those distinctions that we can make, or we just may not be aware of it because it doesn’t factor into our area of importance at that moment.
Once again each of us is in an emotion at all times. And what we choose to do with that energy of emotions, creates that sort of possibilities, the possibilities for actions that we can undertake. So with the emotion of joy, we’re going to undertake a certain set of actions; a certain range of possibilities of actions exist within that emotion of joy.
And for the emotion of sadness, there is another totally different range of possibilities of action, of potential action. That’s not to say that actions that exist here don’t exist here. In fact there may be some overlap. And that’s sort of what these other emotions of “optimism” “love” “submission and so on are supposed to indicate.
So my question to you now is: Now that you know—at least these 32 different emotions that I shared with you—which of those emotions are positive in your life? Which of those emotions are negative in your life?
Wrapping Up Positive Emotions
And it’s funny, if you had asked me maybe several years ago how many emotions I could name, I could only really came about four different kinds emotions. And now I spend the bulk of my day, and the bulk of my time teaching about, sharing about emotions and really learning about these potentials of energy, these potentials that have a range of possibilities for action that will allow me to determine satisfaction, to determine value, to determine meaning from the outcomes of those emotions.
So I hope this has been helpful and if you do have any questions, please don’t hesitate to post below. And once again, all emotions have a potential to have a “positive” effect or a “negative” effect. It’s just a matter of interpretation. How do you as that unique observer that you are, how do you choose to interpret the outcomes of those emotions?
I hope this has been helpful and, once again, please don’t hesitate to post your comments below and share this video. Take care of yourself, have a beautiful day and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye-bye for now.
Click to watch on YouTube: What Are “Positive” Emotions? Learn How To Move Into An Emotion To Create Satisfactory Results