All about the emotions

11 November 2021

There’s just something about time change that triggers heightened emotions for me. I thought it would be different moving to a place where there’s less of a disruption in daylight patterns, but I guess not. Everything feels more intense, but it’s comforting to know that, once the winter solstice passes, everything will seem a little more even keel.

There’s been a lot written on emotional regulation thanks to the pandemic adding another layer to our collective emotional instability. An article I read this morning introduced me to Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions:

I imagined spinning it to see where it might land.

I knew that it is easier to get sucked into negativity than positivity, but the article made me realize why. There are more negative emotions than there are positive ones. It’s a basic evolutionary matter of survival. And, the more we fight those natural survival mechanisms, the more miserable we can become.

We can all benefit from taking a moment to analyze the why behind what we are feeling, especially if it’s the strongest of all of the emotions – fear. I believe that fear is driving most of our angst now. Fear of a very a uncomfortable death thanks to the pandemic, fear of disrupted social institutions (no matter which “side” you associate with), fear of an unstable economy, fear of the unknown. And, sometimes, just fear of the dark.