Types of Emotions and Feelings

Human beings experience many types of emotions and feelings as we react to

our thoughts and triggers from others and the outside world. Some estimates
show that we can express up to 1000 nuances of emotion.

American psychologist Robert Plutchik created the wheel of emotions to

illustrate eight primary emotions and their varying intensities. It shows how
they are related, which ones are opposing, and how they can blend together.

The word emotion means energy in motion. Your unconscious mind is the
source of emotional states, even though you are aware of them and
experience them consciously.

We tend to classify and judge emotional states as positive or negative, but

that is not accurate. The energy moving through us is neither good nor
bad. For example, joy may be considered desirable and sadness undesirable,
even if sadness is the most appropriate response. Feeling anger when
violated is a normal, instinctual response. How you choose to behave when
angry is another story.

There is also some confusion about whether emotions and feelings are the
same thing. We often use the words interchangeably, showing just how
intertwined the mindbody connection is.

The Difference Between Emotions and

Feelings
Emotions and feelings may be intimately interconnected, but they are not the
same thing. They occur in different regions of the brain.

Emotions have played a vital role in our survival. For the most part, they are
encoded in our genes and similar from person to person and between
species. They are physical and instinctual. You recognize expressions of
happiness, sadness, anger and fear in others because you respond the same
way. They help us respond biochemically to our environment including threats
and rewards.

The amygdala is important in emotional arousal. It controls the release of

neurotransmitters that consolidate memory and keep them strong and long-
lasting.
 amygdala
Feelings follow emotions. They originate in the neocortex and are based on
subconscious responses to your emotions. These responses vary based on
your mental associations, experiences, beliefs, and memories.

Feelings in turn bring up other emotions, and the cycle continues. You can,
however, consciously interrupt this cycle by choosing to respond consciously
in a way that alters the types of emotions and feelings you experience in a
given situation.

Three Types of Feelings

There are only three types of feelings - pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.
Emotionally induced feelings span the range of feeling really good to
downright awful. As mental states ebb, intensify and shift, you feel
corresponding physiological changes, or feelings, as various body
sensations.

When you say, "I feel anxious, angry, happy...", you are interpreting emotion
by how it feels in your body. When I imagine public speaking, my 'energy in
motion' feels like butterflies in my stomach. I translate that sensation as
apprehension or fear.

As humans, we respond to self talk with different types of emotions and

feelings, followed by actions. Actions and responses cause mental states to
shift, and so the cycle continues. Sometimes it appears as though emotions
are flowing without any preceding thought at all. They may cause you to act or
react, for better or worse, before you can even consciously think about it.

For example, you see a car speeding towards you (trigger). This causes you
to perceive a threat (thought) that induces fear (emotion). Unpleasant feelings,
such as taking a sharp breath and a pounding heart follow. You respond by
slamming on the brakes or veering out of the way (action). You see he missed
you (trigger), you mutter under your breath (thought), feel a mixture of anger
and joy that you escaped unharmed (emotion), breathe a sigh of relief
(feeling) and continue on your way (action).

Plutchik's Types of Emotions Wheel

We experience countless shades of emotions that continuously ebb and flow.
They can be classified into groups of primary emotions.

Plutchik's wheel of emotions was created as a model to describe human

emotions. He proposed that all people experience a basic set of eight primary,
or biologically primitive emotions. They directly relate to behaviors that help us
adapt and improve our chances of survival. Our many and varied types of
emotions stem from primary emotions, which vary in intensity and combine
together to make new emotions.

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The eight sectors of Plutchik's Wheel show the primary emotions. Each state
has an opposite. Emotions are related and increase in intensity as you move
toward the center of the circle. Annoyance is a mild form of anger. Rage is
intense anger. The white areas show the emotion that is related to the two
emotions near it. For example, serenity and acceptance combine as love.

Of course, humans are not this simple. You are always experiencing and
expressing emotions, and can experience several in close succession. You
easily move up and down the intensity scale in a matter of seconds. Each
emotion can be accompanied by different types of feelings.

Just watch infants or very young children who have yet to learn how to hide
their feelings to see the range of emotion in action. They express emotions in
rapid succession with every changing thought and it shows just as
instantaneously in their faces and bodies.

Intense emotions and feelings take a lot of energy and are often short-lived.
Ecstatic love and its rush of happy love hormones fade to serenity and
acceptance. Some people confuse this with falling out of love, but really this is
just a calm, more natural, enduring state.

Using Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions for

Healing
Besides being a model that shows the relationship of different types of
emotions to each other, the wheel can be used as a visual aid for emotional
and mental healing.

By observing your emotions, different types of feelings, and what triggers

them, you can gain a great deal of insight into your subconscious
programming. With that understanding, you may be able to open doors to
personal transformation and healing.

Using the wheel you can see which types of emotions are a 'step up' the
scale. You can not easily move up the scale too fast, but you can easily shift
one or two steps to a more pleasant feeling. So if you are expressing rage,
shifting to anger would be a positive shift. You can say you feel terror or calm
it down by choosing the word fear or apprehension instead.

Likewise, you can increase your long term level of optimism by learning to
move up the scale from serenity to joy. Healthy self love grows as you move
up the scale from acceptance to trust and finally true admiration.
The wheel is also a good tool for measuring your progress. For example, if
your thoughts about a past trauma typically induced feelings of terror, and
now it routinely evokes feelings of mild fear, you can see you are moving in a
positive direction.

Emotional Guidance Scale

Another model of categorizing emotions and feelings is the Emotional
Guidance scale. In their book, The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent, Ester
and Jerry Hicks share a scale of 22 emotions. They range from
Joy/Knowledge/Empowerment/Freedom/Love/Appreciation at the top of the
scale down to Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness at the bottom of
the scale.

You use this scale the same way as the wheel to reach for a better feeling
emotion one or two levels up from how you are feeling now. For example, if
you are bored, you can aim for contentment. If you are feeling hatred, you can
move up to anger. From there you can reach for another slight improvement.

Expressing all types of emotions, even negative emotions, is natural and

healthy. When channeled appropriately, they are cleansing and empowering.
Expressing all types of feelings helps you move energy and take action. Only
when negative states become habitual and destructive to yourself and others
do they lose their positive power and become an obstacle to your well-being.
Robert Plutchik's theory[change | change source]

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

Robert Plutchik's theory says that the eight basic emotions are:

 Fear → feeling afraid.

 Anger → feeling angry. A stronger word for anger is rage.
 Sadness → feeling sad. Other words are sorrow, grief (a stronger feeling, for example when
someone has died) or depression (feeling sad for a long time). Some people think depression is
a different emotion.
 Joy → feeling happy. Other words are happiness, gladness.
 Disgust → feeling something is wrong or nasty
 Trust → a positive emotion; admiration is stronger; acceptance is weaker
 Anticipation → in the sense of looking forward positively to something which is going to
happen. Expectation is more neutral.
 Surprise → how one feels when something unexpected happens

Book Two of Aristotle's "Rhetoric"[change | change source]

This theory says that the emotions are:

 Anger, opposite calmness (not feeling excited).

 Friendship, is where people have a bond of joy and will come together and have fun
 Fear, opposite courage (having courage in the face of fear)
 Shame, opposite confidence (shame: how one feels about one's past bad actions or thoughts;
shamelessness: one does not feel shame, but others think one should.)
 Kindness (benevolence), opposite cruelty (kindness: when people are good to other people)
 Pity (when people feel sorry for other people)
 Indignation (feeling angry because something is not fair, such as undeserved bad fortune)
 Envy, jealous (pain when people have something that one wishes for oneself)
 Love, a strong emotion of attachment one feels for someone else. Ranges to family, pets,
friends, boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband or fictional characters.
Darwin's ideas[change | change source]
Darwins The expressions of the emotions in man and animals was a landmark work which is still
used as a source.[1] The following list is taken from the chapter-headings in the book.

 Suffering and weeping

 Low spirits, anxiety, grief, dejection, despair
 Joy, high spirits, love, tender feelings, devotion
 Reflection, meditation, ill-temper, sulkiness, determination
 Hatred and anger
 Disdain, contempt, disgust, guilt, pride, helplessness, patience, affirmation and negation
 Surprise, astonishment, fear, horror
 Self-attention, shame, shyness, modesty, blushing.
The book is famous as being the first scientific book which used photographs as a major part of the
evidence. Emotions, he decided, were behavioural traits which evolved. Darwin pointed out how the
human face is adapted to show many of these emotions: it has muscles for facial movements which
are not possible in other mammals. On the other hand, other mammals do have ways of showing
many of these emotions.
Ekman has taken this idea a step further by studying the way people try to hide their emotions. He
filmed the tell-tale glimpses of brief moments when true emotion is shown on a person's face.[2]

References[change | change source]

1. Jump up↑ Darwin Online: Expression of the emotions. [1]
2. Jump up↑ Ekman, Paul 2003. Emotions revealed: understanding faces and feelings. New York: Holt.
(Edition consulted was ISBN 978-0-7538-1765-0)
Understanding How the Mind Works at Various
Frequency Levels
The human mind is a wonderful and amazing piece of intricate machinery. With particular
regard to hypnosis, the different states of mind we experience, are quite important to
understand how and why hypnotherapy works.

There are two main parts of the human mind

The Conscious Mind

This is the analytical and critical part of our brain that governs our awareness or
consciousness at any point in time. It is the final processing point for our decisions, actions
or reactions in daily life which we are aware that we are making.

The Subconscious Mind

This is the 'deeper' part of the mind that is responsible for processing thousands of things
at any one time and for storing everything we have experienced in our lives in differing
degrees of importance. It sort of runs on 'Auto Pilot' without us even realizing it is doing so
much. In this respect it is much like the hard drive of a computer that stores information that
is accessed by the other parts of the computer/mind.

(Many other recognized institutions and researchers also refer to the 'unconscious mind'
which is usually concerned with regulating the automated processes of the physical body.
For the purposes of this article and also the school of belief that Mind Motivations and The
Australian Academy of Hypnosis subscribes to, the subconscious mind encompasses the
'unconscious' mind also.)

The mind operates at 4 predominant Brainwave States or Frequencies

These different states are classified according to the speed of the predominant brainwave
signals from one neurological point to another at any one point in time. This speed and
frequency is measured in 'Hertz' and the figures are obtained using an Electrocardiogram
(EEG) machine.
For the purposes of this article from a hypnosis perspective we are not covering the
'Gamma' ranges which exist beyond 40Hz...

1. Beta: This is where our mind usually operates in daily life. In such a state we have full
conscious awareness and attention of everything around us and usually only one side of
brain is operating. Beta is usually typified by brainwave cycles of 15 to 40 Hz (cycles per
second) Higher cycles of Beta Frequency usually equate to stress, anxiety and 'over
thinking' as the conscious mind becomes misguided or reacts negatively to a given
situation. High brainwave beta frequency also equates to hypertension, increased heart
rate, increased blood flow, cortisone production and glucose consumption. Generally
speaking, you do not want to experience the high beta state too often if you are concerned
about your health. (Some techniques are included below to ensure this does not happen)

2. Alpha: A mild daydream or light relaxation state. Operating in Alpha can be

exemplified to when you are driving a car and just cruising around or when you get
captivated into a good book and sort of lose track what is happening around you. Meditation
is usually aimed at achieving Alpha and the brain operates in cycles between 9Hz & 14Hz.
Alpha is typified by partial conscious awareness and partial subconscious predominance at
the same time. It is useful to absorb information when in Alpha and is considered to be
highly desirable for more effective studying. Alpha promotes more of the left side of the
brain to be used for processing.

3. Theta: Deep relaxation where the conscious mind is, for the most part, 'switched off',
and the subconscious mind is left to flourish. This is usually typified by sleep, dreaming,
very deep relaxation and is where most hypnotists aim at taking their clients down to. Theta
shows brainwave cycles operating at 5hz to 8hz. Theta is where ideas, visualizations and
suggestion are more likely to enter the subconscious mind and consciously we become less
aware of what is going on around us.

4. Delta: Extremely deep relaxation/sleep with complete subconscious operation. Delta is

experienced in the deepest of sleeps and is interesting because it is proven that the
physical body begins to recuperate and recover at a heightened level. You can be in waking
delta if you are in an advanced state of meditation. This state is associated with 'kundalini'
experiences. Delta is typified by slow brainwaves at 1Hz - 4Hz. It is interesting to note that a
very skilled hypnotist who can take the client into Delta, is able to perform such phenomena
as using hypnosis as a replacement for anesthesia during various medical surgery and this
has been documented on numerous occasions medically and scientifically.

Transitioning Between the Different States

Although the human mind naturally switches between the different states of mind according
to the current environment, situation, people or happenings of the individual, it is possible to
artificially stimulate the brain into the different levels. As an extreme example when we are
involved in a serious accident or injury, people sometimes enter into coma state. This is the
brain's way of performing an emergency response to automatically enter into the deepest
realms of delta for heightened physical recovery, trauma protection and mental recovery.
This is a very good example of the brain's natural response to a situation where it lowers
brainwave activity for instinctual protection means.
On the other hand, we can artificially induce a change in mental state for both positive and
at times, not beneficial purposes. Stage hypnotists often invoke a sudden shift in brainwave
frequency through a rapid hypnotic induction in the person to enter theta for entertainment
purposes. Although many people find this funny and it does illustrate the power of hypnosis,
there is no real positive purpose in doing this other then to have a laugh. There are many
examples of irresponsible use of these techniques for Mass Manipulation, and these are
simply a tragic use of something that can be so powerful for positive change.

There are many ways to artificially invoke a person to operate at different brainwave
frequency states. These include hypnosis, meditation, music and audio, massage, drugs,
alcohol, yoga, pilates, video games, TV, driving, reading and many more just to name a few.
This can be very useful indeed. By learning the best way to lower your mind state to Alpha,
Theta and even Delta, it is possible create numerous positive emotional, mental and
physical benefits. For instance hypnosis is fantastic to instate the client into theta and then
responsibly use direct suggestion, which is more fully absorbed by one's subconscious
mind, to create permanent and lasting changes in the mind and body.

Meditation is also useful to achieve a light Alpha state wherein you can consciously process
information and self suggestion to help change your emotions and feelings. Music and
audio such as binaural beats, white noise, theta rhythm, nature recordings and other slow,
repetitive trance inducing sounds can help you overcome insomnia and sleep better,
perform self meditation, self hypnosis and achieve deep relaxation in the alpha, theta and
at times, delta realms.

Deep relaxation on a consistent daily basis is proven to be advantageous for the

mind and the body! It promotes clarity of thought, focus, better health and heightened
mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.

In any case, if you are constantly stressed and operating in the high Beta levels, or if you
never truly relax and hit Alpha and Theta except for a few hours a night when you sleep,
then it is recognized that you will not be emotionally or physically reaching your optimum
level of health. Worse still it really can have significant effects on your overall health. This is
important to note. Therefore if you are too busy, stressed or have developed certain
conditions which affect you from achieving consistent deep relaxation, you will benefit
immensely from using some of the aforementioned techniques to help lower your brainwave
frequency and achieve some relaxation. This really could change your life for the better in
ways you never thought were possible.

Mind Motivations is a hypnosis organization and website, therefore it may seem that we are
biased in our opinion, however it is our belief and that of many other respected bodies, that
hypnosis, and more importantly hypnotherapy, is the best way to achieve deep relaxation
and benefit from the ability to artificially stimulate the mind into lower activity levels for a
variety of mental, physical and emotional advantages.

Hypnosis is a very powerful means to take the mind of the client or listener into the different
levels of consciousness and brainwave activity. The spoken voice using professional
hypnotic deepenings, inductions and confusion techniques is able to artificially induce
lowered brain wave frequency into the Alpha, Theta and Delta realms. The special audio
frequencies (Neurosonic Frequencies) contained in the background of all of Rick
Collingwood's CDs and MP3s also contains special audio to further this transition. This
means that the transition from Beta to Theta when using Rick's CDs or MP3s is all the more
powerful and perfect to assist people who find it hard to be hypnotized.

So as you can see, the different frequencies at which the brain operates can not only be
artificially induced for positive results but can also be directly targeted to produce more
specific changes in shorter times. If you are interested in hypnotizing yourself and taking
advantage of self visualization or more effective affirmations, then you can use this
knowledge and apply it your own self improvement processes. Armed with this knowledge
you can make more of a conscious effort to understand where your mind is at any point in
time and to control it to your advantage. This is a very powerful skill if you can master it
correctly. In the meantime if you are just beginning, then there are many Self Hypnosis CDs
or MP3s will help you begin to make changes and learn more about how your mind works
on a personal experience.