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are very different in character from each other) and feeling the qualitative difference to the values that are listed there. Then answer yourself honestly:
Which of these tables is more about me?
We regularly note at the trainings that one of the tables is for each person, people immediately determine which values are more relevant for them as a whole in life.
• Next, it is important to establish a hierarchy of needs. It is necessary to note which table is in the first place for you, which is in the second, which is in the third. For example, in the first place is a table with the need for security, in the second – the need for love, in the third – respect. This means that you don’t pay much attention to values that are in third place.
• In order to study your values much deeper, it is necessary to work with each table separately. Write down those values that are important to you on a piece of paper from each table. This stage is important because one and the same need for security can be met through different values – someone satisfies the need for security with the help of information, someone through a large number of connections with other people in order to receive support.
• Then you need to build a hierarchy among your values. There is a special exercise that demands time and sincerity, it will likely seem unpleasant. The exercise aims at double-checking your value system. You need to remove one value from your list, each time answering the question: “And if you had to give up one thing, what would it be the first?”
When you crossed out one value, the next stage – “What would you give up now?” And so on until the end of the list.
This exercise is usually painful, because we gradually refuse the lower value for the sake of a greater value, and in the end, priorities will be set in their real way. After completing this exercise, a surprise will wait for us. After having lived through each value and sensation, you have to give up it; you look at your value system with tenderness, with a sense of inner agreement. The value which you gave up first will be at the end of the list. The value which you have not completely given up will be at the top of the values. Since we will have values from all three needs on this list, it will be obvious what your need is really leading. For example, it may turn out that all the values from the need for security will be at the bottom of the list, and at the top there will be values of the need for love, or vice versa. In this way you can look honestly at yourself. Perhaps, you worry about things that are actually not so important to you most of the time in your life. This is worth realizing while doing this exercise.
What is important to remember:
1. Values are something that satisfies our current needs.
2. Anti-values create even greater urgency of need.
3. Each need has special values that may conflict, or contradict each other.
4. Knowledge of our values and their hierarchy can resolve internal conflicts, set true goals.
5. The saturation of life with true values leads to a feeling of happiness.
6. Happiness is a real satisfaction with oneself and one’s life.
Emotions
Emotions are a mental process grabbing the whole person, which change his thoughts, biochemistry, sensations and behavior. As have already been mentioned, the purpose of emotions is to establish the significance of certain conditions to meet actual needs. Based on emotions, we unconsciously conclude whether there is anything valuable in the upcoming event or phenomenon and make a decision how to act.
For example, you are invited to a birthday, immediately there is an emotion of either desire or resistance. It most likely depends on how much communication with this person satisfies your needs. If the communication with him satisfies your needs, you will agree, if not, you will find a reason to refuse. But it happens that the person who invites you is unpleasant in communicating, but you think that he can affect your life, and communicating with him will bring satisfaction to needs in the future. Then you will feel several emotions at once, which will unite into a single feeling.
Feelings are emotions of a higher order. Their goal is to single out phenomena that have stable motivating significance.
Let’s compare feelings and emotions, what are their differences.
Emotions and feelings arose in the process of evolution, but feelings are associated with the ability to think, reason and draw conclusions, and only the modern part of the brain – the neocortex is capable of this. Emotions are born in the more ancient part of our brain – in the limbic system.
Emotions show us what is important for us now, while feelings indicate a direction towards unchanging values.
Emotions are fleeting, they can change dozens of times per minute, if it is eventful. Feelings are very stable, they are based on deep convictions and they are not so easy to shake and change.
There is a simple example: a person can sit in a comfortable apartment with a loved one, experience emotions of joy and tenderness, but feel fear in the background, as changes are coming at work, and this situation according to the personal experience and beliefs, does not lead to anything good.
A feeling can contain one and many emotions at the same time and can express any of them. For example, a person may experience a surge of tenderness when he sees a small kitten – it will be an emotion. And if he always feels tenderness at the sight of any kitten, as he had a cat in childhood and convinces that there is nothing nicer in the world, so this is a feeling. This is an example where a feeling contains one emotion, and that’s why the external expression of a feeling and an emotion will coincide.
It is more difficult when the feeling is multi-component and contains several emotions. For example, guilt contains 4 emotions: fear, anger, sadness, desire. A person experiencing this feeling can express it through any of these emotions. For example, his emotional habit may be an expression of the emotion of anger when he feels guilty. Feeling guilty is very uncomfortable for living, a person experiences unpleasant sensations, so he often wants to run away from them, in this example, to anger. It will seem that such a person does not feel guilty, that he is angry, but this is not true. Another emotional habit is to express guilt through sadness, then a person seeks to retire, dive in himself, cry and do nothing. Sometimes it seems that the mood is changeable, as the expressed emotions can replace each other in a chaotic manner. So a guilty person can first swear loudly, then shut himself up and even cry, the next moment run away, afraid of punishment, then swear and scream again, and at some point become too helpful to compensate for the damage.
In general, feelings of guilt and resentment deserve special attention and a separate chapter, as they monitor the implementation of the system law, which we will consider later.
Let’s first understand what emotions tell us. Everything is actually very simple if you read and use the information that emotions convey to us from the present moment, right here and now. If you do not understand your emotions and ignore them, then they are woven into tangles of emotional tension and turn into multi-component feelings that are difficult to understand without special knowledge and training.
At first, there are many psychological models that offer different emotions as basic ones. We suggest taking emotions that differ in internal sensations. Our task is to learn to distinguish them within ourselves, and then to learn how to express them in such a way as to live them in the present moment and not to pull a long emotional train through our lives. Darwin also identified 7 basic emotions: fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame, surprise. After a while, S.S. Tomkins added interest to this list, and A. Lowen added tenderness as an experience of agreement and acceptance.
1. Joy
2. Desire
3.