Secondary Emotions: What are we hiding?

In the course of what I do, I often ask the question, "if you had an emotion hiding underneath your first reaction to a situation, what would that emotion be?" For me, understanding that there is often more depth to our emotional stories led me to great personal revelations.

Secondary emotions, as discussed by Neel Burton M.D. in Psychology Today, involves feelings we are hiding, "Our emotions not only reflect and reveal our values, but also enable us to refine them. It is possible to have an emotion about an emotion, such as guilt or shame about envy, and to revise the primary emotion according to the secondary emotion or emotions.

Moreover, some of our emotions can feel clear or transparent, while others are more hazy or equivocal. For instance, our love for truth or justice is experienced as profound and authentic, whereas our resentment or disdain for a person of higher virtue or accomplishment lacks resonance and leaves us uneasy."

I personally found out I was hiding emotions. I believed I was being authentic. Upon further evaluation, I realized my less attractive emotions were immediately avoided by me as "unacceptable".

Ask yourself, "if I had an emotion hiding underneath my first reaction, what would that be?". This can lead you to amazing personal growth. I had been covering up my deeper emotions with what I considered more acceptable emotions. I didn't even realize I was doing it. I thought I was letting events "roll off my back", even when something bothered me.

We all have events that trigger us. Those events are our "red flags" to understand what we need to deal with at a deeper level. Leading an authentic life takes time and reflection. When we chose to dig deeper, new information becomes available to us.

xo
Conni