today so today's topic is around primary and secondary emotions so this is a bit of a heated debate on the difference between primary and secondary emotions but I'm going to give you my interpretation of it and the way that I see primary and secondary emotions happening primary emotions as that immediate first emotional response happening to a stimuli a situation or an event with these secondary emotions being the one that comes after and the reason why it's a heated debate is because sometimes we see primary emotions as more of those base level emotions which can be true of course but the reason I say primary emotions are the ones that happen first is because sometimes they are the ones that are a little bit more vulnerable or uncomfortable to experience so I'm going to give some examples as I get go along and what's also ironic is often with primary emotions sometimes we're not immediately aware of the vulnerable emotion happening sometimes we're more aware of the secondary emotion that might be the emotion that's really prominent for us or really dictates the behavior that we have so in the Sterling prompt today it says we have both primary and secondary emotions primary emotions such as sadness are immediate reactions to emotional events so they tend to feel strongest directly after the event or experience secondary emotions are responses to the first emotion and it is possible to feel many secondary emotions related to a Primary Emotion these secondary emotions are often influenced by previous lice events and experiences or significant events in your past so for example if someone gives you a gift your Primary Emotion might be Joy or surprise however you might have a secondary emotion of guilt if you feel like you don't deserve the gift so for this specific example this person really May notice that bad feeling that guilty feeling and it really might be the one that's really prominent in their emotional experience in their Body Sensations but they may not really actually acknowledge as much that there is some Joy or there's some surprise there as that primary emotional experience often our uncomfortable emotions or are ones that come in the secondary forms are the ones that we acknowledge the most so I'm going to do a little bit of another example of a client that I've worked with recently and so he was attending therapy to kind of work on his marriage he acknowledges that he hasn't always been the best Communicator despite having a really professional role and being retired from that role where he was responsible for a lot of communication he found often him and his wife were at their wit's ends because she would often just give him feedback and he wouldn't be able to receive that feedback or respond in a nice way he would often respond in a bit more of aggressive or a hurt way so for example she would ask him hey when you after you wash the laundry could you fold or hang it to dry in this way and so he would go and he says now that at his age he's a bit older he said that sometimes he would forget to do it that way he would go and do it finish folding the laundry finish drying it but he wouldn't quite do in the way that she liked so she would come to him and say hey I I've asked you a million times could you why can't she do it this way and his immediate emotional response would be frustration he would say well I as I was trying to do it the right way I did do it shouldn't you be happy that I did fold and dry the laundry for you so for that situation we kind of dug into it a little bit the secondary emotion he had was a bit of frustration a bit of anger and the reason I asked him what do you feel underneath that anger what is your Primary Emotion it was a bit perplexed because he's like well I felt frustration I was like but frustration is a secondary emotion response it really protects us from feeling that uncomfortable vulnerable base Primary Emotion and so for him his base Primary Emotion was guilt and through that discussion we discovered it was guilt is because he really cares about his wife and he really wants his wife to be proud of him and really grateful for all the chores he helps out with and he didn't really want to let her down and he felt guilty that he keeps forgetting to do it in that specific way and for him that was a really big insightful moment for him because he realized that that guilt was something that he had always struggled with feeling guilt produces such an uncomfortable body sensation and it makes us feel less that in many ways because its guilt says I did something wrong and no one really likes to feel like they did something wrong so that frustration protected him from that guilty experience so hopefully that is a good example or something that might be relatable to all of you around primary and secondary emotions in terms of that Primary Emotion that may feel really sensitive and vulnerable such as guilt or such a shame or such as fear right because those emotions nobody really likes to feel those Body Sensations associated with it nobody likes to feel like they're doing something wrong or they're not good enough because we want to feel included we want to feel good enough and to be able to connect truly with others so in our that situation I was kind of trying to guide him and go why don't you tell her how you feel instead of Defending your actions through frustration so he was like I feel frustration I was like yes you do we're not going to deny that there's that felt a frustration but I think it's important before we share our feelings is to try and find that Primary Emotion and share from that place of the Primary Emotion of I feel guilt that I let you down right right so in the journaling prompt it goes on to tell us that one way to tell whether we may be experiencing a primary or a secondary emotion is to observe how strongly we feel the emotion over time so for example as mentioned primary emotions sadness are strongest right after an emotional event but fade very quickly so secondary emotions such as loneliness often arise later and can last or even grow over time and the reason why this is also an important point is because we avoid that primary emotional experience that's so vulnerable such as sadness or such as guilt they are so intense in that moment right they're so intense that we're like get that off me don't let me feel that I don't want to experience that and so we push through that so quickly in our awareness and all of this happens and in seconds right it doesn't really happen slowly um and it fades really quickly versus the secondary motion such as loneliness loneliness or frustration can long lasting and I think we can all relate to that idea that frustration is something that kind of sticks with us we end up frustrated for the day or for maybe a few hours or loneliness is like a theme that we experience over many days because sadness says that we're missing out on something that we're longing for something and loneliness is longing for that connection with other people or even with ourselves so in that way right we can notice that the way to break down or to start to deal with primary and secondary emotions is through our awareness and this is what's so wonderful about journaling journaling offers that opportunity to check in with ourselves notice how we're feeling what's going on and to really slow down that reaction in terms of primary and secondary emotions because as if I go back to this example of that couple and the husband he he didn't immediately see that difference between his Primary Emotion of guilt and secondary frustration but through talking about it in therapy or through writing about it and really taking time to reflect we are able to notice and see that difference and develop our emotional awareness and that's why in the first part of this emotions Journal it's really about the psycho education it's really about developing our awareness and really breaking down these Concepts that we can use before we start to regulate our emotions and so we're often very quick trying to get to our emotional regulation but through the process of knowing what we're really feeling in primary and secondary emotions we start to really understand who we are who we are at the core what bothers us what shapes us because again our emotions tell us things about the world our emotions are a collection of our intuition and our emotional experience so when we move on to our daily intention and reflection I'll try and give some different writing examples here we can go think of a time when you felt a Primary Emotion followed by a different secondary right so for example um if I was in a bit of a having a hard day and maybe I snapped at someone nearby I might be feeling so frustration right from my day but I also might feel shame right so um so when I'm snapping at someone I feel that shame because I feel like I did something wrong which is fair like ideally I shouldn't treat people around me with hostility but that would be like an example of that shame being the primary and frustration being the secondary so even in your own book you can just write down or as you're listening along think about situations where you have maybe felt a big emotion but ask yourself is there anything beneath that is there a Primary Emotion that's happened as well um so another one could be is sometimes we might feel anxiety would be something as well so anxiety could be that secondary emotion and we're wondering like well what do you mean by that well usually under anxiety is fear and it's fear or it may even be deeper than that it might be um not feeling good enough or it might be a lack of confidence or feeling insecure right that could be at the base and say for a social experience where we might feeling anxious about meeting new people and under meeting new people is the fear of it all and the fear of it all because we might not feel like we're really connecting or it will have the ability to connect with others so those are could be ones so from those I want you guys to try and think some of your own personal examples and feel free to share them with one another in our community space within the chat chat and see if you guys can distinguish between is this the original vulnerable Primary Emotion that I'm experiencing or is this the secondary emotion that may be more long-lasting that the more one that we may acknowledge a little bit easier and it's okay to start with the secondary and then break it down into the primary primary so again that we can develop our ability to know ourselves and then we can connect deeper with others if we don't know ourselves we can't connect as authentically with others right um I don't know if anyone has heard of the idea of like projection of emotions right so sometimes we project our emotions onto others and that might happen with a lack of awareness so for example if someone were to say you think you're so much better than me that emotion when we say that might be anger like be trying to be forceful towards someone else but underneath that might be really sadness or insecurity because we're projecting outward what we feel about ourselves because it's really uncomfortable to feel that Primary Emotion that we're not feeling secure in oneself the second journaling prompt that we have there is what was the primary motion and how did the secondary emotion relate to the Primary Emotion so I think that we're seeing that relationship as I give different examples and hopefully as you guys connect with with one another you can see how the primary and the secondary have such a strong relationship but through the development of our awareness skill and reflection right we'll be able to see that relationship even more and from the Primary Emotion that's where the true inner self-work comes from the growth that we can have of course there's no rush in that growth and there's no right or wrong way to journal in this way but the more that we develop that awareness the more we have growth the more we have connection with one another and it becomes a really wonderful experience and I also wanted to note today that as you are going along today we're on day three we're off a strong start try and see if you can pull together all the concepts that we have so far of like what are our emotions how do we label them using like the feelings wheel so we can use that tool from day two to see how they connect or having more language to describe our emotions and furthermore primary emotions are usually more of the core of the feelings feel versus secondary emotions are usually more of the outer rings of the feelings wheel as well so we can kind of distinguish between the two if you find a secondary motion and you ask yourself what's underneath that if you can't go any further one or two things are happening either we're not quite at that place of awareness that we understand ourselves to be able to determine the primary motion or maybe we don't have the language for and so we can try and keep finding it or we might be at the base Primary Emotion we might be there we might be actually able to identify that vulnerable emotion so there could be a multitude of things happening when we're trying to distill down to the primary English so hopefully this was a helpful idea today around primary secondary emotions how it relates and also we can use the idea of like a timeline or chronologically to determine to be primary and secondary because again primary is that a first automatic response that we have to a situation a stimulus interaction our relationship with self with secondary emotions being the ones that we may notice more prominently so I hope you all have a wonderful day um take the time now to connect with one another Journal it down if you'd like to participate or if you just checked in to listen in thanks so much and I hope everyone has just like a wonderful day foreign 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