VI/48. Emotions
Brains are rational, except for their emotions.
There is no greater happiness than to be able to bury the turmoil of bad emotions and experience the deep and prolonged joy of the best ones. Achieve that in all your years and you will be rich indeed.
––John Roberts
Emotions that are acknowledged are partly neutralized.
––Dr. Robert Buckman, Cancer is a word, not a sentence, 2006
In every one of us the deepest emotions are constantly caused by some absurdly trivial thing, or by nothing at all. The great things in our lives––the true occasions for wrath, anguish, rapture, what not––very often leave us quite calm. We never can depend on any right adjustment of emotion to circumstance.
––Max Beerbohm, Yet Again, 1909
The long-term survivors were the ones who began to pay attention to their feelings. As they expressed their emotions, made wise choices and became more spiritual, their bodies benefited. The physical changes were the side effects of an altered life.
––Bernie S. Siegel, M.D., Prescriptions for Living, 1998
Emotions change our cells through the same molecular pathways as exercise. Anger, stress and loneliness are signals for “starvation” and chronic danger. They “melt” our bodies as surely as sedentary living. Optimism, love and community trigger the process of growth, building our bodies, hearts and minds.
––Henry S. Lodge, M.D., “You Can Stop Normal Aging,”
Parade, March 18, 2007
Emotions are the true instruments for change.
The patient’s emotions supply the only source of power capable of shifting the weights of conduct. By alleviating fear, reinforcing conscience mechanisms, intensifying guilt where absent, encouraging pride, reducing inappropriate shame, the power of the emotions can be mobilized to force actions to change behavior from self-destructive to self-fulfilling.
Willard Gaylin, M.D., Talk is Not Enough, 2000
In order to fight cancer, we must first reduce the natural fear, anger, and worry that come with the news. It helps to have practiced this in earlier difficulties. It is best done by becoming well-informed about the problem, knowing the alternatives, and understanding the treatments and outlook. Concentrating on working the problem helps keep harmful emotions from taking over. Correct information overcomes groundless emotion.
Few people know how much emotion adversely affects their behavior, their health, and their future. Emotional control is essential to success and happiness in life, never more than when we face chronic illness and the threat of death. The essence of this is that we must learn to set aside or control the “bad” emotions, and strengthen the value of good ones. Most people have trouble in enabling that distinction. Prolonged emotions that hurt can cause unhealthy physical changes, and those that feel good accomplish the reverse. Once we control our emotions, we may concentrate on controlling our activity, thoughts, and happiness every day, and thereby improve our health and strength to fight disease.
Psychologists often list four basic emotional categories into which other emotions may be grouped: happiness, sadness, anger and fear. There are also distinctions between sentiments
(attitudes toward something) and moods (states of mind). There may also be disagreements about where to put important feelings like love or hatred. It is not too important how we group them, but very important how we deal with those that affect us. It helps to separate each one and try to treat it separately, considering cause and effect.
A highly emotional person may be capable of intense love, but also have difficulty in controlling anger when provoked. But, we also see many people who are loving and compassionate and have learned to suppress and hide any anger they might feel. They have, in other words, designed their outward personality and emotions, even though the underlying feelings may be strong and different. We know, however, that it is sometimes better to open up intense emotions and deal with the causes rather than suppress them and cause greater problems. As we try to stop hurting ourselves, we must also be sure that we do not hurt others.
