Why You Feel the Way You Do

By Reneau Z. Peurifoy, M.A.

It was long ago that Roman poet Catullus (84-54BC) said, “We hate and we love, can one tell me why?” Have you ever wondered . . . Why You Feel the Way You Do?

Now is the time for you to discover what’s hiding behind the negative emotions, unhealthy response patterns and distorted thinking that keeps many from living a happier and more fulfilling life. Why You Feel the Way You Do takes you on a journey beyond your personality, your DNA, and your family upbringing, to pinpoint critical issues and self-destructive thought patterns that influence your well-being, followed by practical tools for managing negative emotions in a healthier way.

• Learn about the emotional circuits we share with our pets.
• Discover ways to quiet destructive emotional triggers.
• Understand the role of guilt/shame and ways to manage them.
• Reduce the negative effects of social media and devices.
• Identify common destructive response patterns and learn how to change them.
. . . plus much more!

In Why You Feel the Way You Do, author Reneau Z. Peurifoy helps you emerge from those nagging, unhealthy emotional barriers, while providing practical ways to experience more joy in your daily life. Moving beyond emotional problems, Peurifoy also explores what positive psychology has recently learned about the three most important emotional factors that impact personal happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DeVorss Publications
• Release date: May 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9780875169323

Reneau Z. Peurifoy, M.A.

RENEAU Z. PEURIFOY, M.A. has the rare ability to reduce complex ideas into simple terms and provide practical ways to apply them to daily life. He is an internationally known author with over 300,000 copies of his books in print and multiple foreign translations. They include: Anxiety, Phobias & Panic: Taking Charge and Conquering Fear, Overcoming Anxiety: From Short-Term Fixes to Long-Term Recovery, and Anger: Taming the Beast. He has also appeared on numerous radio and television programs as well as on many podcasts. The Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), the nation’s primary organization for anxiety-related problems, has invited him to speak at eleven of their national conferences. Learn more about Reneau at www.whyemotions.com and on his youtube channel.

Book preview

Introduction

I grew up in a home filled with many different types of animals. In addition to a dog and cat, we had a parrot, rabbits, and chickens. Our parrot, Greeny, was my favorite. He would sit on a perch in the middle of the table when we ate breakfast and sometimes at other meals. It became his routine to leave his perch and walk over to one of our plates to sneak a piece of food that he liked, then return to his perch. Or sometimes after eating his food, he enjoyed sitting on my leg and having his head rubbed on a small bald spot.

Interacting with all these animals gave me a keen interest in animal behavior. This interest was sharpened in high school when I read about the work of Konrad Lorenz, one of the founding fathers of the field of ethology, the study of animal behavior. It fascinated me to learn how the birds Lorenz studied formed an immediate bond between a newly hatched bird and its caregiver, which he termed, imprinting.

While majoring in biology at university, my main interest was always animal behavior. After graduating, I earned a secondary teaching credential and taught for five years.

During this period, I had a good friend, Tim, who was a counselor. Listening to his experiences convinced me that I had found my calling. While earning my master’s degree in counseling, I found cognitive behavioral psychology the most appealing of the various types of therapy I studied. The idea that you can change many types of dysfunctional behaviors by changing how you think and practicing new behaviors matched my previous interest in animal behavior.

As I began working in the field of anxiety disorders, I found the cognitive behavioral approach worked well. However, there were times when something more was needed with deeply ingrained emotional responses. Because of this, I trained in additional approaches such as hypnotherapy, neurolinguistic programing (NLP) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).

Writing this book gave me the opportunity to delve into the new discoveries that have been made in the field of affective neuroscience, the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. These findings not only provide a clearer understanding of why we have emotions, and how they work, but also reveal the deep connection we have with all other mammals–something every pet owner understands.

In writing this book, I decided to structure it in the form of a narrative arc that would begin with a brief overview of how emotions are generated by these circuits deep in the brain. It then uses this research as a springboard for the main sections of the book that deal with the various types of difficult emotional reactions that everyone experiences from time to time. And the final section describes what the emerging field of positive psychology has discovered. This area of research focuses on well-being, success, and high-functioning individuals. The popular press often refers to this as the science of happiness.

My work as a clinician helping people struggling with difficult emotions provides an important inspiration for my writing. I always want to go beyond simply providing interesting information and include practical tools that readers can use to live more successful and happy lives. Because of this, I include a section titled, Things to Do at the end of each chapter. The activities in this section come from my years of both reading about emotions and working as a therapist.

Even if you are only reading this book to gain new information, I encourage you to do the activities as they provide practical ways to hear more clearly the messages that your emotions are telling you, and provide tools for managing emotions that may have been difficult to experience or may have caused you to do things you later regretted.

As you read through the chapters, you’ll find that some activities are easy, while others are more challenging and may even make you uncomfortable. Those that you find to be easy, probably deal with skills that are already part of how you manage emotions. Those you find difficult or uncomfortable will most likely involve skills and ideas that are new to you or that you are still learning to master. Either way, I think you’ll find taking time to work through them well worth the effort.

Because this book is intended for a general audience, I have kept footnotes to a minimum and only included them when a term might be new to the reader. If you wish to learn more about any of the people or areas of research mentioned, a search on the Internet will provide a wealth of information. Now, let the journey begin!

Chapter 1:

The Seven Core Emotional Systems

We hate and we love, can one tell me why?

– Catullus (84-54 BC)

Emotions are such an essential part of who you are. Indeed, life would be empty and meaningless without them. Love, joy, and the excitement of new discoveries can make life a wonderful experience. At the same time, fear, anger, and sadness can intrude into your life and produce misery beyond what words can express.

This chapter lays the foundation for understanding why we have emotions. This understanding is built upon in later chapters that show you how to manage them more effectively. It starts with a look at what science has learned about emotions over the past hundred years. Then, it describes the seven basic emotions humans share with all other mammals, the circuits that generate these emotions, and how these circuits come to be activated and regulated by the thinking part of the brain¹.

AFFECTS

While love, sadness, anger, pity, and fear have been written about for thousands of years, they were not grouped together under a single psychology term until relatively recently. In 1859, the Scottish psychologist Alexander Bain used the word emotion to cover all that is understood by feelings, states of feeling, pleasures, pains, passions, sentiments, and affections. This use of the word emotion began a fundamental shift in the vocabulary used to describe how the mind works. The only problem was that, for the next hundred years, there was no agreement on what emotions were and how they were triggered.

The word emotion itself is derived from the Latin verb emovere which means to move out. And this is what emotions do: The word describes feelings that urge you to act in some way. For example, fear causes you to want to get away from whatever is causing you to be afraid.

Today, the field of neuroscience² uses the term affect to describe the various types of feelings and emotions you experience. Affects themselves are classified into three categories.

The first category includes sensory affects, such as the sweetness you experience when sugar is placed on the tongue or the experience of heat or cold. The second category is homeostatic affects³. These drive you to take the actions needed to satisfy the physical needs of your body, such as hunger and thirst that drive you to eat and drink water. The third category comprises your emotional affects–the ones this book is about.

Currently, neuroscience has identified seven core emotion systems in the brains of all mammals. Each system triggers the same behaviors in animals and humans. While there is no way of knowing what animals are experiencing, when these systems are triggered in you, they produce the feelings that we call emotions.

THE SEVEN EMOTIONAL SYSTEMS

The discovery of the brain’s emotional systems began with Walter Hess. He was one of the first people to identify portions of the brain associated with a specific emotional effect. While experimenting with cats in the 1930s, he found he could trigger different behaviors by applying tiny electric impulses to different parts of the hypothalamus, an interior part of the brain. When he did this, cats would display defensive and aggressive behaviors or curl up and go to sleep, depending on the location that was being stimulated with the electrical impulse.

In the 1990s, Jaak Panksepp coined the term affective neuroscience, which today is seen as a discipline that studies the brain mechanisms underlying emotions. Currently, seven emotional systems have been identified in the brains of humans and every other mammal that has been studied.

These seven emotional systems are foundational tools for living that are built into us at birth. For example, it is not necessary to teach babies or young animals to become angry, fearful, or to panic. At the same time, these systems are shaped by experience, and change as a person or animal learns how to adapt to life’s challenges.

The systems that produce the various pleasurable feelings you experience include the SEEKING, LUST, CARE, and PLAY emotional systems. Along with these are three systems that produce unpleasant feelings: FEAR, RAGE, and PANIC. Neuroscientists capitalize each of these words to indicate that they are referring to primary emotional systems in the brain. This helps distinguish these terms from the way we usually use each word.

The SEEKING/Desire System is essential for all the other emotional systems to operate effectively. It generates an urge to explore and engage with the world with eager curiosity and interest. You see this in young mammals, such as kittens and puppies, as they explore and learn about their environment. You also see this in infants as they stare with fascination at their hands and learn to coordinate their bodies. Later, as they gain the ability to crawl and then walk, this system urges them to explore their world. The SEEKING system helps animals find and eagerly anticipate all kinds of resources needed for survival, such as water, food, and warmth. As an adult, this system helps you become absorbed in the things that interest you and explore new possibilities.

The PLAY/Physical Social- Engagement system urges both young children and young mammals to engage in physical play like wrestling, running, and chasing each other. This type of play helps them bond socially and learn social limits, what behaviors are permissible, and what behaviors are taboo. In humans, this carries over in the ribbing and joking that continues to add fun in adulthood as well as the many other forms of adult play. While the circuits identified with the PLAY system are in the inner part of the brain, brain imaging shows the outer portion of the brain where you do your thinking lights up during play. This corresponds with research which indicates that play enhances learning. It also shows that these circuits deep inside of your brain become tightly integrated with those in the outside, thinking portion.

The CARE/Maternal Nurturance system seems to be mostly found in mammals, and helps to ensure that mammalian parents have a strong desire to take care of their offspring. You also see this system active in young children who seem to have a natural affinity to exhibit nurturing behaviors, reflected in a love of animals, certain toys, stuffed animals, or dolls.

Both the CARE system, along with the PANIC system, plays an important role in generating feelings of empathy and sympathy when bad things happen to others, but especially to those we love. It also plays a role in the formation of friendships and the love you feel towards those you are close to.

The LUST/Sexual System in mammals and other types of animals ensures reproduction. In humans, it’s imprinted within infant brains during the second trimester. However, the sexual desire generated by this system only becomes fully awakened by the flood of sex hormones that are secreted during adolescence.

The RAGE/Anger system helps an animal protect both itself and the things it needs to survive by attacking threats. This system produces what we normally call anger when it is highly active and irritation when it is only mildly active.

The FEAR/Anxiety system helps all mammals reduce pain and the likelihood of destruction. It promotes freezing in place when danger is far away and flight when it’s near. It helps you identify and predict potential threats. It also plays a key role in strengthening memories associated with danger, so it can be avoided in the future. When danger is unavoidable, the RAGE/ Anger system activates.

The PANIC/Separation- Distress system is found in all young mammals who depend on maternal care for survival. It is seen in the distress that both human and animal babies show when separated from their caregivers. The cries, prompted by the PANIC system, activate the CARE system in the parent, motivating the parent to find and comfort its baby. You also experience this system with the sadness you feel when separated from loved ones.

While we share the SEEKING, LUST, RAGE, and FEAR emotional systems with reptiles and fish, the CARE, PANIC, and PLAY systems seem to be more uniquely mammalian and give both us and other mammals our more complex social abilities.

Even though the inner part of your brain (the subcortex) has the same structures that generate emotions as other mammals, the outer part where you do your thinking (the cortex) is much larger. In fact, it’s the largest part of your brain.

When considering the function of these seven inborn positive and negative emotions, we see that they serve as rewards and punishment that trigger behavior needed to both survive and thrive. Imagine, for example, being stung by hornets flying out of a nest that you accidentally disturbed. Suddenly, you become filled with fear and race away from the nest without the need to think about it. Once a safe distance is reached, and you sense you are out of danger, relief is felt.

The fear associated with this memory will now help you avoid being stung again by causing you to be more vigilant when outdoors. In the same way, behavior that produces positive feelings causes you to want to repeat the behavior. When a parent smiles at a child, it encourages the child to repeat the behavior that caused the parent to smile.

HOW CHILDHOOD