What are emotions?
Emotions are natural psychological and biological responses that are activated in our head and body. They appear in reaction to events (external or internal) and are adaptive, which means that they all have a function of responding to one of our needs.
The primary/fundamental emotions are those which we develop during our early years: joy, anger, fear, disgust, surprise and sadness. We all feel these emotions, regardless of our culture and upbringing, but the way in which people express them can vary according to a set of factors (culture, education, gender, etc.).
Secondary emotions, on the other hand, develop during childhood and even until adolescence. They are more complex, more sophisticated, and are often the result of interactions with our environment and our social experiences.
These emotions are neither good nor bad, although we may prefer to experience some of them more than others.
Negative emotions are sometimes contrasted with positive emotions. Indeed, we often prefer the experience of some emotions over others, such as experiencing joy or serenity over sadness or fear.
However, all emotions are useful and worth experiencing, there are no good or bad emotions. We can also enjoy listening to sad music to feel nostalgic or watch a horror movie to feel fear. It is the intensity, the expression and the place that these emotions occupy in our life that can make them invasive and sources of suffering.
