Only two emotions?

[razz]

A handful of friends get together weekly for discussion. We were talking about emotions after watching the Pixar movie, Inside Out. Someone mentioned that there are only two emotions - fear and love.
I looked it up to see where this came from.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross > Quotes > Quotable Quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”

I love the idea that they are opposites. Have any tried to deal with anger or guilt or anxiety by drawing on love?

I am annoyed that a problem at one of my volunteer roles has continued to be risky despite many requests to resolve it. So I am examining how to make my point to the Board of the organization but still be loving. It is proving to be challenging.
Any ideas?

[Ultralight]

A handful of friends get together weekly for discussion. We were talking about emotions after watching the Pixar movie, Inside Out. Someone mentioned that there are only two emotions - fear and love.
I looked it up to see where this came from.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross > Quotes > Quotable Quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”

I love the idea that they are opposites. Have any tried to deal with anger or guilt or anxiety by drawing on love?

I am annoyed that a problem at one of my volunteer roles has continued to be risky despite many requests to resolve it. So I am examining how to make my point to the Board of the organization but still be loving. It is proving to be challenging.
Any ideas?

If there is only fear and love then I feel pretty low.

I think I only really love two people and a dog. haha

[Ultralight]

I am annoyed that a problem at one of my volunteer roles has continued to be risky despite many requests to resolve it. So I am examining how to make my point to the Board of the organization but still be loving. It is proving to be challenging.
Any ideas?

This is not my strong suit. But could you start out by explaining why you love the cause, go into a personal story about it, and then lay the critique on them?

[catherine]

any tried to deal with anger or guilt or anxiety by drawing on love?

I am annoyed that a problem at one of my volunteer roles has continued to be risky despite many requests to resolve it. So I am examining how to make my point to the Board of the organization but still be loving. It is proving to be challenging.
Any ideas?

I read A Course in Miracles and Marianne Williamson, so I'm pretty well-versed on the notion of love and fear being opposites. But I don't know how to solve your problem with with your volunteer role.

In market research I actually draw on a different paradigm of emotions--one which states that all emotions are a combination of three dimensions: Pleasure, Arousal, and Dominance. Each of those emotions are measured on a scale and plotted on a quadrant map. So, if you are annoyed, you might score a 2 out of 9 on Pleasure, 6 on Arousal, and 3 on Dominance (that's just an example). This theory is more psychology-based, less New Age based. But it still doesn't really answer your question.

I think your issue is more of a communication one, not an emotional one. It's more about how do I communicate effectively with them, and then, if I don't like what I hear, how do I let it go, or how do I act on it?

[Ultralight]

This whole fear and love being the only two emotions thing is giving me an anxiety attack!

[Chicken lady]

Wel, ultralight, I can give you a (slightly edited) sexist joke as an alternative - "men have two emotions, hungry and horny. If you see him (uninterested) make him a sandwich"

[ApatheticNoMore]

If your volunteer role is physically risky I doubt I'd continue to do it without being at least trained to deal with the threat. Like if you are volunteering with dangerous mentally ill people say, but have no training for this, it's not good.

[Williamsmith]

Whoever can resolve the problem needs to be feeling the risk........or another risk equal or greater than the one you need fixed. Sometimes the opposite of love means getting things done. You can apologized later or ask for forgiveness.

[razz]

The organization rents a room with a kitchen for its monthly meetings for a hefty fee.

Risk is that the supplies that I need or my team needs are stored in a cabinet in a hallway just off the kitchen. To get to the cabinet we need to walk through large unstable items placed in the hallway by building staff which have increased in number despite a year of my asking the president and others for assistance in clearing the path. Large fans on unstable bases, groups of round tables that roll easily on their sides, shop vacs, floor mops and other containers are just a few of the obstacles. If any of the groups of tables starts sliding or some of the top-heavy fans topple, which is easily possible on the tiled floor, the volunteer will be trapped and injured. It all violates fire and safety codes as it is, I am sure.

I can get mad and see the building maintenance manager myself but that is not solving the problem. It is more than a communication issue. We are paying rent for space that is not safe, and at present barely accessible. I won't let my team go to the cabinet as I feel responsible for their well-being. The president and the others keep saying that they agree it is dangerous and that they will speak to the building staff responsible but nothing happens. This has gone on for almost a year now.

The problem is ensuring safety for my team volunteers, paying rent for poor service, unresponsive president and other board members, not knowing who is responsible for contacting the building staff, who the staff contact person actually is and feeling very frustrated by it all.

There are other issues with this president and board but this is the most troubling one. It is so sad when an organization is so weak that anyone willing to fill a seat is elected by acclamation but has neither the time nor the skills to serve the organization's needs. People have joined for a year or two and then leave in despair so the turnover is really high - no follow through.

Do I simply walk away as well?

[Chicken lady]

You could call the fire department.

[Xmac]

Wel, ultralight, I can give you a (slightly edited) sexist joke as an alternative - "men have two emotions, hungry and horny. If you see him (uninterested) make him a sandwich"

:laff:

[Xmac]

A handful of friends get together weekly for discussion. We were talking about emotions after watching the Pixar movie, Inside Out. Someone mentioned that there are only two emotions - fear and love.
I looked it up to see where this came from.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross > Quotes > Quotable Quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”

I love the idea that they are opposites. Have any tried to deal with anger or guilt or anxiety by drawing on love?

I am annoyed that a problem at one of my volunteer roles has continued to be risky despite many requests to resolve it. So I am examining how to make my point to the Board of the organization but still be loving. It is proving to be challenging.
Any ideas?

What came to me a while ago about this oft quoted idea of fear and love is that the true opposites are fear and desire. Love is a transcendent or an enlightened state not subject to opposites or duality.

When the Buddha taught that "life is suffering", he was referring to these two opposites, even though most people don't think of desire as suffering because it leads to pleasure, but they are two aspects of the same condition. Like the two sides of the same coin.

Emotion is the nexus point between body and mind. There's always some kind of manifestation or motion in the body. By the Buddha's standard, all emotion is suffering. There is duality in every perceived phenomena, like the yin/yang symbol, one emotion holds the seed of its opposite.

When laughing from a joke, the experience is just like a moment of enlightenment, or lightness/levity. But because it relies on outward conditions, it's not real enlightenment, in my view. At some point, the person who told the joke, dies; the joke gets old or humor fails to distract and/or amuse. Therein, the 'down side' of the experience manifests.

Not noticing that all pain is pleasure and is the result of fear and desire, respectively, is what Buddhists refer to as ignorance and what Alan Watts called ignore-ance.

It seems to me that the reason we chase the 'positive' emotions so much is that they are almost identical to the transcendent state. The absence of suffering (desire/fear and pain/pleasure), is Nirvana (enlightenment, not heaven) in Buddhist teachings.

[razz]

Xmac, that is an aspect that is new to me. I would question that love or joy or tenderness is suffering. When I look at a sculpture by Rodin, if I was feeling possessive I might have desire. I am simply grateful to see and enjoy it. I know that beauty surrounds me and enjoy it. Gratitude for unfolding good and love is a knowing.

As I tried to consider my situation from the love approach vs fear/anger, I realized that I had to detach me from the picture and view it objectively.

Now I know that I will write a review of the position, the needs to fulfil that position and the current risks to volunteers from sliding tables, multiple hoses on the floor etc. I will offer options to deal with the situation including my contacting the landlord of the rental space. I think that my anger/frustration came from the feeling of being powerless and at risk. That is love in action rather than fear.

[SteveinMN]

For many years now I have considered that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Love and hate both have an emotional component of attachment to the object of the emotion. Indifference is more the Buddha-defined emotion that Xmac described, where there is no emotional attachment.

I'm no psychologist or any kind of philosopher, and I'm aware the effects of love and hate on the body are quite different. Maybe the way I would put it is that there are two emotions: attachment and detachment.

[Xmac]

Razz, I wasn't suggesting that love, joy or tenderness is suffering. I would say that joy and gratitude are aspects of our true nature or different aspects of love as anger, jealousy, sadness and hate are different forms of suffering. As I see it, tenderness could be either suffering or love.

[Williamsmith]

For some reason I can't parse those meanings as hard and fast as some of the above. I know when I love something but there are different degrees. I will die for my family, I may die for a friend, and I have literally risked death for a total stranger but my motivations are different. When I hate something or someone I know it also. But like love, I can hate someone or something enough to wish it dead, I can hate it to the degree it is loathsome and I can hate and avoid it because it is uncomfortable for me.

Love to me is an act of exposure. Hatred an act of greed.

[LDAHL]

For many years now I have considered that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Love and hate both have an emotional component of attachment to the object of the emotion. Indifference is more the Buddha-defined emotion that Xmac described, where there is no emotional attachment.

I'm no psychologist or any kind of philosopher, and I'm aware the effects of love and hate on the body are quite different. Maybe the way I would put it is that there are two emotions: attachment and detachment.

From Casablanca:

Ugarte: You despise me, don't you?
Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.

[catherine]

I look at love as a surrender to oneness, and I realize how new-agey, woo-whoo that sounds. When you don't have to defend against separation, love is the natural response. I think we fear separation more than anything so that's where the love and fear come into play.

Xmac, I don't think Buddha objected to emotion or desire, unless the desire led to clinging. Not sure that's an inevitability. But I haven't brushed up on my Buddhism lately. You posted some interesting thoughts, though.

[Ultralight]

I think of all love as conditional.

[LDAHL]

I think of all love as conditional.

Come back and talk to me after your first kid.

[Ultralight]

Come back and talk to me after your first kid.

I hope that I never have to do that. haha

[LDAHL]

I hope that I never have to do that. haha

That's what I used to say. Luckily, fate thwarted my plans.

[Ultralight]

That's what I used to say. Luckily, fate thwarted my plans.

Fate scares the heck out of me.

[LDAHL]

Fate scares the heck out of me.

A former Hanoi Hilton resident once told me something to the effect of "If you're not scared half the time you'll one day look back on your life with regret."

[Ultralight]

A former Hanoi Hilton resident once told me something to the effect of "If you're not scared half the time you'll one day look back on your life with regret."

What if you're scared 90% of the time and bored 10% of the time? haha

[Williamsmith]

You will only regret one tenth of your life. I had elementary school math.

[Xmac]

I look at love as a surrender to oneness, and I realize how new-agey, woo-whoo that sounds. When you don't have to defend against separation, love is the natural response. I think we fear separation more than anything so that's where the love and fear come into play.

Xmac, I don't think Buddha objected to emotion or desire, unless the desire led to clinging. Not sure that's an inevitability. But I haven't brushed up on my Buddhism lately. You posted some interesting thoughts, though.

I'd be surprised that the Buddha objected to anything, but that's more about my image of him rather than any kind of expertise. I don't object to them either.

One definition of desire is: a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen. When I experience that, I'm not at peace or loving life. I'm in a future story (not present) in which I'll be 'happy' and happiness is fleeting, whereas joy or bliss is the absence of desire and fear right now. So, I don't see that it's inevitable, it already is. The Bible says it this way: The Lord is my shepard, I shall not want.

I can understand why others may not agree with my view of emotions. What I've seen is that they follow from thoughts that are assumed to be true and can come and go so quickly that some aren't noticed.

One definition of emotion is: a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. Mine would be: a normal (not natural) reactive state of body/mind deriving from one's thoughts (including images) of the past and future about circumstances and relationships with others.

Emotions are evidence of suffering (although it's possible to laugh, cry, yell in anger, etc., without suffering), even emotions like contentedness or happiness if they are contingent on one's circumstances or conditions. These emotions can be traced back to a thought like, 'what a beautiful day' or 'what a beautiful woman'. When something or someone is seen as beautiful, there must also be something ugly. As soon as the thought is believed, there will be suffering whether one is aware of suffering in that moment or not.

Any 'positive' emotion one experiences in a romantic relationship may be traced back to the moment one seeks a mate. So, romantic love (exclusive and conditional) is escaping some realized or unrealized inner turmoil/suffering.

If love is a surrender to oneness, that surrender is evidence that we're resisting/fearing it. So, the biggest fear is the fear of love. This is how I see it (as if anything else is possible).