Thoughts and feelings are a conscious part of our everyday lives. They are experiences made up of the feedback we receive from the physical and emotional responses to the world around us.

Underneath what we think and feel are emotions. Emotions manifest in the unconscious mind and studies have shown that they typically last around 90 seconds. That might sound surprising, because there are times when it seems like an emotion is going on for a very long time. When we experience an emotion in the moment, what we are actually left with are the ongoing feelings and thoughts. While feelings and emotions are often used interchangeably, this is an important distinction to make for this discussion to understand the depths of our emotions. Here on the forums, emotions are core to what we share with each other, how we support each other, and how we talk about recovery.

With so much change, and new stresses in our current world, let’s talk about emotions, how we express them, how they feel physically and what we can do to cope when stresses lead to bigger emotions in our lives. Once we have a clearer understanding of what emotion we are experiencing, we can deal with them more effectively.

Over the next two months, we will be picking a new emotion to talk about fortnightly as a community.

The emotions wheel:

For this discussion, you will hear us refer back to the emotions wheel to help us identify feelings and emotions:

Keep an eye on the social spaces board for each new emotions discussion, we encourage everyone to get involved 

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Links to the emotions discussions:

Anger 

Fear

Sadness

Happiness