The Role of Our Emotions: How to Understand and Use Them

In recent months, millions of people around the world have faced anxiety. An unknown disease, an invisible danger claiming lives, and the need to stay within four walls have caused much of humanity to experience fear.

Fear is an unpleasant emotion. It feels like a lump or a void inside, tightens the heart, makes your hands tremble, and your legs feel weak. No one wants to feel fear, just like no one wants to feel irritation, sadness, or disgust. We are often willing to do a lot to get rid of these unpleasant feelings.

You might be surprised to learn that it’s impossible to get rid of emotions altogether. Even with years of training, meditation, or being highly enlightened, emotions remain. And that’s a good thing, because our emotions are an inseparable part of us—a built-in function of our brain. The ability to feel emotions is a sign of a healthy person. Only a very small number of people lack emotions, and that is actually a sign of psychological distress.

Unfortunately, not everyone can recognize what they are feeling at any given moment. This is something we need to learn ourselves and teach our children.

Why Do We Need Emotions?

So, why do we need emotions? Let’s find out how we can use them to our advantage.

Our emotions are an evolutionary mechanism essential for survival. Human babies are born with a set of innate, basic emotions. Higher animals have this mechanism too. Animals need emotions just as much as humans do. By scanning posture and facial expressions, an animal can determine the mood of another. For example, a dog knows what to expect from another dog by looking at bared teeth, raised hackles, or a wagging tail. Similarly, we can often tell how someone feels by their facial expression—whether they’re happy to see us or not. Furrowed brows or a wide smile—these cues let us know how others feel about us.

Early humans were in a similar position to animals today—they didn’t have language as their main means of communication. Emotions and the body’s reactions to them—facial expressions, gestures, postures—showed others what couldn’t be said in words. This was a universal language, understood by all, that allowed people to communicate long before the development of spoken language.

The Internal Function of Emotions

But beyond external communication, emotions have an even more important function for modern people: communication with ourselves. What we feel helps us understand what we need right now. Each emotion signals a specific problem.

• Fear signals possible danger and urges us to act. For ancient humans, it was the “fight or flight” signal. Today, it’s a reason to figure out what exactly we’re afraid of and make two plans: Plan A to prevent the scary event, and Plan B for what to do if it happens anyway.
• Anger tells us our boundaries have been violated and that we need to protect them or fight for what we want. Someone might be encroaching on our property, time, or resources, or preventing us from getting what we need. In ancient times, territorial boundaries were physical and had to be defended with a club or spear. Today, these are more often personal boundaries, but building and protecting them is just as important.
• Sadness shows us our vulnerability and signals that we are in acute need of something. It calls us to find and give ourselves what we truly need—something deeply important to us. If we’re not in touch with this value, we feel sad. For ancient people, sadness was a necessary emotion for communication. After all, who would give you their resources if you seemed cheerful and energetic? You had to show through your expression and behavior that you were in real need. Today, sadness makes us slow down, pause, and maybe cry alone. This is helpful, because only by stopping and looking inside can we realize what we’re missing.

As you can see, emotions are not just annoying experiences! The ability to recognize and understand them helps us every day in our hectic lives.

Don’t ignore your emotions or try to “not feel.” Treat them as your best friends and main advisors. Your emotions will often show you the way out of a difficult situation and help you “survive” in the urban jungle, just as they once helped our ancient ancestors survive in the real jungle.