Frustration, fear, anger and sadness are emotions with organic bases so strong that, around the planet, almost all mammals are able to feel them in a similar way to what we experience. These primary emotions and their opposites, satisfaction, trust, love and joy, also very grounded in the biological, are the source of our charm with these little critters that surround us. We recognize the presence of these emotions in them and, without much effort, we identify with what they are feeling, we create empathy.

These biological emotions play a fundamental role in our daily lives, it is through them that we recognize the significance of what we live. They give the seasoning of the intensity of what is experienced and help us to experience such empathy.

Leia aqui em português.

They all have a more or less equal cycle:

The event happens – it generates a stimulus in the body – this stimulus produces a series of neuroendocrine responses – these neuroendocrine responses generate an organic imbalance, and – subsequent catharsis generates the return of balance.

In the case of sadness: we see a sad scene – we have biological reactions (eye full of tear, knot in the throat, tightness in the chest, weakness in the legs and etc.) – sobbing with sobs – feeling of peace

This cycle generates an enormous amount of energy in the body, especially in the case of fear and anger that are linked to the basic mechanisms of escape and struggle, and therefore to survival. In fact, an energy pump is made available in the body to prepare us for the muscle explosions involved in struggling (hitting hard) and running (running a lot). Nothing mystical, biological energy even made available to prepare us to laugh, to cry, to run, to fight, to celebrate and to dance.

That is why this notion of imbalance (at the arrival of the stimulus and the generation of much energy) and rebalancing after catharsis (after crying, screaming, laughing or dancing a few hours), where energy is wasted and the body comes back to the basic welfare state. Finally, the catharsis, or discharge, is who will help to bring the body closer to the equilibrium state prior to the presence of the stimulus.

When we can not express what we feel with the same intensity generated by the stimulus we have a residual charge. An amount of that energy that eventually becomes available in the body. In general, it is easy to identify this in some examples:

Driving quietly down the road, a truck crashes into the front car, you can brake and no one in your car suffers anything. But the noise, the sparks, the fright generate an enormous shock of adrenaline. Against all that one imagines, you do not despair, at least not immediately. You concentrate, to your car and runs help the victims of the accident.

Inside his car, still frightened, the passengers scream and cry, crawl and despair. But you stay calm, you help the victims, call the ransom. It looks cool and calculating. When the rescue has just rescued the victims, you sit in your car, begin to shake convulsively and cry loudly. It’s been 40 minutes since the accident and all victims are properly rescued, but at that moment you relax and that load of adrenaline, which has been dammed, leaves violently.

Unlike your passengers, who screamed and cried for 5 minutes, you take hours to calm down and stop shaking. The story reverberates in the mood of your week, and several times you come to dream about the situation. It seems that as your emotional response has been suppressed so you could be calm, you end up getting stuck with it any longer.

This is not just with fear or with experiences as intense as this.

For example, in a meeting, your boss catches your attention in a mildly embarrassing way in front of your colleagues. You can not respond right away, you should not respond or it’s just a shit and you do not respond. But anyway, whatever the justification, you swallow the little insult, you repress and do not respond.

The burden of anger is guarded, it speeds up your thinking, and throughout the day, even hours after the meeting is over, you continue to mentally replay the response you might have given your boss. It creates a mental processing of anger that, gradually, day after day, turns into hatred for the boss.

If it were sadness, it would turn into grief. If it was frustration, it would turn into rancor.

The point is, if you did not express what you needed, the suffering will last longer, the imbalance will turn the primary and healthy emotions into secondary, strictly mental and neurotic emotions. It will turn you into that bitter and bitter neighbor, perhaps full of self-pity.

And there is no vanishing point. You have to control emotional expression. You can not go around screaming every time you get angry or crying unhappily every time you’re sad. That does not even make sense. The world does not include a person who lives in a state of continuous catharsis.

Controlling, taming is part of the social contract. Knowing how to deal with one’s emotions in a strategic and useful way is part of this process of conviviality in the common cultural space. Even if you think you are right, no one is obliged to hear your cries, to welcome your anger or to give a shoulder to your tears.

But bittering and sealing oneself in silence seems a rather disconcerting and unworthy option. But, it is a strategy to be thought of.
Most of the emotions we feel do not come from external stimuli generated by the environment, but from internal stimuli generated by the process of thinking itself. In fact, even the intensity of the stimuli, when they are external, is altered (usually intensified) by thought. Thus, with this vision, it is easy to understand that the discharge or catharsis is a responsibility of the thought itself and not of the environment.

So, in general, the environment does not deserve the emotional response you are prepared to offer. Basically because the biggest responsibility for the emotion you feel is of your own mind. It distorts, intensifies, and creates virtual situations that generate these emotions, and therefore controlling yourself is critical.

Raul de Freitas Buchi