SADNESS
It is an emotion of loss or the absence of something important. It is pain that leaves a sense of emptiness, weakness, fragility, insecurity, and diminished self-confidence and confidence in future possibilities. Attention is drawn inward.
This leads us to believe that the present is different, that something has changed and makes us feel pain: it is a moment of uncertainty, of mental disorganization, which is a signal that requires us to choose something new and positive. In some cases, it will be necessary to start over, that is, to make decisions and make changes for the future.
When sadness tends to last a little longer, it becomes a feeling, a state of mind. It tends to diminish self-esteem and confidence in one’s own abilities. Emotions of joy and pleasure are diminished. Therefore, desires for things that give us pleasure seem distant and no longer ours, which increases the feeling of crisis in our personality and identity.
There is a decrease in the perception of pleasure, satisfaction, and joy. Time passes more slowly. Expectations of affirmation and desires for fulfillment may appear more muted. Sadness is linked to disappointed hopes and guilt toward others for no longer being able to achieve the perfection and success we were meant to achieve.
ANGER
It is an emotion that signals that something has happened that we consider wrong or unfair: a sudden disappointment, an unexpected setback, a defeat, a deception, a betrayal of our trust, or an imposition or violence. We suddenly seem to see an object or person intent on hurting us, hindering us.
This function of the mind presents us with the possibility of overcoming these obstacles energetically, with force, verbal aggression, or action. It then activates a great deal of aggressive energy, which can become excessive and destructive toward others if left unchecked.
Thus, anger can remain silent and repressed, or it can be expressed through words, arguments, or fights, or it can be displaced onto other gratifying objects or actions, such as sports or aggression. Anger and rage can lead us to engage in behaviors that can be:
constructive or destructive to relationships with others.
In some cases, it occurs alongside emotions of disgust and contempt. People who habitually express excessive anger cause those around them to suffer because they, in turn, feel strong and conflicting emotions. Indeed, they, in turn, feel hurt and may react with anger, or they fear the conflict that might arise and do not react.
In the education we receive from childhood, there are usually many instructions for controlling behaviors that could be triggered by destructive anger. However, those who have acquired the habit of reacting to disappointments and stress with anger may experience outbursts of anger that become increasingly difficult for them to control. Particularly if, from an early age, a person has not acquired a sense of mutual respect, trust in others, and the moral rules and laws of the society in which they live, through social education, there is a risk of overdoing it and anger turning into destructive violence.
In childhood, we learn to express anger by observing how adults behave in concrete situations, such as: yelling and swearing, insulting and humiliating others, banging their fists on the table, repeatedly honking their car horns, making the “horns” gesture, arguing in an attempt to impose one’s own point of view without listening to the other person’s, etc.
To control this strong emotion, which initially disorganizes one’s thinking, the most common approach is to avoid making the situation worse: that is, to walk away, take a deep breath, and not react immediately but wait for another moment. When anger against a person persists for a long time, it becomes resentment, a feeling that creates considerable tension within the mind.
It becomes an unresolved difficulty with instinctive and emotional aggression. This can then lead to conflict and revenge behavior. When anger isn’t expressed immediately,
it can be linked to a sense of impotence, of an inability to find a solution. In other cases, the prevailing feeling is that one has become an unjust “victim” of another, who for this reason takes on the appearance of a “persecutor.”
This leads to automatic negative thoughts that can give rise to fear, anxiety,
Sadness, angry tears, decreased self-esteem and self-confidence, and feelings of persecution by others. Up to the age of six, children frequently experience outbursts of anger and demonstrate their opposition when their desires are thwarted in various ways, including angry tears.
In short, anger is an emotion expressed through facial expressions. It can remain silent, it can persist as resentment and a desire for revenge, it can be displaced onto a third party who becomes the guilty “scapegoat” or our aggressive “persecutor.” It can turn against us, in a self-destructive manner, because we judge ourselves as incapable, guilty, bad, powerless, deserving of punishment, or with no way out in the future.
But it can also become a creative force capable of providing solutions to problems, developing new ways of evaluating a situation, seeking a new perspective that we would not have previously sought and found if we had not been activated by constructive anger.