Why you mask primary emotions with secondary emotions (and how to unlearn it)

Suppose your father never calls you to ask how you are doing (observation). Your interpretation of that is that your father does not think you are important. The associated effect, and therefore emotion, is that you may become angry with him and then start avoiding him. Underneath that anger, you’ll actually find sadness, loneliness, and doubt about whether you are good enough. Another way to interpret things might be that your father never calls because he is socially awkward. With that interpretation, the associated emotion becomes less intense for you. Of course, you may still feel let down by him now and then, but with that alternative interpretation, you can chalk it up to his powerlessness rather than a lack of willingness.

Primary emotions are associated with an event or a wound. For example, if your sweetheart surprises you with something beautiful, then you will presumably feel happy and moved. Or if you were bullied in the past, the associated primary emotions would be that you did not belong, felt rejected, or felt powerless. Those emotions can sometimes remain unfelt until years, if not decades, later because a survival mechanism prevented or has prevented you from accessing them. If you are able to feel them at some point, they will remain primary emotions. Primary emotions are short and intense. They generally last between about 10 seconds and 2 minutes. In addition, feeling them cleanses you within. Primary emotions “heal” you. So you do not push them away, but really “feel them through,” which causes them to dissolve. By the way, I am not claiming that this is an enjoyable thing, but I am saying it is helpful. As the “most recent version of yourself,” you can surely endure those two minutes.

When you do not want to feel primary emotions for whatever reason, one of two things can happen (or both). The first is that you can become a “wandering head.” There is a disconnect between your head and your body, so to speak, and you do “everything” with your rational mind. As a result, you feel your emotions to a lesser extent. You turn down the “volume knob” on your ability to feel. You become emotionally anesthetized. Unfortunately, the same holds true for positive emotions in that case. Because of this emotional blunting, you will likely need adrenaline, endorphins, alcohol, or sugar to feel alive. And when you deny your primary emotions by not feeling them, they can also turn into secondary emotions. Secondary emotions mask primary emotions because primary emotions seem too big and painful. In other words, it is generally easier to be angry than to feel rejected and hurt. 

Other common secondary emotions include being indignant, complaining, behaving like a victim, being “permanently” insecure, harboring depressed feelings, and so forth. Secondary emotions are long-lasting. They can last for hours, evenings, weeks, months, and even years. They linger as long as they do because they do not cleanse you—secondary emotions surface when you are not yet able to access the healing layer of primary emotions. People are even sometimes complimented for being so seemingly in touch with their feelings. Others praise them: “Wow, I wish I could get so angry and sad.” Thus, it may seem that the relatively dramatic manifestation of secondary emotions reflects someone who is in touch with their feelings, but that is not actually the case. Moreover, we tend to recognize primary and secondary emotions in others fairly well; in ourselves, that is often more difficult. That recognition can be felt: you feel drained when you interact with someone consumed by secondary emotions. In contrast, when someone else experiences primary emotions, we may be touched, but we are not left feeling depleted afterward.

So, primary emotions cleanse. Instead of vigorously pushing them away, instead of denying them or rationalizing them, you “live through” them. In doing so, you dissolve them little by little, which eventually makes you “clean.” Perhaps a scar will remain, but scars are not “dangerous.” Only once you have cleansed and healed yourself can something new emerge. Otherwise, patterns will inevitably repeat themselves.

Nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said, “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” Daring to let go irrevocably involves engaging your primary emotions.

By checking in with yourself to see whether you are stuck in secondary emotions or have become a wandering head. You can scan your body for heavy, dark, and/or emotionally stiff places. Locate where those emotions are and direct your breathing there. Instead of running away from those emotions, seek them out. You can endure those two short minutes. By the way, I am not suggesting it will be fun. It will be useful, however. I have deliberately said “locate” rather than analyze because if you analyze, you will be back in your head. Someone in the Army who carried out dangerous operations once said to me, “Fear should spur you on, not hold you back.” It is a good emotion. Breathing to it and bringing your anxiety down to a bearable level is much healthier than denying it.

If you struggle a lot with secondary emotions, you probably still have some work to do within your family system, the inextricable bond between you and the members of your family. In my book The Fountain: Find Your Place, I describe the effect of not standing in your place within the family. If you reject your mother or assume undue responsibility, you will be less able to connect with others, and this complicates relationships. If you reject your father, you will feel the need to prove yourself, and in doing so, simultaneously reject yourself. This creates a kind of short circuit in your body. On the one hand, the deep love for your parents resides there, and on the other, the pain, false hope, disappointment, shame, and so much more. This creates so much inner turmoil that it can end up being easier to feel nothing at all. In so doing, you inhabit your body poorly. In contrast to that, you inhabit your body properly when it is safe to engage in your primary emotions, and for that, you have to go within. It is a different thing than taking good care of your body, living healthily, and getting enough exercise. People often close their eyes to distressing emotions. When they do this, they go to a traumatic event in the past or a doomsday scenario in the future. They lose touch with the here and now. When you keep your eyes open, situations in the here and now become more manageable, and everything is far less daunting than when you keep them shut.

In the trailer for the movie Youth, there is a wonderful quote by actor Harvey Keitel: “Emotions are all we have got.” It is remarkable, really—in many spiritual traditions, people actually try to get off their emotional roller coaster. Clearly, emotions are open to interpretation. They say a lot about the frame of reference from which a person thinks and acts. I am of the “two sides of the same coin” camp. I do not believe in only happy, positive feelings: we live in a world of dualities. The more you push away unpleasant feelings and try to force only positive ones, the more negative emotions bounce back. As a human being, you can learn to deal with both sides of the coin. You also “have to” be able to endure displeasure, guilt, shame, etc. Stay honest with yourself. The trick is to learn to be uncomfortable while remaining connected to yourself (and the other person). Yet many people cannot bear that and then either literally or figuratively start lashing out. In doing so, they end up causing pain, which—in a twist of fate—comes from them not wanting to acknowledge their own pain. My wish is that both adults and young children learn to ride their emotional roller coaster. It is present in everyone to some degree. Visible or not to the outside world, it is there. I believe in saying yes to what is there and “engaging” that so you can be free rather than your own marionette.