I forget when I first heard the emotions stripped down to their bare essentials?
Those essentials being mad, glad, sad, and scared.
Then sometime in the past year as I began reflecting on my own experiences I felt that there was something missing. And, that the missing emotion had something to do with sex and sexuality.
So, I was pleased to find confirmation for my idea recently. It came from two sources.
I was talking about the basic emotions with my therapist Lynn Lambert and was listing them off, when she spontaneously added, "And, don’t forget Sexual".
Some time ago I was talking with my friend and colleague, Bill Astalnok, about his training at the Hendricks Institute and their work with the core emotions. He gifted me with a small bookmark that gives a reminder checklist of emotional phrases. The other day I happened to glance at it again and was pleasantly surprised to see this phrase, "I feel … ANGER / JOY / FEAR / SADNESS / SEXUAL about X ISSUE"
So, I’m on the right track.
Healing work needs to deal with all 5 emotional areas.
