“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Yoda, Star Wars: Episode I
Because emotions can have an impact on your personal HP and Stats (a.k.a. buffs and debuffs), I like to think of them as Status Effects: Some might boost your strength while decreasing your Wisdom (Anger); they may leave you paralyzed (Fear); they can be like poison draining your HP (Sadness); or some may make you feel like Mario getting a Super Star (Confidence).
This approach has helped me step away from the mess in my head and decide what I want to do to feel better (even if that just means taking it easy and letting time pass), or how to turn that energy into something more productive other than just complaining. Because, like many, I want to fix situations and find solutions.
The catch is that, unlike games, we have no easy way of knowing which Status Effect is affecting us.
Imagine a game with no User Interface, where your character suddenly starts running around randomly. There are no pop-ups or markers so you can’t tell if they’re under a Berserk, Confusion, or Fear spells, or if it’s just a bug. What do you do? Sure, you could try all your potions and spells, or just wait until it wears off, but you’ll probably run into the same thing in the future. So wouldn’t it be more fun to simply find a solution and move on with your Quest?
This could be how you’ve been living your life so far: You’re affected by emotions but don’t know which ones (or worse, you don’t even notice them); you feel “upset” and act on impulse in pretty useless (or hurtful) ways; then wonder what went wrong.
Random Monsters Are Emotionally Dumb
Acting on impulse is what random monsters do when they attack whoever’s pulled the most aggro. That’s because they have few basic emotions, like anger and fear, but no way to rationalize them. If they stopped to think for a second, they would probably realize most attacks are quite weak, and the aggro is just from a Tank using a Skill. Then they would walk away and the game would be very boring. And nobody would play. And you wouldn’t be reading this. And I wouldn’t be writing it. Anyway…
These “emotions” are their body’s attempt to get them to act on whatever is happening around them (to fight or flee). That’s the “motion” part of the word “e-motion.” We’re pretty much the same way, though with a much wider range of possible reactions, and the option to regulate these impulses.
And by figuring out which emotions you’re feeling and deciding what to do about them, you can use them to get some nice bonuses to your rolls and Stats: you’ll be able to focus better, procrastinate less, have more Stamina, Strength, and maybe even gain some Charisma points!
Peter Salovey and John D. Meyer called this skill Emotional Intelligence: “the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.”
The first part is probably the hardest, but also the most important: stopping, “feeling” the signals, looking at the environment, and analyzing what’s going on. Next is defining with precision what emotion you’re feeling, which Lisa Feldman Barrett calls emotional granularity. By “labeling” the emotion, you’re literally helping your brain regulate your emotions.
In fact, it doesn’t matter whether you use your first language, a word from a language you don’t speak, or even if you use a made-up word. What matters is that you turn those sensations into a specific concept that you can identify with a word. This is the first step towards choosing the best course of action.
Peeling the Onion
Mark Manson, on the other hand, calls this process the “Self-Awareness Onion”: “Let’s say the first layer of the self-awareness onion is a simple understanding of one’s emotions. “This is when I feel happy.” “This makes me feel sad.” “This gives me hope.” (…) The second layer of the self-awareness onion is an ability to ask why we feel certain emotions. (…) Once we understand that root cause, we can ideally do something to change it.”
For example, you could assume you feel “Anger” because someone’s talking to your partner or someone you like. According to your emotion, some acceptable options would be to start a fight, make a scene, storm out, or all of the above. But since that’s not very helpful, let’s pause and start analyzing: Marc Brackett defines Anger as “a response to unfair treatment or an injustice.” That doesn’t sound right. What about “Jealousy” or “Envy”? While they may seem quite similar, he defines Jealousy as “a relationship-driven emotion. It has to do with feeling threatened that you will lose the attention of someone important to you,” while Envy “has to do with coveting something that someone else possesses.”
In this case, if someone was talking to your partner, you could say you’re Jealous and ask yourself (or them) if you have real reasons to believe you could lose them. On the other hand, if they’re someone you’re attracted to, it’s probably Envy. This can lead you to work on developing your relationship with them further, or even to leveling up your dating skills. And although we’re always feeling many emotions at a time, just saying you’re “Sad,” “Angry,” “Upset,” or “Stressed” isn’t very helpful. Getting specific with your description can point you in the right direction. Even if you don’t know exactly what to do, you’ll be able to do some research or even get outside help.
Regulating your emotions will also help you decide if what you’re feeling is caused by the event itself, something in your past, or simply your misinterpretation. After all, the whole point of regulating your emotions is that just because you’re feeling something doesn’t mean you have to act on it.
And although you might be tempted to only use this Skill when things go wrong, there’s also the option to use it when you’re feeling great. After all, if you know what you enjoy and what you’re passionate about, it’ll be easier to create more of those moments, or as a way to communicate your own love languages to others.
The Emotions Skill helps you figure out what Status Effects are affecting you, gives you a temporary +5 Wisdom, and can help you turn debuffs into buffs! So if you’re ready to get started, join our free newsletter and we’ll send you the step-by-step Tutorial. It’s designed for barbarians and rogues alike; you don’t need to be a druid to use your emotions!
Useful Grimoires:
