Throughout our lives, we are searching for well-being, which is most often perceived as an amalgam of positive emotions in response to an action or a situation in which we participate. However, the circumstances are such that we cannot secure our happiness for two main reasons, namely:
- We do not live in isolation so that we can control most of the factors that influence our lives;
- Even if we could live in isolation there are natural factors that influence our mood and well-being;
- We are social beings, so isolation itself would step by step transform into our main reason for sadness;
- Happiness can only exist if there is sadness as its opposite. We can only appreciate the good and the necessity of stress in our life by comparing the happiest moments with the saddest ones.
In this context, the concept of emotional health appears.
What is emotional health?
Although extremely important, the emotional health concept is quite absent in the social dialogue. We often use it to illustrate things related to emotional health, as it encompasses them.
Emotional health is about the individual’s ability to deal with both positive and negative feelings. This involves being aware of emotional states and imposing an appropriate behavior even if emotionally we would like to behave in a completely different way.
Everything starts from emotional maturity and our cognitive capacity. Emotions are a key indicator of the mental state, so it is important to be aware of the emotional states we go through, the factors that induce these states, and not to be influenced too much by them if they are not founded.
Factors influencing emotional states
From the very beginning, we must understand that emotions are part of our reactions to absolutely everything we interact with. Even the lack of reaction is considered a response. The problem arises when the factors that stimulate an emotional reaction are inside us, as it can be extremely difficult to realize where certain problematic reactions come from, and how we can fix the root of their cause.
Life experience
First of all, everything starts in our head, meaning our life experiences will make us interpret everything either in a positive or negative light. The more we lived in a negative environment and the more we have been exposed to negative situations, the more we will begin to see everything around us through ‘dark lenses’.
Our brain is adapted to survival, therefore its purpose is to remember experiences and things so that later it can make associations between the ongoing events and our memories. It is only in this way that our brain is able to identify danger, recognize patterns of events, and avoid dangerous situations easily.
Let me give you an example: let’s presume all our life we were exposed only to dangerous situations with dogs. Then, given the experience, we will not be able to see them in a different light than the one we know – we will fear them. Thus, to be able to see life in a positive light we have to expose ourselves more to beautiful things so that it can make happy associations.
Hence the saying “we are what we see”, because any experience influences the way we think, make decisions, and behave. In this context, it is worth mentioning first the imprint of culture on our lives.
The cultural imprint
Each nation has a distinct culture: a set of poems, songs, stories, myths, and paintings, and a religion that together shape the way we think. Even if we don’t think about it very often, stories, paintings, and popular songs are nothing more than an illustration of the nation’s past, and outline the strongest emotions experienced by that nation. For example, in Romanian culture, we find a lot of sad songs, paintings with people working, but also slightly happier songs showing those sparks of joy at the birth of children, the joy of love, and the joy of having a family.
On the other side, if we take a look at the culture of victorious and domineering nations, we will find paintings with women and men in brave positions, we will see how much art is focused on showing the bravery of these nations, their gains made from these fights, abundant food, riches, etc.
What I want to say is that a long history in which the people of the Romanian Principalities went hungry, is one of the main reasons why they show an extreme fear of hunger. Likewise, a long life under the domination of other nations has cultivated this culture of sadness.
Therefore, we must be aware of the cultural heritage and try to rewrite memories and behaviors to change the cultural heritage that we pass on to future generations.
Picture by Madalin Grigore from Pexels
In the next article
If in this article we explained what emotional health is, and the impact of life experience and cultural imprint on our emotional construction, then in the next article we will follow the impact of the health of other organs on our emotional state, the impact of the emotional state of others on us, and ` the vicious cycle of the disease’ when the mental state ends up being affected by the physical health and vice versa.
P.S. These topics will be discussed in depth in my next book.