Blog

<p>Today’s personal development movement draws from an ever-evolving blend of ancient philosophy, traditional psychology, and modern science. It’s a fine recipe passed down through generations, each era adding its own must-have ingredient, perfecting the dish over time. My grandiose mission? To toss in one more game-changing flavor: emotional fitness. When I first started out as a psychoanalyst, I worked as a generalist, helping clients from all walks of life. The broad exposure revealed a pattern: the biggest obstacle in people’s paths is almost always themselves. And by zooming in it came clear that the part of the self in the way were: emotions. After a decade of poking around in tangled knots and everyday messes of people’s lives I'm confident to promise: by prioritizing your emotional fitness, you can take your personal development to the next level.</p><h3>Personal Development: A Journey Through Time</h3><p>The roots of self-improvement go deep. Between 300 BC and AD 500, the Stoics, like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, emphasized self-mastery, resilience, and discipline through rational thought. They were basically the original self-help gurus, telling people to stay calm and carry on long before it was a slogan on a coffee mug. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Buddhism and Confucianism championed mindfulness, discipline, and self-cultivation as pathways to personal well-being and wisdom. In the late 1800s, the New Thought Movement brought new flavors to the table with ideas of positive thinking, mental control, and self-reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson became the poster child for this philosophy, encouraging people to believe in themselves before motivational posters made it mainstream [1]. Around the same time, psychology took its first steps as a formal discipline. Thinkers like William James explored how the mind shapes behavior, laying the foundation for understanding personal performance [2]. Fast forward to the mid-20th century, and Dale Carnegie’s <em>How to Win Friends and Influence People</em> taught us that likability can be learned, while Abraham Maslow stacked human needs into a pyramid, showing how to climb toward self-actualization. By the late 20th century, Tony Robbins and Stephen Covey were packaging personal empowerment into digestible frameworks; motivating people to take charge of their lives, one leadership principle at a time.</p><p>In the digital age, the rise of blogs and podcasts allowed pioneers like Tim Ferriss and Dave Asprey to popularize the science of productivity, longevity, and life optimization. Ferriss’ <em>The 4-Hour Workweek</em> (2007) and Asprey’s <em>Bulletproof Diet</em> (2014) introduced life-optimization into the mainstream, and the rise of online platforms made self-improvement more accessible than ever. With the increased accessibility of scientific research, today’s leading influencers are developing and introducing new cutting-edge approaches to personal growth, focusing on how bodily and mind’s functions can be optimized for performance, productivity, longevity, and well-being. &nbsp;However, amidst this buzz of optimization, one crucial component often gets left standing in the shadows. Emotional health. Emotional health occasionally is being addressed and paid attention to, but it remains a relatively marginal and sometimes overlooked niche. It’s invited to the party, but it’s the awkward guest stuck by the snack table, half-forgotten amidst the buzz about cold plunges, time-blocking, and nootropics. Yet affective science (the science of emotions) starts uncovering that emotional health constitutes the foundation of human mental functioning. In doing so, it represents the key to optimal performance and sustained well-being.</p><figure id="figure-c82k0pf1fm615n53v"><img id="c82k0pf1fm615n53v" src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1550824730-05ededc35e7a?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wyNjI5NjF8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxNnx8bXVzaHJvb218ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM3MTQyMjkzfDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" alt="Emotional health is half-forgotten amidst the buzz about cold plunges, time-blocking, and nootropics. " title="Emotional health is half-forgotten amidst the buzz about cold plunges, time-blocking, and nootropics. " class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="null" data-positiony="null" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1550824730-05ededc35e7a?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wyNjI5NjF8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxNnx8bXVzaHJvb218ZW58MHx8fHwxNzM3MTQyMjkzfDA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure><h3>Emotions: Your Cheat Code to Living Well</h3><p>Emotional health refers to a state of emotional well-being and functionality characterized by the ability to harness emotions effectively so that you may act on your values, pursue your goals, and maintain mental prosperity. While emotions are often relegated to the realm of romantics and crystal-waving spiritualists, the truth is far less whimsical and far more biological. Your emotions aren’t decorative fairy lights; they’re the central wiring of your behavioral and cognitive system [3]. Emotional functioning is the biological basis of your behavior, cognition and the fundamental block of your well-being [4]. Emotions are principal, mostly unconscious behavior motivators. Fear makes you retreat, excitement makes you move forward, anger makes you fight, and love makes you care, literally and figuratively [3,5]. Emotions operate as biological algorithms, part hardwired, part DIY, decoding your subjective experience of the world and nudging (or shoving) you toward action. They provide your subjective interpretations of perceived circumstances and guide you to act accordingly [4,5]. Your emotional engine is running 24/7, continuously processing an infinite amount of data from the past and present, e. g. that embarrassing thing you said three years ago. It’s always pushing you toward—or away from—something, after identifying risks and opportunities. Importantly, emotions also ultimately determine the feel of your life [3,4].</p><p>Despite being the foundation of human functioning and well-being, emotions often feel like the overlooked middle child in the quest for self-actualization. They are yet to be recognized as the full human potential in the quest for realizing their full potential. Their ubiquitous nature sometimes leads to their presence being forgotten. Components of emotional health, such as emotional intelligence, have only recently crashed the mainstream personal development debate, and there remains a widespread lack of awareness regarding how profoundly emotions influence the main aspects of life. While thought leaders like Daniel Goleman and Marc Brackett are waving the emotional fitness flag and bringing affectology to the forefront, the awareness of its importance has yet to permeate the field. Much of the personal development industry is still rooted in traditional models prioritizing physical health, sleep, discipline, and willpower, leading emotions to be significantly underrepresented in self-improvement strategies. Emotional factors remain ignored mainly, with a general lack of a clear understanding of how emotions work and how they influence well-being by determining our behavior. There’s a collective shrug when it comes to emotions. Yet, they are the unseen puppeteers pulling the strings of behavior, dictating how you act, react, and overreact. It’s a glaring oversight.</p><p><img id="8yh0hdjmafm615plll" src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1352891382/photo/wooden-mannequin-are-both-remote-controlled-like-puppets.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=AUl16hDmDkDHq4SEG_ba0884RQ7cw-rRItxsFIRn9V8=" alt="Emotions are the unseen puppeteers pulling the strings of behavior, dictating how you act, react, and overreact." title="Emotions are the unseen puppeteers pulling the strings of behavior, dictating how you act, react, and overreact." class="object-cover bg-gray-100" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1352891382/photo/wooden-mannequin-are-both-remote-controlled-like-puppets.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=AUl16hDmDkDHq4SEG_ba0884RQ7cw-rRItxsFIRn9V8=" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;" style="border-color: rgba(229,231,235,var(--tw-border-opacity)); --tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-pan-x: ; --tw-pan-y: ; --tw-pinch-zoom: ; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-gradient-from-position: ; --tw-gradient-via-position: ; --tw-gradient-to-position: ; --tw-ordinal: ; --tw-slashed-zero: ; --tw-numeric-figure: ; --tw-numeric-spacing: ; --tw-numeric-fraction: ; --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-color: rgba(62,172,255,.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-blur: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-blur: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-brightness: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-contrast: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-grayscale: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-invert: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-opacity: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-saturate: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-backdrop-sepia: var(--tw-empty,/*!*/ /*!*/); --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-border-opacity: 1; --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-backdrop-filter: var(--tw-backdrop-blur) var(--tw-backdrop-brightness) var(--tw-backdrop-contrast) var(--tw-backdrop-grayscale) var(--tw-backdrop-hue-rotate) var(--tw-backdrop-invert) var(--tw-backdrop-opacity) var(--tw-backdrop-saturate) var(--tw-backdrop-sepia); --tw-bg-opacity: 1; width: 640px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); aspect-ratio: 16 / 9;"></p><h3>Emotional Fitness: Upgrading your Operating System</h3><p>Several misconceptions of emotional phenomena make applying emotions as self-improvement tools feel like trying to assemble IKEA furniture without instructions—and with parts from three different boxes. Much like complex mechanisms, emotions can leave you scratching your head. What is this thing for? Without understanding their purpose, emotions can seem like chaotic roommates, randomly hijacking your mood and decisions. One big misunderstanding is the tendency to villainize negative emotions, failing to see their original value. It’s like hating smoke detectors because they scream when there’s a fire. &nbsp;Another blind spot is forgetting that emotions didn’t evolve to help you become the best version of yourself—they evolved to help your genes survive in the gene pool. Additionally, biologically, emotions are not goals; instead, they are the means. The goal is reproduction. Emotions evolved to direct behavior to maximize evolutionary success [3, 6]. Biologically, there are no positive and negative emotions; pleasant and unpleasant emotions serve the same purpose. The biological purpose is not you feeling good but you surviving and having children. Therefore, emotional functioning may be misaligned with your personal values and goals of striving to become more successful and happier. In the pursuit of greater productivity, better health, longevity, and well-being, you must hack your emotional algorithms. The need reprogramming to serve your values and ambitions rather than blindly following evolution’s playbook.</p><p>As our understanding of human emotional functioning continues to evolve, it becomes increasingly clear that emotional fitness is the crucial component of optimizing personal performance, health, and well-being. Current personal development models and approaches alone are insufficient without integrating emotional fitness into the equation. Emotions are primary reactive forces that guide your perceptions, script your cognitive prototypes, pilot your habits and behavior, and ultimately influence your life outcomes. Optimizing your emotional responses and patterns allows you to align your customs with your personal goals rather than defaulting to evolutionary impulses that prioritize survival and reproduction over personal fulfillment. When you understand basic emotional laws and take proactive steps to rewrite your emotional programs in line with your values, you unlock a new frontier in personal development. Improving your emotional intelligence, agility, and resilience secures cognitive and physical capacities to achieve the next level in your growth. Your emotional health and fitness are indispensable pieces in actualizing your potential and reaching sustained well-being.</p><h3>The Final Piece:&nbsp;Your New Competitive Advantage</h3><p>Emotional fitness isn’t just another aspect of personal development. Rest assured, it’s a foundational element that has been overlooked for far too long. Emotions are&nbsp;fundamental strategies for productivity, discipline, and physical health. They are central to your life and personality. They shape your state of mind, drive your attention, mood, and behavior, and directly and indirectly determine your well-being. It’s not just about feeling better—it’s about living better. Developing emotional fitness is essential if you want to align your functioning with your ambitions and values. Without upgrading your internal system to operate more effectively, you risk being stuck in outdated patterns, guided by instinctive impulses rooted in survival and reproduction. Personal development is about growth, and true growth lies in aligning your goals with the internal mechanisms that drive your thoughts and behaviors. Emotional fitness provides the foundation to navigate life’s challenges with clarity and resilience. The first step in personal development is integrating emotional literacy and functionality into your journey. When you understand how emotions work and learn to engage with them intentionally, you unlock the potential for meaningful transformation. With emotional fitness, you gain full control of your life, aligning your behavior with your values and aspirations.</p><p><img id="zl0liirznm615t5nx" src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1616996722113-8f92b8112aae?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wyNjI5NjF8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxMnx8Y2hlc3Nib2FyZCUyMHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzcxNDI1NjF8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" alt="clear glass chess piece on black surface" title="clear glass chess piece on black surface" class="object-cover bg-gray-100" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1616996722113-8f92b8112aae?crop=entropy&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;fit=max&amp;fm=jpg&amp;ixid=M3wyNjI5NjF8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxMnx8Y2hlc3Nib2FyZCUyMHxlbnwwfHx8fDE3MzcxNDI1NjF8MA&amp;ixlib=rb-4.0.3&amp;q=80&amp;w=1080" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></p><p>[1] Abella, A., Anderson, M., Anderson, M, Angell, K., Ascierto, J., ... Zelazko, A. (2024a). New Thought. Encyclopedia Britannica. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Thought" data-mce-href="https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Thought">https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Thought</a><br>[2] Abella, A., Anderson, M., Anderson, M, Angell, K., Ascierto, J., ... Zelazko, A. (2024b). Psyvhology. Encyclopedia Britannica.https://www.britannica.com/science/psychology<br>[3] Panksepp, J., and Davis, K. (2018). The Emotional Foundations of Personality: A Neurobiological and Evolutionary Approach. New York: W. W. Norton &amp; Company.<br>[4] Panksepp, J., and Biven, L. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotion. New York: W. W. Norton &amp; Company.<br>[5] Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.<br>[6] Dawkins, R. (2016). The selfish gene. Oxford university press.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

Emotional Fitness as the New Frontier in Personal Development: Why It’s the Missing Piece in Optimizing Performance, Health, and Well-Being

Big-eyed naughty cat looking at the target from behind the marble table

<p>Did you ever wish your emotions would just shut up and leave you the duck alone? Well, they won’t. They can’t. Emotions are millions of your tinny personal thermostats, taking in sensory inputs, checking them against your goals, and nudging you toward actions; whether you like it or not. They manifest as feelings constantly calibrating your responses to the world. The feeling you experience corresponds with the activation of neural and hormonal networks on the organic side. These are inseparable faces of the same coin. Experientially, emotions can feel like a mixed bag. Sometimes, they’re a clearly articulated sonnet. Other times, they’re a vague murmur in a language you barely recognize. Your ability to accurately describe what you’re feeling depends heavily on your and others’ emotional dictionary. When you tell someone about your emotions, you’re engaging in a kind of interpersonal charade, assuming that describing your last date as “weird” means “quirky and wonderful” and not “plotting their next true-crime episode”. Did you ever thing of it? You can only introspect your own emotions. You can’t borrow someone else’s neurohormonal system and compare the feeling. As everyone else, you are stuck in your emotional “echo chambers”, piecing together the words, meanings and feeling as best you can.</p><figure id="figure-6mgvi9bl7pm6159j69"><img id="6mgvi9bl7pm6159j69" src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1303510161/photo/abstract-empty-room.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=q0z3VYyXy5YnVAMFmRs84Cqvz5wTJVt3BcURqe-SEtw=" alt=" You can’t borrow someone else’s neurohormonal system and compare the feeling. As everybody else, you are stuck in your emotional “echo chambers”, piecing together the words with their meaning. " title=" You can’t borrow someone else’s neurohormonal system and compare the feeling. As everybody else, you are stuck in your emotional “echo chambers”, piecing together the words with their meaning. " class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1303510161/photo/abstract-empty-room.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=q0z3VYyXy5YnVAMFmRs84Cqvz5wTJVt3BcURqe-SEtw=" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;"></figure><h3>Why We Need Emotional Theories (and Why None of Them Feel Quite Right)</h3><p>Because emotions are private experiences, they’ve puzzled thinkers for centuries. To make sense of them, we’ve cooked up countless theories. It’s like trying to reverse-engineer Wi-Fi by watching cats walk under routers. The James-Lange theory claims your body’s reaction kicks off the emotion. Your heart races, then you feel the creeping awkwardness of having pressed “Reply All” on that email. The Cannon-Bard theory argues that emotions and body responses happen simultaneously. Imagine pressing “Reply All” and feeling your face flush with panic even as the emotional regret bubbles up at the same time. Finally, the Schachter-Singer two-factor theory insists you need both a physiological reaction and a cognitive label to get the full emotional experience. In this case, your heart races as you realize what you’ve done, and you think, “This is bad, and now I feel mortified.” You’re trying to figure out the distinction? James-Lange: body first, then feeling. Cannon-Bard: body and feeling happen together. Schachter-Singer: body + cognition = feeling. Why does this matter? Honestly, I have no idea. But it’s in every textbook, so here we are.&nbsp;</p><p>What you will likely figure out does matter are the categorizations of emotions. In 1890, William James proposed four basic emotions: fear, sadness, love, and anger. He saw these as the foundational ingredients that combine into more complex feelings. A century later Paul Ekman expanded this list to six: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Ekman’s research focuses on facial expressions across cultures. His studies show that no matter where you go humans recognize these emotions in the same way. They are obviously preloaded. Jaak Panksepp took things further, swapping facial expressions for brain circuits. He hatched the idea of stimulating different parts of rats' brains with electrodes and observing their reactions. Their laughs, explorations, and sudden freezes offered clues to the emotional networks in their brains. Panksepp identified seven core emotional systems: seeking, fear, separation distress, anger, care, play, and lust. These systems aren’t just found in rats of course; they’re hardwired into all mammals. So, including you … if you are human. The same emotional hardware has been running the operating system of species for millions of years.</p><p>At its core, categorizing emotions breaks down your emotional experiences into manageable building blocks, making it easier to understand their functioning principles and how to optimize them. Basic emotions are theoretical concepts that provide a foundation for working on your emotional fitness. It’s a bit like organizing a chaotic closet; once you group everything into categories, the chaos starts to make sense.</p><figure id="figure-jur28wehxom61586r3"><img id="jur28wehxom61586r3" src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/518253772/photo/building-blocks.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=8_3N4TOrX8PTgBj-0nO3y3KpDADy3e3W3ypLuvHoHdg=" alt="Categorizing emotions breaks down your emotional experiences into manageable building blocks." title="Categorizing emotions breaks down your emotional experiences into manageable building blocks." class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/518253772/photo/building-blocks.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=8_3N4TOrX8PTgBj-0nO3y3KpDADy3e3W3ypLuvHoHdg=" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;"></figure><h3>The Three Levels of Emotional Processing: From Instincts to Self-Reflection</h3><p>With the horizontal basics covered, let’s move to the vertical dimension of your emotional blueprint. You may’ve heard that in neuroscience we have this kooky habit of slicing the brain into three levels. (1) The foundational layer securing basic life functions; (2) the middle layer upgrading the basic operating system by your environment; (3) the highest layer refining your beautiful being with reflection, self-awareness and self-direction. Basic emotions are a part of the hardwired foundational layer. In Pankseppian affectology, we label them as core emotions. The middle layer is where your secondary emotional circuitry develops guided by your personal experiences by interacting with your environment. At the third level tertiary emotions annotate your mental and behavior functioning with self-awareness and self-direction. Understanding these three layers—the survival foundation, the learned patterns, and the reflective refinements—offers a framework for exploring how emotions function and how they can be optimized. Each layer builds upon the last, creating a dynamic system that influences every aspect of your life.</p><ul style="list-style-type: circle;" data-mce-style="list-style-type: circle;"><li>Core Emotional Networks (Red Zone): These are primary emotions, the unchanging basic survival system of the brain. Core emotions like fear, rage, and joy operate on autopilot, ensuring survival.</li><li>Secondary Emotional Networks (Green Zone): These networks form through early experiences and shape emotional patterns that are adaptive for your relational environment. It’s like learning which keys unlock which doors in the emotional escape room of life.</li><li>Tertiary Emotional Networks (Yellow Zone): The most sophisticated level, where rationality, language, and self-awareness come into play. Here, your primary and secondary systems interface with your sense of self.</li></ul><figure id="figure-ef37cv5dvkm64rqv60"><img id="ef37cv5dvkm64rqv60" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/7KOsRFU9QtkkMZ7mKV7Y4znNLYZBTlcd3gwvPZUOdnBh66NbbOhB3mWTgg6brIoJ.png" alt="Three levels of emotional systems in the brain" title="Three levels of emotional systems in the brain" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: 50% 50%;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="The three layers of emotional systems in your brain: core emotion network area (red), secondary emotion network area (blue), tertiary emotion network area (green)." data-positionx="50%" data-positiony="50%" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/7KOsRFU9QtkkMZ7mKV7Y4znNLYZBTlcd3gwvPZUOdnBh66NbbOhB3mWTgg6brIoJ.png" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: 50% 50%;"><figcaption class="body-normal text-gray-500 mt-2">The three layers of emotional systems in your brain: core emotion network area (red), secondary emotion network area (blue), tertiary emotion network area (green).</figcaption></figure><h3>Your Primal Survival Kit: The Core Emotions</h3><p>The primary level of emotional processing happens in your brainstem; the central hub managing essential survival functions. You are born with this system and it’s the primal HQ that keeps you alive. It keeps your heart beating, compels you to eat and drink, and warns you to steer clear of dark alleys. Primary emotions are a fundamental part of this built-in survival kit. Just as hunger signals you to eat or pain prompts you to seek relief, core emotions nudge you toward survival behaviors without conscious thought. You don’t need a masterclass to know when and how to feel anger or joy. They come pre-installed and ready to run. Neuroscience has identified distinct neural networks associated with these emotions, and they are strikingly universal across individuals and cultures. However, in adult humans, core emotions can’t operate in isolation. They’re deeply intertwined with secondary and tertiary emotional processes, making every emotional experience a mix of these layers. That said, the primary level is theoretically and empirically the most manageable. Its neural activations are relatively well-defined, and specific networks correlate with characteristic behaviors. Let’s meet the crew:</p><ul style="list-style-type: circle;" data-mce-style="list-style-type: circle;"><li>SEEKING drives you to explore, search, and pursue goals; from finding food to scrolling the internet for answers at 2 a.m.</li><li>RAGE propels you to defend your boundaries, take action, or claim what’s yours; sometimes by arguing, sometimes by mentally rehearsing your Oscar-worthy "comeback speech" in the shower.</li><li>FEAR activates avoidance and self-protection; leading you to dodge, hide, or take cautious steps when danger looms.</li><li>PANIC/GRIEF prompts you to maintain connection and resist loss. If the attempt fails, it leads to withdrawal as a way to rethink and recover.</li><li>PLAY encourages experimentation and light-hearted interaction; testing your strength, skills, and limits in safe, non-serious contexts, like humor, games, sports, and the arts.</li><li>CARE fosters nurturing and caregiving behaviors; whether you’re soothing a crying child or sending your friend a comforting meme.</li><li>LUST fuels sexual interest and desire; the ancient impulse to ensure the species survives, but also the motivation to make yourself desirable, whether by climbing the social ladder or getting your nails done.</li></ul><p>Were you a lampreys or hagfish, this post might have ended here. But you are an amniote with a fancy neurohormonal system and all that magnificent emotional pandemonium. So, we must grind further.</p><figure id="figure-bkht16d1rm615bkdd"><img id="bkht16d1rm615bkdd" src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1055446200/photo/background-of-letters-being-sucked-up-by-gravity.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=cB_IJBSIV1PET2je8VAeJYRhte7wdis9dygH3UBlQG4=" alt="You are an amniote with a fancy neurohormonal system and all that magnificent emotional pandemonium." title="You are an amniote with a fancy neurohormonal system and all that magnificent emotional pandemonium." class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="null" data-positiony="null" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1055446200/photo/background-of-letters-being-sucked-up-by-gravity.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=cB_IJBSIV1PET2je8VAeJYRhte7wdis9dygH3UBlQG4=" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;"></figure><h3>Secondary and Tertiary Emotional Networks: Why Your Emotional Experience is Uniquely Yours</h3><p>Secondary emotional networks energe as personalized extensions of your primary emotions. Unlike the universal, hardwired nature of core emotions, secondary emotions are shaped by your early experiences, which build emotional patterns shaped by your social and relational environment. During childhood, you begin internalizing social and relational dynamics and a mental map of safe and unsafe objects (meaning, people) and patterns of behavior. Through associations with pleasant emotions, you learn what is encouraged and what should be avoided by association with unpleasant emotions. These learned models form the emotional manual for navigating your living landscape and getting you where you want to get. While the core emotion of fear might prevent you getting eaten, the secondary emotion of fear helps you not angering your wife by remembering your mother’s legendary wrath after stepping on her freshly mopped floors. Your secondary patterns are brought up by your childhood significant others, for better or worse. If you grew up in a dysfunctional environment, your secondary emotional network may not always serve your best interests. Recognizing and reshaping these learned emotional patterns is the first stop on your emotional fitness journey.</p><p>As your brain matures and gains rational abilities, primary and secondary systems interface with awareness and self-regulation, forming a tertiary layer. The tertiary layer allows for mindfulness, reflection, and deliberate decision-making. It’s the part of your brain that lets you step back from a heated argument and think, “Is this worth it?” or to feel sadness but resist spiraling into despair by reframing your perspective. While primary and secondary emotions are automatic, tertiary emotions involve a interplay between reason and emotion. This allows you to reinterpret experiences, consider consequences, and rewrite your emotional scripts. You may feel anger bubbling up during a disagreement but, through self-awareness, recognize it as stemming from an old fear of being dismissed, choosing instead to assert yourself calmly. The tertiary layer is where you shape your identity. Are you the kind of person who reacts impulsively, or do you pride yourself on staying composed under pressure? Do you view sadness as weakness or as a sign of depth and connection? These are decisions, influenced by your values and beliefs. The tertiary layer allows for the greatest emotional freedom.</p><p>Every emotional experience you have pulls from all three layers. Because of this complexity, emotions at the secondary and tertiary levels defy simple categorization. Your emotional architecture is as unique as your fingerprint; formed by your personal history, shaped by relationships, and molded by lessons about safety, danger, desires, and taboos. No one else feels anger, sadness, or joy quite the way you do because no one else has lived your life. Your emotional fingerprint is shaped by countless factors: the lullabies you heard as a baby, the heartbreaks you endured as a teenager, the lessons you’ve learned from successes and failures. It’s a constantly evolving mosaic, pieced together from the fragments of your history, relationships, and aspirations. Grasping your emotions at the tertiary level therefore is like herding cats. Each one jumping in a different direction, often at the most inconvenient moment. Working directly on these higher-level emotions is incredibly challenging because of their sheer complexity and individuality. That’s where primary emotion models come in. By categorizing and understanding emotions at their core level, those universal building blocks, we created frameworks that simplify this chaos. These models act like a net, helping you gather and manage bunches of cats at once, making the pandemonium of real-life emotions more approachable and workable.</p><h3>Closing Thought: Knowing Your Emotional Blueprint</h3><p>Just like math starts with understanding numbers and reading begins with letters, mastering your emotions requires learning their foundational components. Without a grasp of the basics, you actually have no idea what you are doing. Attempts to manage your emotional patterns can feel frustrating and be aimless. It’s not your fault you’ve struggled. From the most popular approaches to optimizing or managing motional challenges it is obvious that affectology is a young science in its infancy. Most popular approaches to managing emotional challenges reflect how young the contemporary science of emotion still is. General advice is everywhere, but it often lacks a solid foundation or clear context for when and how to apply it. Emotional optimization is highly contextual and the same approach has opposite effects in different circumstances, with different individuals and for different emotions. Approaching it from the tertiary layer, where you encounter a chaos of everything, is an overwhelming task. It’s like trying to learn math by starting with calculus or playing your first tennis match against Federer. By understanding the basics, you know what you are working with instead of relying on random trial and error. Working with a clear framework is a much more reliable approach to build emotional fitness.<br></p><figure id="figure-yq1m6ivv3m615ffex"><img id="yq1m6ivv3m615ffex" src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/940326946/photo/portrait-of-a-siberian-kitten-family-studio-shoot.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=M_Uy84nBdlmnlY2eElNL9Dc1Lq0BabgIi-7EX8oc4gc=" alt="Grasping your emotions at the tertiary level therefore is like herding cats." title="Grasping your emotions at the tertiary level therefore is like herding cats." class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/940326946/photo/portrait-of-a-siberian-kitten-family-studio-shoot.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=M_Uy84nBdlmnlY2eElNL9Dc1Lq0BabgIi-7EX8oc4gc=" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;"></figure>

The Emotional Onion: Peeling Back the Layers of Feeling

Don’t Panic! A Guide to Panic Attacks and Panic Disorder: Symptoms, Causes, and Solutions

Malka Ceh, PhD, MSc, cNPA

I'm an Affectologist. I work online with ambitious individuals worldwide who want to optimize their emotional health, fitness, and functioning to achieve better results in various fields of life, e.g., lifestyle, health, wellness, relationships, career, etc. My approach is science-based. I draw on psychodynamic concepts (unconscious processes, defense dynamics, etc.), developmental and relational theories, and the latest biological insights from evolutionary psychiatry and affective science, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscience. I use psychoanalytic and existential methods, phenomenological research, and motivational interviewing. I'm a Certified NeuroPsychoanalyst, PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology, MSc in Psychotherapy.


My services:

Your Experience of Life: The Foundation of Well-Being
Discover how emotional patterns shape your daily consciousness. When your emotional system is fit, negative triggers lose their power while positive experiences gain richness. You’ll develop an internal landscape where curiosity replaces anxiety, where setbacks trigger resilience rather than despair, and where self-awareness becomes your gateway to lasting contentment.

Health Goals: From Struggle to Natural Flow
Why do some people effortlessly maintain healthy habits while others constantly battle their impulses? The answer lies not in willpower, but in emotional patterning. By recalibrating your emotional responses to health-related triggers, you transform dreaded exercises into anticipated activities and healthy foods into preferred choices. Your emotions become allies in your health journey.

Relationships: Dancing with Others’ Emotions
Every interaction is an emotional tango where both partners’ patterns create the dance. Understanding your own emotional choreography while reading your partner’s emotional signals transforms relationships from mysterious struggles into fascinating collaborations. Learn to create harmony in relationships by mastering the rhythms of emotional exchange.

Professional Success Through Emotional Intelligence
Your career advancement depends less on technical skills and more on emotional patterns than you might think. Whether managing workplace relationships or maintaining focus on complex tasks, emotionally fit individuals naturally navigate professional challenges. Transform workplace triggers from sources of stress into opportunities for growth

Family Bonds: From Pain Points to Growth
As a grown child, you might still wrestle with your parents’ authority, carry unresolved emotional wounds, or struggle with evolving care roles. With siblings, natural competitions for resources and attention often persist, masked as adult conflicts over inheritance, parent care, or status. Through emotional fitness, you can recognize these patterns, transforming old triggers into opportunities for mature relationships. Your family dynamics become a laboratory for growth rather than a source of recurring pain.

Modern Parenting: Meeting the High Expectations
Your emotional system evolved when resources were scarce, and survival was paramount. Today’s parenting ideals create an emotionally demanding mismatch. Through emotional fitness, you can bridge the gap, transforming instinctive reactions into conscious responses. Learn to navigate between programmed impulses and contemporary parenting values, creating an environment where both you and your child can thrive.

Transform Your Emotional Landscape for Lasting Success
Emotions are the foundation of your moods, thoughts, actions, and, ultimately, your happiness and outcomes. In life, emotional health is your greatest asset. My approach provides the tools to optimize your emotional skills, enhance your mental capacities, and elevate your overall well-being, setting you on the path to sustained personal fulfillment. Join me in redefining what’s possible through a science-driven, pragmatical approach to emotional fitness.

Science Meets Every-Day Application
Each strategy is grounded in evidence-based science, ensuring reliability and effectiveness.
Solutions are customized for real-world application, meeting the demands of achievers and organizations alike.
Discover how personalized, science-backed insights can transform your emotional health and optimize performance.

Malka Ceh, PhD, MSc, cNPA

Blog

Emotional Fitness as the New Frontier in Personal Develop...

The Emotional Onion: Peeling Back the Layers of Feeling

Don’t Panic! A Guide to Panic Attacks and Panic Disorder:...