Most Powerful/Painful Human Emotion? | INFJ Forum

Most Powerful/Painful Human Emotion?

YourFavoriteNightmare

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Sep 11, 2013
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Feel free to get technical and accompany them with specific dynamics. Would you say longing, but longing for something you can never have? Would you say rage is the most powerful...or hate?
 
I have trouble distinguishing romantic love from longing and this has probably been a problem for me. Whatever it is, when I'm feeling this, I'm willing to do most anything for it. Nothing else I feel goes very deep or lasts very long.
 
I think feeling guilty for wrong you've done can be very painful and powerful.
And I think that longing in the sense of love is as well, but in a different way.
Either way, they're both difficult to live with for long periods of time.
 
My vote is for anger. No matter how little, or how great, anger is a high octane fireball because it is motivating and prompts people to take action. Like any emotion, it depends on where you direct it; it can be used in a positive way (determination) or negative way (destruction). When it's expressed in a healthy way, it's cathartic because it makes you feel alive. When anger is repressed, it becomes depression (or passive aggression) and its weight is so heavy it prevents you from embracing life or building healthy relationships. It's no accident that people usually wake up from their doldrums when their depressive mind loop opens up and lets in a little anger. If one single emotion can make you either completely destroy your life or help you get your shit together, I'd say that's pretty powerful.
 
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Almost any emotion can cause disempowerment or empowerment, so all should be carefully tempered with thought. There is a choice with every feeling. We aren't helpless to the power of emotions. If anything, emotions are psychic energy that we can harness and use for constructive action or destructive action. I'm much more interested in how people choose to process their emotions.
 
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anger is pretty high up there in terms of powerful emotions but the most painful are shame, disgrace or guilt. Edit: although loss of someone deeply loved especially a child is probably the most painful in comparison.
 
I can think of maybe four feeling archetypes that I personally have. Other so called 'emotions' are just one of these four 'feelings'

These four archetypes are:
Spiky
Fluffy
Languid
Void

Anger, excitement, hate fall into the spiky category, but so can intense love, fear, guilt, even a manic level of happiness, etc. these all feel spiky to me

Fluffy feelings are more feelings of peace, platonic love, contentment, and so forth.

Languid feelings are the lazy and bluesy feelings, or sick feelings, but not necessarily depressed feelings, and also some variations of contented feelings. Mostly the "No fucks were given that day" type of feelings.

Void feelings are more like anti-feelings. These suck the very life out of a person. They're empty holes that eat up everything around it.

I'd say that spiky feelings can lead to the most deliberate destruction for the sake of feelings, making them very powerful, however anything will be overcome and devoured by void if it gets powerful enough.
 
I can think of maybe four feeling archetypes that I personally have. Other so called 'emotions' are just one of these four 'feelings'

These four archetypes are:
Spiky
Fluffy
Languid
Void

Anger, excitement, hate fall into the spiky category, but so can intense love, fear, guilt, even a manic level of happiness, etc. these all feel spiky to me

Fluffy feelings are more feelings of peace, platonic love, contentment, and so forth.

Languid feelings are the lazy and bluesy feelings, or sick feelings, but not necessarily depressed feelings, and also some variations of contented feelings. Mostly the "No fucks were given that day" type of feelings.

Void feelings are more like anti-feelings. These suck the very life out of a person. They're empty holes that eat up everything around it.

I'd say that spiky feelings can lead to the most deliberate destruction for the sake of feelings, making them very powerful, however anything will be overcome and devoured by void if it gets powerful enough.

Quite good categorization actually. Spiky is intense and sharp. Fluffy are soft and subtle. Languid are the droning on(how I'm thinking of it), lethargic ones. Void are the empty nothing-ness. Yes, the Fluffy are quite harmless. Spiky can be destructive while Void can devour; swallow up. The latter may be a better term. Languid...could be powerful/painful but they are only felt by the individual so...they don't really hurt anybody do they? If they do, they are either paired or converted into a Spiky, or alternately, turned into a Void.

Could you provide more examples of the last one catergory? I can only come up two: the kind of depression where you're feeling catatonic, and emotional numbness.
The Languid and Void seem like they should be merged as one. Very close in idea, if not the same. Expound upon the difference.
 
FEAR
 
The emotion we feed the most.
 
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I'll go with PRIDE and FEAR. The rest anger, guilt an so on are just merely products of these two main emotions.
On a positive side... LOOOOOOVEEEE
 
Despair and Hope

...also shame, this one drives a lot of people to numb themselves through alcohol and drugs and also to self-harm, whether the shame is warranted or not.
 
Feel free to get technical and accompany them with specific dynamics. Would you say longing, but longing for something you can never have? Would you say rage is the most powerful...or hate?

I'm going with guilt. Feeling guilty about something can be completely immobilizing. On one hand, it can be considered a good thing...it shows that you have a conscience. But, if you are having a hard time making amends with what you did and can't find a way passed it, it can be all-consuming...it will emotionally destroy you.

Yeah. Definitely guilt.
 
fear is the worst. it creates every other painful emotion.
 
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I believe that all emotions stem from Love. Love is the most powerful emotion, and Love is much much much more than an emotion- it is a state, a mindset, an attitude, a way of being, our nature, our True Self. Love is the core of our being, it is the nature of creation. It is the highest state of consciousness, it is Oneness, God. Love is the reason why we exist and why we chose to come here.

The 2 core emotions are Love and Fear. Fear is the opposite of Love. Everything stems from these two states. But even fear is derived from Love, because essentially, all fear is a lack of love- a cry for love.

I wont crap on about this too much as i already have gone on about Love and fear in other threads.

Another thing that i found interesting-
In 'Conversations with God', it talks about the 5 basic natural emotions- Grief/sadness, Anger, Envy, Fear and Love
It says that when these 5 emotions are not allowed to be expressed freely in a healthy way, they become unatural emotions-
Grief becomes chronic depression
Anger becomes rage
Envy becomes jealousy
Fear becomes panic
Love becomes possesiveness

http://noaimiloa.livejournal.com/32283.html#

Grief is a natural emotion. It's that part of you which allows you to say goodbye when you don't want to say goodbye; to express--push out, propel--the sadness within you at the experience of any kind of loss. It could be the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a contact lens.

When you are allowed to express your grief, you get rid of it. Children who are allowed to be sad when they are sad feel very healthy about sadness when they are adults, and therefore usually move through their sadness very quickly.

Children who are told, "There, there, don't cry," have a hard time crying as adults. After all, they've been told all their life not to do that. So they repress their grief.

Grief that is continually repressed becomes chronic depression, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of chronic depression. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Anger is a natural emotion. It is the tool you have which allows you to say, "No, thank you." It does not have to be abusive, and it never has to be damaging to another.

When children are allowed to express their anger, they bring a very healthy attitude about it to their adult years, and therefore usually move through their anger very quickly.

Children who are made to feel that their anger is not okay--that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn't even experience it--will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their anger as adults.

Anger that is continually repressed becomes rage, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of rage. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Envy is a natural emotion. It is the emotion that makes a five-year-old wish he could reach the doorknob the way his sister can--or ride that bike. Envy is the natural emotion that makes you want to do it again; to try harder; to continue striving until you succeed. It is very healthy to be envious, very natural. When children are allowed to express their envy, they bring a very healthy attitude about it to their adult years, and therefore usually move through their envy very quickly.

Children who are made to feel that envy is not okay--that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn't even experience it--will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their envy as adults.

Envy that is continually repressed becomes jealousy, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of jealousy. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Fear is a natural emotion. All babies are born with only two fears: the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. All other fears are learned responses, brought to the child by its environment, taught to the child by its parents. The purpose of natural fear is to build in a bit of caution. Caution is a tool that helps keep the body alive. It is an outgrowth of love. Love of Self.

Children who are made to feel that fear is not okay--that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn't even experience it--will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with their fear as adults.

Fear that is continually repressed becomes panic, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of panic. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

Love is a natural emotion. When it is allowed to be expressed, and received, by a child, normally and naturally, without limitation or condition, inhibition or embarrassment, it does not require anything more. For the joy of love expressed and received in this way is sufficient unto itself. Yet love which has been conditioned, limited, warped by rules and regulations, rituals and restrictions, controlled, manipulated, and withheld, becomes unnatural.

Children who are made to feel that their natural love is not okay--that it is wrong to express it, and, in fact, that they shouldn't even experience it--will have a difficult time appropriately dealing with love as adults.

Love that is continually repressed becomes possessiveness, a very unnatural emotion.

People have killed because of possessiveness. Wars have started, nations have fallen.

And so it is that the natural emotions, when repressed, produce unnatural reactions and responses. And most natural emotions are repressed in most people. Yet these are your friends. These are your gifts. These are your divine tools, with which to craft your experience.

You are given these tools at birth. They are to help you negotiate life. (Conversations With God, Book 3, by Neale Donald Walsch; "Chapter 1, pages 22 - 27.)
 
For me the single most painful emotion is frustration. I see it as something different than anger which I agree has a separating quality to it and usually does not last long for me regardless of whether I express it or not. Frustration I feel is more self directed (self-hatred for those involved in spirituality) and often lingers, dulling my awareness and sending my mind into an energetic tizzy, trying to find ways to get rid of it. I've read a guru describe this singular state as the very substance of suffering itself.

I also think emptiness can be debilitating in its own right and often is the cause of my other emotions regardless of whether or not I am experientially in touch with yet or not.
 
It should be love. It would have been love.

These times, however; I'd go for anger, too.
Righteous anger, even. Coupled with realizations of what could be and what might have been.
 
Despair I think is the most powerful emotion.

Despair in this context would be defined by when you are only kind to someone and they are cruel emotionally, but you are bound by your morals to treat them with respect and on top of that you can understand their past. With enough cruelty a person may experience despair... it's a feeling of a harrowing scream of anger infused with the depths of sadness.
 
Has to be love.
Not romantic love or lust, the love that burns in the heart forever.