| There's a lot of good responses in this thread already, but I would like to add one more thing. An emotion will generally be part of a chain of emotions and beliefs. Here's how this example of envy could work out for me: - At the top we might feel angry. - One level below that we realize we feel angry because we feel envious of someone - Below that we may realize that we feel envy because we feel insecure - We feel insecure because we fear not being good enough - We fear not being good enough because somewhere in our past we internalized the lesson that unless we're good enough, we may not receive attention / affection - Not receiving attention / affection is connected to fear, because as a child, in our evolutionary past, not being protected by our caretakers could result in our death Ultimately, the envy is connected to a fear of not being loved and a fear of death. And many other things are as well. |