why some emotions are more of a challenge than others

What makes some emotions easier to feel than others? 

PTC, your experience is that anger is amongst the easier emotions for you to feel. For some people anger is one of the harder ones to tolerate. What makes emotions harder or easier for each of us to tolerate depends on a few things, mostly our previous experience with them and our associations with them.

For example, I once worked with a young woman who related this story to me: when she was younger she had been at a picnic with her family. She remembered being happy and having a good time. At some point, her younger brother had a terrible accident which changed their family forever. From that time on, happiness terrified this woman and she did everything she could to avoid the feeling. Because a traumatic association was created between happiness and an accident, happiness became intolerable. For people who do not have this association (and for many, many people happiness is associated with pleasant things, making it a pleasant emotion to experience).

Anger is an interesting emotion. Although it can be intense and feel volatile, sometimes people do find anger manageable because it can feel active- it can make us feel energetic, assertive, or even hyper- whereas many emotions like sadness, anxiety or depression can leave us feeling drained, helpless and exhausted.

Our associations and previous experiences with emotions are important to explore. When we understand why we feel certain ways about certain emotions we won't be as unsettled by those emotions, and we will be in a more informed position to work on undoing unhelpful/negative associations

Comments

[leanonme]

Johanna,
as we build up endurance to these thousands of emotions good and bad do they become less intense and more withstandible? I feel as if emotions, mostly negative for me( sadness, fear, anger,worry)take so much out of me. They feel as if it might be easier if i were either dead or numb. sometimes i get so tired. Do people without eds get this tired handling their emotions?

Also do childeren that have secure and run of the mill childhoods build up like a second skin allowing them to withstand the intenseness of big emotions. Just wondering ?Thanks for any insight..

[wendy]

I found anger the easiest to get in touch with, but had so much shame attached to it that I often used by ED behaviors to redirect the anger towards myself. For me, it was hard to let myself sit in the anger I felt towards others or to use it to confront or set healthy boundaries.