WITHIN A SELF, our animal nature speaks to us through the language of emotions.
Our emotions are powerful voices that communicate in a dialect much older than human tongues. Their roots stretch deep into the primitive corners of our brains, shaped by our ancient ancestors’ motives and needs, by a long history of bodies and ecosystems refined through the great gamble of natural selection.
EMOTIONS ARE ABSTRACT: warm and cold, dense and vast, unbearably painful and wonderfully pleasant. Some feelings whine like ghosts from our deepest chambers; some clatter violently through mind and body like runaway subway trains; others lift gently and dissolve like misty clouds. If we wish to share the experience of being the person that we are in any moment, we must learn to translate our emotions into words our Others may understand.