Emotion

[This article is part of a series about how to craft an intentional life using ideas and tools from Constantin Stanislavski’s acting system for working on our inner motive forces. Previous article: The Triumvirate of Consciousness]


Emotion is one of the three inner motive forces that drive us to action, the other two being intellect and will. Being active, rather than apathetic or paralysed, is good but all actions are not positive, effective and goal-directed. To ensure that we choose positive action, we need to work on strengthening our understanding of and influence over the three motive forces. Here, I consider our emotions. 


We often see emotions as beyond control. They happen to us. They are a result of circumstances, events and memories. They also have disturbing physical associations: the sweaty palms from nervousness, the heated face from embarrassment, the accelerated heart beat from excitement. 


If emotions last longer, they become moods. These overlay our daily lives and then everything we do feels coloured by what we’re feeling, including our personalities. We identify people, including ourselves, as depressed, anxious or having a sunny disposition. 


Since the members of the triumvirate are linked, our emotions heavily influence our intellect and our will, and our ability to act effectively. Our moods colour our thoughts, turning them negative or positive; emotions can sap our will to action or push us to do great or terrible things. I feel afraid so I think of all the terrible things that can happen to me outside, and lock myself away in my house or buy a gun to protect myself; I feel curious and think of the things in the world that I want to experience, and plan a fun outing with my friends. 


While negative emotions can be spurs to action, they can as easily confuse our thoughts and sap our will. Positive emotions, as well as making us more content and happy in life, engender positive thoughts and feed our will, making it easier to act with intention. Therefore, in this series I focus on how to influence emotions in a positive direction. We can and do control our emotions in day to day life. For example, we put ourselves in situations and do things that make us happy. We breathe deeply, distance ourselves or vent to quiet negative emotions. We may take drugs or undertake therapy to deal with our emotional state. 


If we understand our emotions better, we will know which emotions help or hinder us, and be able to work at influencing them. 

What is your emotional state?

Above I mentioned moods and how they colour our personalities. How do you characterise your personality? 

  • Are you introvert or extrovert? This influences how your emotions are likely to manifest, the kinds of situations that are likely to be emotionally difficult for you and those that you find easy.

  • Do you think of yourself as an emotional person or not? We all feel emotions, but this relates to how strongly we express emotions and how much we allow them to influence our actions. 

  • What are your dominant emotions? What do you tend to feel most often? Is this associated with current circumstances or more long term?

  • What affects you emotionally? What do you react to most strongly? Do you sweat and shake when public speaking? Do sad movies make you cry? Does bad driving make you angry? Does a beautiful sunset make you happy?


It is difficult to see into oneself clearly. Friends and family can help with this. It is easier to see someone else’s state of mind and situation clearly and objectively than it is our own. Ask trusted companions how they would answer the above questions for you and how they would identify your current and typical emotional state. 

Exercise: Emotion diary

If you want to understand your current emotional state and influences more deeply or struggle to answer the above questions, consider keeping an emotion diary for at least a few days. The act of labelling emotions makes them easier to deal with and to identify in future. 


It is worth having a look at one of the many lists of emotions available on the internet. We tend to think in terms of a few broad and obvious feelings: happiness, anger, sadness, anxiety, fear. Experts have identified dozens of emotions, many of them subtle variations on the above themes. Familiarise yourself with one of those lists so that you can think about your emotions in a more nuanced way. There are no hard and fast rules here. If the quantity of possible emotions feels overwhelming, then let them go and focus on the broad strokes. You will still gain insight.


The process of keeping an emotion diary takes very little time and effort: 

  1. Start a document that you will always have with you and can easily add to. This must be something that you have with you in different circumstances, so something portable is the best option. It can be a small pad and pencil, an online document or an app that you access through your phone.

  2. Decide on how often you want to note your emotion. This depends on your time and inclination. I recommend between at least three times per day and no more than once per hour. Create a structure in your document with days and time stamps. 

  3. Set reminders to post to your diary at the frequency you’ve chosen, so that you can forget about it and get on with your day. 

  4. When the reminder goes off, note what you are feeling right then. Emotions are complex, so you may have several different feelings going on. You can note other things if you wish, such as strength of emotion, circumstance, people or thoughts involved. But remember that this is supposed to be a quick activity you incorporate in your normal daily life, not something that adds to your stress.

  5. At the end of the week, or once a week if you decide to continue the exercise, look through your diary to get a sense of your emotional spectrum and balance for the week.  


As you keep the diary, you will gain insight into yourself and your emotional triggers.

Stanislavski’s tools

In the next articles, I will describe two concepts from Stanislavski’s writings that we can use to stimulate and enhance our emotional awareness and control.

  • Emotion memory and sense memory: using our intellect and senses to understand our emotions and how they affect us from a historic perspective (Part 1) and how we can influence and shape our emotions and memories (Part 2).

  • Tempo-and-rhythm: understanding movement as a sensory activity which affects emotion (Part 1), and how we can use tempo-rhythm to influence our emotions (Part 2).

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