Cultivating Emotional Discernment with Your Top 2 + Bottom 2 Feelings
What are your Top 2 Feelings that show up more than they’re supposed to, and your Bottom 2 Feelings that don’t show up often enough? In this post, I’m talking about cultivating emotional discernment with those feelings to help you learn how to master your emotions!
So many feelings…so little comfort
You might be someone who’s (reluctantly, with great embarrassment) acknowledged that you got BIG feelings. You resonate with the experiences of:
Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
Empaths
…and might have been called as being:
“TOO emotional”
“TOO sensitive”
“TOO needy”
“TOO much”
Btw, we BIG Feelers get judged way too harshly by others…Maybe we’re not TOO SENSITIVE but that everyone else is TOO INSENSITIVE!!
The world would be much worse off without feeling folks. Case in point — the United States is a country that values things that run OPPOSITE of sensitive types, and see what hot waters it’s gotten us…
Soapbox aside, we as BIG Feelers still gotta figure out how to navigate our day-to-day, relationships, and work so that we don’t expose ourselves to further risk and judgment, given that our emotional nature isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
How to Cultivate Emotional Discernment
Emotional discernment refers to the ability to UNDERSTAND and MANAGE our feelings effectively so that they don’t run - and ruin - our lives. So how do we cultivate it?
Okay, I KNOW I have feelings…Now what??
It’s a given THAT we have feelings. But what we do AFTER those feelings show up is what makes or breaks us.
Much like with a beachball, when we stuff our feelings, we only make things so much messier. Labeling your feelings as BAD and shoving them aside is the very thing that pulls us into the chaotic Emotional Vortex that only adds MORE feelings to then have to deal with.
The only way out of this Emotional Vortex is to work WITH (not against) our feelings. Instead of shoving them aside, learn to decipher what they’re telling you about how you’re doing or what you’re needing.
Here’s the sequence:
Okay, great! So now I have a handy chart-in-my-pocket that I could pull out whenever I have a feeling show up! I’m all set, right??
ALMOST. Yes, it’s good to have a quick guide. But I promise you, what’s likely to happen on your first go-around is that before you actually *think* to bust out that chart, that you’re going to get completely taken over by your feelings.
Here’s why. We don’t have ONE brain, but THREE:
Top (human brain): reflective, planning THINKING
Middle (mammal brain): meaning-making FEELING
Bottom (lizard brain): reflexive/reactive DOING
Long story short, when you’re CALM, all three brains are working well together, including your top thinking brain that helps you learn from blogs like these, books, seminars, workshops, etc.
You can learn all the best how-tos, but when you’re STRESSED, this wealthy library of useful information goes on LOCK DOWN and the dragon downstairs (the lizard reactive doing brain) WAKES UP ROARING - so you can’t access the very tools you need when you need them the most.
The LAST thing you’ll want to do when you’re super overwhelmed with anxiety or sadness is to read a long-ass blog to find out which feeling you have and what to do next. Netflix or Instagram seem so much more appealing…
The BIG 5 Feelings Chart is definitely useful, and it’s good that you still have it. But there’s one more step to actually make use of it to get the most mileage out of it.
To make it easier for your future, stressed-out self, let’s create a speed dial for your emotions, what I call your Top 2/Bottom 2 Feelings.
Keep reading to find out how to make sure you’re ready for when your BIG Feelings might take over!
Building off of patterns
The nice thing about your emotional patterns is that, well…they’re patterns. It’s consistent and predictable. We can definitely work with that to cultivate emotional discernment!
You don’t want to prepare for war in times of war, otherwise it’ll be too late. Gotta do it during times of peace - when you’re grounded, calm, present, and reflective (like right now! Otherwise you wouldn’t bother reading this far).
Here is the magical next step, the two questions to find out your emotional speed dial:
Out of the BIG 5 Feelings (MAD, SAD, GLAD, SCARED, & NUMB)...
What are your Top 2 Emotions?
What are your Bottom 2 Emotions?
(1) What are your Top 2 Emotions?
What are the two feelings that show up all TOO readily, without you even trying?
The two feelings you are most comfortable or familiar with, maybe because they seem “GOOD”?
The two feelings that tend to take over, that you have a hard time pulling away from?
For me, my Top 2 Feelings are SCARED and NUMB.
SCARED
It’s super easy for me to see the negatives than positives. As a control-wielding emotion, fear feels more comfortable and productive than anger.
NUMB
I have a bias against the “loud”, “messy” feelings of MAD and SAD (my Bottom 2 Emotions). Often, I switch into work mode when I have feelings come up (it feels safer), and to do so, I go flat in my feelings. Sometimes I deliberately distract myself from whatever’s bothering me or tunnel-vision on something that I want to focus on instead.
(2) What are your Bottom 2 Emotions?
What are the two feelings that you RARELY feel that you barely remember the last time you felt it?
The two feelings you feel the most uncomfortable or unfamiliar with, that you switch OUT of as much as possible because they feel “BAD”?
The two feelings that take so much deliberate effort for you to connect with it?
My Bottom 2 Feelings are MAD and GLAD.
MAD
I used to associate anger with destruction, messiness, chaos, and disconnection. Anger seemed so out of control and unruly, with rarely any benefits. I also grew up in an environment where women were discouraged from speaking up and celebrated when they kept their mouth shut. From an early age, I had buried my anger so deeply that it was completely foreign to me.
GLAD
As a control-junkie that liked planning and preparing for every single detail, I played it safe by being vigilant and mistrusting when good things happened. I can’t be disappointed or hurt if I don’t have anything to lose, right??
Being a busybody who was always working on something, being content and enjoying life felt scary…When’s the next shoe going to drop? What if something bad happens?
Your turn!! What are your Top 2 and Bottom 2 emotions?
Write down WHAT they are and WHY.
In writing out the reasons, you might see some of your worldview & biases that you might not have even noticed before because it’s running quietly in the background, rarely if ever questioned or challenged but automatically assumed to be true.
Each emotion reveals their go-to themes and values. The issue ISN’T the feeling, but the themes & values that are so central to you (often to our own detriment because we can sometimes go completely tunnel-visioned and forget other aspects of life that also matter).
Why do the Top 2/Bottom 2 Feelings Matter?
Your Top 2 Feelings aren’t inherently better, and your Bottom 2 Feelings aren’t inherently worse.
But like a five-sided wheel whose parts are uneven, you might be getting “caught” in predictable situations, unable to roll smoothly because some feelings are GINORMOUS (showing up more than they’re supposed to) and other feelings are TINY (not showing up as much as they need to).
Here’s what to make of your Top 2/Bottom 2, whatever they are:
Top 2 Emotions show up TOO OFTEN
We have a bias TOWARDS them, assuming that they’re automatically GOOD because they’re comfortable, familiar, good for relationships, etc. or because they happen to align with our own values or values we absorbed from our environments.
(Social context matters – in many parts of the world, women are celebrated when they lead with “softer/weaker” emotions like “SAD”, while men are lionized when they lead with “powerful” emotions like MAD. The end result? All of us are out of balance.)
Sometimes, a feeling TAKES OVER even when we don’t want it to, going from 0 to 300 mph with these feelings – we just can’t help it! This might be because of brain training.
Much like a truck driving through a muddy field, leaving grooves in its wake that make it easier for it to drive down the same path next time, our brain cells create neural pathways that only get stronger the more they’re used.
But there are some moments in life where we need to actually take a different path, because the old familiar path only gets us into deeper trouble. The less we’ve ventured away from the old path, the more difficult it is to go in the direction we really need to.
We *think* we’re in control because we’re in the driver seat, when in actuality the well-worn grooves are actually what’s in control of where we go.
Bottom 2 Emotions don’t show up OFTEN ENOUGH
We have a bias AGAINST these feelings, assuming that they’re automatically BAD because they don’t fit our own values or values we’ve absorbed from our environments.
(Again, social context matters – in many areas, women are judged more severely when they lead with MAD, while men are judged more heavily when they lead with SCARED or SAD. This leads to further division and polarization between people groups.)
You need to listen to the TRUE Emotion (aka Primary Emotion) because this is what tells you what you’re ACTUALLY needing (not what society or practice tells you that you SHOULD need).
Even though the Bottom 2/Primary Emotions might actually be the more honest ones that are directly connected to our needs, because we’ve labeled them as BAD, we might actually summon our Top 2/Secondary Emotions because they seem GOOD and easy.
Like peeling an onion, the Top 2 Emotions/Secondary Emotions need to be PEELED BACK because they can often start creating problems (think of someone who’s about to be laid off making problems they know how to solve to justify being kept in their position – they need to be laid off, but instead they’re fighting back).
The Bottom 2 Emotions/Primary Emotions need to be REVEALED to help us get our needs met so that we can become rebalanced and integrated. When our core needs are met, we can summon intentional, deliberate RESPONSES according to what each situation needs, rather than defaulting to whatever reflexive, thoughtless REACTIONS we’re used to.
The Emotional Decision Tree
Ask yourself this:
Is there a MATCH or MISMATCH between what you FEEL & and what’s HAPPENING?
To make the best use of The BIG 5 Feelings Chart, you need to know your Top 2 vs. Bottom 2 Emotions because what you do next DEPENDS on whether your feelings MATCH your situation or NOT. Sometimes you go WITH the feeling, sometimes you go AGAINST:
When your feelings MATCH your situation, you go WITH the feeling and do as the feeling says.
When your feelings DON’T MATCH your situation, you go AGAINST that surface feeling and dig deeper to find the real feeling beneath and do as THAT feeling says.
(By the way…if there’s a mismatch, that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. Our emotions are trying to tell us what we need, but they can have terrible time stamps, showing up at unexpected times. Mismatched feelings (aka “incongruent emotions”) are not BAD, but they can be confusing…This current blog is about what to do NEXT for the time being, not about WHY these mismatches happen. I’ll write a separate blog on this later!)
In any situation that stirs up a feeling, ask yourself:
Does this feeling FIT what situation I’m in?
Is there a MATCH or MISMATCH between the feeling and the situation?
If YES, proceed with what the feeling says you need.
If NO, ask yourself:
If I PEEL BACK this very familiar feeling, would I find another feeling underneath? Let me check between my Bottom 2 Feelings.
Here are two examples of each scenario. For reference:
My Top 2 Feelings are SCARED and NUMB
My Bottom 2 Feelings are MAD and GLAD
Example 1: MATCH between Feeling & Situation = Proceed.
If I’m feeling anxious about an upcoming interview, my feeling MATCHES the situation (hint: others in my situation would also feel similarly).
Therefore, I should go WITH the feeling and refer to the SCARED column on the BIG 5 Feelings Chart.
Example 2: MISMATCH between Feeling & Situation = Check Bottom 2 Feelings.
When I feel anxious when I’m invited to a hangout with people I like (“What if I don’t fit in? What if I say something dumb?”), there’s a MISMATCH between my feeling and the situation. I am OVERDOING fear (Top 2) and UNDERDOING joy (Bottom 2).
Then, instead of looking at the SCARED column on the BIG 5 Feelings Chart, I need to actually refer to the GLAD column.
Follow Your Heart:
Listening to Your (Primary) Feelings
You might think, “This takes so much work!! Why bother listening to feelings at all??”
I get it. It’s hard work.
But the cost of NOT tuning into your emotions is that you’re going to be dealing with a messier, more chaotic version of them anyway (aka the Emotional Vortex). There is NO option NOT doing feelings, so you may as well learn how to do feelings well!
More importantly, there ARE benefits to harnessing the power of your emotions, because they reveal who we really are and what matters the most to us. Our emotions tell us what we NEED and WANT – it’s to our advantage to tune into them so that we can actually create a life that is fulfilling for us.
Once you practice speaking in all BIG 5 Feelings fluently so that you can voluntarily switch languages based on the situation you’re in, you’d be able to BECOME (and STAY!) fully present, fully alive, and fully fulfilled.
My life made a total 180 since I aligned myself to work WITH my feelings so that they now work FOR me. ‘Tis my dream to help you do the very same!!
So for now, get to know your own emotional habits by finding out what your Top 2 and Bottom 2 Emotions are, then rounding yourself out by reining in your Top 2 + summoning forth your Bottom 2 feelings.
Want much more of this?
There’s a lot more where that came from in Intelligent Emotions, a self-paced online program that helps you transforms your BIGGEST feelings into your GREATEST superpower!
Check out all that’s included!
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© Copyright 2023 Joanne Kim. All rights reserved.
Joanne Kim, Feelings Translator
Hi! I’m a therapist-turned feelings coach who helps Highly Sensitive Persons, Empaths, Enneagram 2s & 4s, etc. turn their BIGGEST feelings into their GREATEST superpower!
They are often the first (or only) person in their family to intuitively process and express feelings; consequently, they are often judged or criticized so that they learn to people please, placate, or perform until they hit a wall.
They’re super familiar with anxiety, guilt, and shame, partly because of an allergic reaction to anger (theirs and others').
Often the super responsible, empathic, and ethical person in their environments, they reach out to me after they're already burned out, resentful in their relationships, or sucked into their shame spiral.
The most common feedback I get from people when I share about how feelings work is,
"Why didn't anyone teach me this in school??"
Hence, I am building a school helping people work WITH their feelings so their feelings work FOR them.