Emotion comes from the Latin word emovere, which means to move. A similar root is found in the word motivation, from the Latin movere, which means to move. Emotions drive a person to certain activities or make them passive. The function of emotion is to set the current priority and direct the entire mental apparatus towards addressing an important change with the goal of adaptation.
We say that a person is adapted (adjusted) when there is harmony between their perceptions of themselves, others, and the world, and objective reality. The harmony between the world as it should be and the world as it really is. Disruption in adaptation occurs with change. That change must be perceived as significant, and that is the moment when the subject reacts with an emotion. The goal of every emotional reaction is to restore a state of adaptation. The way in which a state of readaptation is achieved differs for different emotions.
When a person becomes aware of their emotional reaction, only then can they adopt a relationship or an attitude towards it. At that point, one can reflect on the emotional reaction, comprehend it, and understand it. At that point, one can name their feeling, talk about what they are experiencing, and express the emotion in words. Only a subject who is aware of their emotion can examine it and determine whether it is appropriate or inappropriate.
There is a complex mechanism that enables emotion—one that precedes it and one that follows it. This is called the circular model of emotional reaction. Emotions are always logical. Feelings always occur in situations where the individual assesses that a significant change has occurred in the relationship between them and the world. Emotion is the result of that change, but it is also the aspiration to establish a new harmony between the individual and the world.
The function of emotion is always adaptive (adjustment). If the assumptions and criteria on which a person assesses themselves, others, and the world are discovered, it becomes easy to uncover the logic of adaptation. What reflexes are to the body, emotions are to the mind. Emotion is a person’s reaction to a stimulus they have assessed as important, which prepares the individual for an adaptive activity, i.e., for a change.
Meaning: People never react to stimuli as such, but to the meaning they attribute to them. A stimulus by itself cannot provoke an emotion, but rather the meaning we attribute to it. Feelings are only experienced in situations that the individual has assessed as important. Although a person perceives and interprets the meaning of other stimuli, they only emotionally react to those they have assessed as highly important. What a person will determine as significant depends on their system of values. People differ in how they interpret and evaluate stimuli, just as they differ in their value systems. That is why it is completely normal for different people to feel different emotions in the same situation—or not to feel anything at all. For an emotion to arise, there must be some meaning that has been assessed as important. The content of that meaning prompts the person to feel a specific emotion. The more significant (important) a stimulus is perceived to be, the greater the intensity of the emotions.
If a person does not understand their emotions, they cannot understand themselves or another person. The Do Win training helps people understand their emotions and, in doing so, improve their relationship with themselves, with others, and with the world.