Yesod – Develop access to your imagination and memory

Yesod, the ninth sphere, represents our emotional and cognitive faculties, including memory and imagination.

It governs the vital functions of the physical body, such as breathing, nutrition, blood circulation, and cell regeneration. Additionally, it encompasses our emotional experiences and actions. Yesod is the realm of emotions and feelings. It also encompasses our memory of past events and our imaginative capabilities. Our memory contains a complex structure, including personal memories (both forgotten and repressed), family memories (values, beliefs, education), and collective memories (influenced by our socio-professional environment, region, and nationality).

Let’s delve into emotions:

Yesod serves as the sphere of emotions, which are spiritual in nature rather than material. Emotions play a significant role as indicators that help us better understand our own state of mind and the emotional state of others. All emotions, including negative ones, carry valuable meaning and should not be dismissed or excessively expressed, but rather understood. To facilitate this understanding, we identify seven levels of emotional awareness. It is essential to have a minimum level of emotional awareness to foster healthier relationships with others. Moreover, there are seven key characteristics to recognize emotions and eight major emotional families to consider.

The 7 characteristics of human emotions are:

1. A proper identity: They must be identified and named. Anger is not fear.
2. A polarity: They can be pleasant or painful (positive or negative)
3. An intensity: Which measures the degree of feeling (pain / negative emotions/ pleasure/ positive emotion)
4. An object: The question to ask is “what”. What am I afraid of? I’m mad at what? What am I angry about? We may not be able to define the object.
5. The cause: Because/ a reason. Because of an object
6. A meaning: Emotions have a meaning, an ethics. And must be addressed (Dharma)
7. Effects (psychological/somatic): Effects on the body (substances like serotonin, dopamine), but also psychological effects: Consciousness is confused, unable to think.

The 8 main families of emotions are:

• Anger: Annoyance, irritation, annoyance, discontent, annoyance, frustration, animosity, bitterness
• Fear: Fright, apprehension, apprehension, anxiety, mistrust, suspicion, circumspection, inhibition, dread, fright, terror, phobia, panic.
• Sadness: Disappointment, grief, pain, depression, melancholy, gloom.
• Shame: Guilt, discomfort, embarrassment, remorse, regret, contrition
• Disgust: aversion, disgust, repulsion, disdain, contempt.
• Confusion: Surprise, consternation, astonishment, confusion, amazement, bewilderment, confusion, doubt, helplessness.
• Contentment: Satisfaction, pride, relief, fun, wonder, pleasure, joy, pleasure in living, delight, delight, euphoria, bliss.
• Love: Enjoyment, affection, tenderness, harmony, completeness, friendship, affinity, security, approval, empathy, compassion, enthusiasm, adoration, bliss.

The 7 degrees of emotional awareness development are:

• The absence of emotional awareness is a state of emotional underdevelopment. It may occur after emotional and traumatic shock.

• The somatization of emotions: The body sends negative signals, but the emotions are not mentally conscious.

• Confused awareness of emotions: We feel them, but we cannot put them into words.

• Distinct awareness: We perceive emotions, but we are not aware of their cause or object

• We are aware of the cause and object for ourselves

• Emphatic awareness: We are aware of the cause and object for ourselves, but also for others

• We have interactive awareness with emotions, and we use them to do good.

The first 3 levels of emotional development are pathological and correspond to emotional underdevelopment and unbalance.