How would you describe the way you process emotion personally (not necessarily in MBTI terms)
In many ways...as a reaction, it's usually a "welling" up. Occasionally an emotion flies out of nowhere and hits me in the head, from some random thought occurring to me...that's when I may laugh to myself or feel a tear from my eye, and hope other people don't notice & think I'm crazy.
Do you feel an emotion quickly or slowly in response to a situation?
It seems there's often an initial shock period. I think my emotions unfold slowly so I can process them at a time when it's "safer". It can also be like puke rising slowly up the back of your throat. You hope you can push it down & then make it in time to the bathroom before spewing it out. Even for positive emotion, it's often kept under wraps until I am alone or around someone I trust; it's not even a conscious decision, it's just how I am. I process emotion best internally and it's hard to do in the moment when the stimulus is still present. This can cause displays at later times in seemingly unrelated situations, or the emotion may be channeled creatively to finally be expressed.
It's weird, because if I am really feeling happy, I may want to leave that situation to experience the feeling fully alone, where I can process the emotion better.
Are your emotions intense or more lightly felt?
I have a full range from totally neutral to very passionate, and the emotional response tends to be in line with how important something is to me. Sometimes an emotion may seem larger than a situation warrants, but the situation may feel representative of something larger, and that's what I'm reacting to.
When you experience an emotion, can you identify its source and understand why?
I can usually identify the source very quickly. Once in awhile, my emotion surprises me and I have to reason it out, and I'll probably learn something from it. It's not unusual for an emotion to be at odds with a "feeling value", and that creates an internal conflict.
Are your emotions pure and singular, or do they tend to be a mix of multiple feelings in a more layered and nuanced manner?
Usually I have a mix, but one is dominant. Words like "angry" are often too vague at times....emotions have subtle differences to me, and the subtly is important to pinpoint what they mean and their level of intensity.
How much of your emotional experience lies beneath the surface in your subconscious and how much is consciously felt and known?
Most of it is known, in the sense that I am aware of it. Sometimes I have a dull feeling of something and I'm aware of it, but it's been stuck in the back and I'm not operating with it because it has nowhere to go for now (see "internal conflict" mentioned above). Occasionally I will experience physical symptoms that illuminate a feeling I was not fully aware of, and this is usually anxiety.
How do you view the role of emotions in your life? Is it important to you to feel? Does it provide you with insight or do they get in the way of other things?
Emotions to me are like color, flavor, scent - part of being human, knowing you're alive. It's important for me to feel if it's something I want/need to care about. I can rationally know something is good/right, but if there is no emotional response it can feel like drudgery. I want to be excited and inspired. Again, the emotion can cause an inner conflict, where I wish I did or did not feel a certain way; it can be inconvenient.
Emotions can be insightful when they clue me in on something that is important to me that I never considered before. In reasoning why I felt a certain way, I can link the emotion to an existing principle and understand why the smaller aspect at hand caused a response. Sometimes the line between emotion and feeling-thoughts gets blurry. The resonating and rise of feeling can seem like emotion, yet it is not really just emotion.
How do you react to people who experience emotion in an opposite way from how you do?
I tend to understand people in the general middle range...not overly dramatic and not totally emotionally blank.
Very dramatic people can annoy me - I know what passionate feeling is, I know what it is to be temperamental, but that doesn't give an excuse to fly off the handle all the time. Even strong positive emotion can be overwhelming for me to witness. Other times, I admire people more expressive than me. It can seem courageous to wear your heart so openly.
Robotic people can bore me. Lack of passionate feeling seems so dull and colorless.