Emotions: emotional and spiritual meaning

Sorrow is often read as a wounded heart after a painful experience. It may last a moment or many years, and it can bring back old childhood hurts that were never named.

Sadness is often read as a pain that has not been expressed. The source links unexpressed sadness with the lungs, a deeper sadness with the heart, and a very deep sadness with diabetes.

Melancholy is a deep sadness. It is often read as moral pain, a feeling of being at fault, and a life that has lost its joy while you go unnoticed.

Depression, in this reading, needs both self-devaluation and guilt. It is often a life stuck in the past, cut off from desire, and a conflict about the territory you feel is yours.

Nostalgia is melancholy caused by regret. It is often read as living outside the present, holding the past so tightly that what is coming, and who is here, cannot be seen.

Crying is often read as a release. Tears leave through the eyes when joy, love, fear or disappointment has become too much, or when you cannot say what you feel.

Anxiety is often read as a fear of the unknown. It can grip the throat, speed the heart and fill the head, while attention stays fixed on a danger that has no clear name.

Anguish is often read as a tightening. Desires feel smothered, space feels smaller than it is, and the body asks for the air and the room it needs in order to live.

Fear is often read as a power you have handed away. The heart races, the kidneys are called its seat, and what you dread can start to organise your life.

Worry is often read as inner insecurity that makes you very emotional. It returns when a present situation resembles an early one, and when you see yourself as a victim of events rather than someone who can act.

Apprehension is often read as doubt and fear in front of a person or a situation that feels dangerous. The mind starts to embroider, and you lose your centre.

A phobia is often read as an unjustified fear with anguish at its centre. The source looks for a moment of powerlessness and anger, and for what the feared object stands for.

Agoraphobia is often read as a panic of the crowd, close to an unconscious fear of death. You absorb other people's fears, and safety shrinks to one place or one person you dare not leave.

Claustrophobia is often read as the fear of being smothered or trapped where you have no control. The source asks whether you are a prisoner of feelings you will not express, and whether you are refusing the space that is yours.

Timidity is often read as a fear of being judged. You avoid what is new, stay inside a routine where you will not be hurt or rejected, and keep communication to the people who feel safe.

Jealousy is often read as insecurity and a thin trust in yourself. It is the fear of losing what you have, especially a partner, until control takes the place of the bond.

Dependence is often read as a deep inner void. A substance, food, cigarettes, sex, work or another person is asked to fill a lack of love, often one that goes back to a parent.

Weariness is often read as a body that is tired and a mind that wants to give up. It may follow relationships that no longer nourish you, and a life spent adapting to everyone else.

Burnout is often read as the collapse that follows a failed fight for an ideal. Perfectionism, the need to be recognised, and the fear of meeting yourself can burn the candle at both ends.

Anger is often read as a spontaneous alarm and an inner revolt. Frustration, a feeling of being invaded, and the inability to say who you are are what feed it.

Aggressiveness is often read as energy pushed down until it comes out as an attack. You feel threatened, not respected, and you strike first so you will not have to feel weak.

Hate is often read as a fire you keep feeding. It is said to destroy the person who maintains it, when you feel that others are stopping you from living your own life.

Resentment is often read as a deep grievance you keep alive. You see yourself as the one who was wronged, and you make other people responsible for the life you have not lived.

Impatience is often read as inner stress and insecurity. It shakes the nervous system, makes you abrupt, and flares when you feel your freedom is being limited.

Stress is often read as the answer to a demand that is greater than usual. The event matters less than your reaction, and even a happy change can become distress if you fear you cannot adapt.

Regret is often read as feeding the body on sorrow and discontent about what you should have done, said or thought. It gnaws, lowers your energy, and leaves you facing a reality that will not match the other choice.

Boredom is often read as a deep sadness and a great grief. In French the source hears "I am bored" as "I am harming myself", because your strength and your potential are not being used.

Apathy is often read as a numbness you adopt after events that question your reason for being here. You revolt at the injustice, then distance yourself so you will not suffer again.

Withdrawal can be a real pause, a way to discover your needs. It becomes costly when the pause will not end, and closing off turns into self-pity and playing the victim.

Emotivity is often read as every feeling brought to the surface. A small thing overwhelms you, fear paralyses action, and the body answers with a racing heart, a tight throat and a troubled digestion.