Emotions

"I feel therefore I am"

Your baby feels strong emotions - this is true even before birth. The emotional brain (or limbic brain) is highly sensitive, and your baby is influenced by a range of hormones that are linked with loving or stressful states.

What your baby experiences emotionally, from conception onwards, affects his development and regulates - or deregulates - physical systems governing sleep, digestion and immunity. His early experiences will shape his self-esteem and will have an impact right into adulthood.

The 7 emotional drives

Your baby is driven by his emotional or limbic brain, which gives him basic emotional drives. These drives are common to all humans. Our model of 7 basic emotional drives has been inspired by Jaak Panskepp, a vivacious professor of psychology who is one of the world's visionaries when it comes to understanding emotions in humans - and in all mammals. Research into the brain reveals that we all have these basic drives. You have them, your baby has them, your mother has them. We all do. They are present before birth. They drive us every second of our lives.

• Separation anxiety
• Anger (rage)
• Fear
• The urge to bond
• The drive to care and nurture another
• Playfulness
• The drive to explore

Each one of these drives plays an important role - to urge us as humans to explore, to stay in relationship, and to survive and grow. They drive your baby to form relationships and keep close to his parents or carers, and to explore, but he is far from independent. He needs practical help, and he needs to have his emotions reflected to him and accepted, so that he can begin to trust and understand his feelings. This is the basis for healthy development on many levels, and the foundation for strong, loving relationships.

Listening in

Babiesknow guides you to listen to and understand your baby; and your own feelings too. Tuning into your baby now, while simultaneously feeling balanced in yourself, is the greatest gift you can give her.

"A child is born with the hardware for [emotional] sensing,
but to use it skilfully he needs a guide… someone must
teach him how to sense the emotional world correctly.
Only through limbic resonance with another can he begin
to apprehend his inner world. The first few years
of resonance prepare this instrument for a lifetime's use."

From 'A General Theory of Love'

For more on emotions download our pdf :

Attachments:

Science and Emotions

Emotions and the brain and body; and how emotional feelings in infancy, from conception, shape us for life.