Blogpost 3: Expression: You can't Hide what you Feel Inside

Of course, every time we feel something there has to be a reaction/s inside of us. It might be our facial expression, actions, body reaction like heart beats faster than usual. And we can’t hide these things specially when we have these strong feelings such as being in love that makes your head floats around and you’ll be like smiling with everything even there’s no reason, in short makes you look crazy; being angry or mad that your eyebrows getting closer to each one thinking of you want to smash someone’s face; or getting sad or lonely that you can’t stop the tears that will just suddenly flow.

And because of these expressions, we can easily determined the person’s mood or whatever the feel. Same thing that they know what we feel inside with our expressions.

One article I’ve red entitled, “Reading Facial Expressions of Emotion” by David Matsumoto a professor of psychology and Hyi Sung Hwang a research scientist in www.apa.org where they discovered two expressions of people, the universality of facial expressions of emotion and the existence of microexpressions. The universality of facial expressions are the expressions of what people feels can easily recognize such as happiness, loneliness, anger, surprise etc. Typically last between 0.5 to 4 seconds to determine. While the microexpression they said that it will occur when you are alone or when you’re with your family or close friends who are easily determine what you feel. They said that: “Emotions are an incredibly important aspect of human life and basic research on emotions of the past few decades has produced several discoveries that have led to important real world applications.” 

There are some expressions that can obviously recognize, and some expressions that we are not that sure to tell. Your family or your close friends who are almost know everything about you can easily determine what you really feel unlike anyone else who you doesn’t really know like strangers wouldn’t easy to tell what you feel.

Another article entitled, “Understanding Body Language” by Kendra Cherry in psychology.about.com Besides of facial expression, other of our body parts also includes with what we feel inside. In this article, they explained the expression of emotion through mouth, eyes, gestures, arms, legs, posture and even personal space. They said that the eyes are capable of revealing a great deal about what a person if feeling or thinking. Covering our mouth specially when we are coughing or yawning are naturally a polite discipline not only for us, but there are some point that indicates that the person covers their mouth to hide their frown or disapproval. Our gestures, arms, legs and posture could also determine if we are nervous, excited, happy or whatever, like standing straight means we are paying attention, happy or active, while the shoulders down shows that we have less interest or tired, body shaking indicates that we might be nervous or excited. And the personal space, it can also express what we feel with our surrounding, the closer you are in the person the more comfortable you are with them, and of course you don’t want to sit or stand beside the person you don’t really know. Kendra Cherry said that “body language is thought to account for between 50 to 70 percent of all communication. Understanding body language is important, but it is also essential to remember to note other cues such as context and to look at signals as a group rather than focusing on a single action.”

These expressions are automatically being expressed with what we feel because our brain thought of it already with the situation. We can’t be like you already saw a mad tiger approaching you and you’ll just stand there and smile. No, of course you’ll start to feel nervous and scared, then your brain will thought of it so you’ll be having the expression of big eyes, shaky body, panicking to run, and might also scream. Expressing our feelings is important, because even without words, we can already tell to everyone what we really feel inside. Even if we make fake smiles although you are lonely inside, it will still show in you that you’re just pretending. And these expressions are also important to know, to be familiarize, and to recognize, so you would know what are happening with your surroundings and or with you family and friends. Actors also make a study with people’s expression so that they can act the role of their character. Expressing our feelings is amazing.