The Last Airbender Teaches Us About Our Emotions

Have you ever felt angry for feeling sad? Guilty for feeling anxious? Shame for feeling anger? If so, you’re not alone. This common experience of feeling emotions about our emotions often makes it incredibly difficult to process our emotions, and it can leave us grappling with an internal struggle that churns in vicious cycles. 

I’ve recently been rewatching a childhood TV show that lives in the hearts of many Gen Zers and Millennials: Avatar: The Last Airbender. This children’s show has become a beloved series for many, and while the show has the silliness and fun of a typical children’s show, it has also become critically acclaimed for the complex issues and topics that the series grapples with. 

Notably, in the third season, the fire-bending, villain-turned-hero Zuko struggles with an internal conflict that leaves him angry at all around him. When his friends try to understand this overwhelming anger, repeatedly asking him who he’s angry at, Zuko struggles to answer. Eventually, after much badgering, Zuko answers in a character-defining confession: “I’m angry at myself.”

Zuko, like many of us, struggles with the weight of expectations that others have placed upon him. And while we may not all be the prince to a nation like Zuko, many of us can relate to the feeling of trying to live in a way that may not be in alignment with our values. Whether it is because of parents, friends, school teachers, or other trusted ones, the notions that others put onto us, especially at a young age, can become dictating forces for our feelings. Zuko, who struggled for much of the series under the expectations that his abusive father put onto him, developed an anger that marred much of his journey. But it was not just anger that underlied his internal conflict. 

Famous poet and essayist Anne Carson once wrote, “Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.” Underlying Zuko’s anger at himself was a long-ignored grief and sadness: for his mother, for his childhood, and for the life he once had. So why did Zuko struggle for three seasons to understand this sadness? Because he was angry at himself. And when we are angry at ourselves, we cannot address and accept the emotions that underlie our pain. 

Primary vs. Secondary Emotions

Often, when we struggle like Zuko to grapple with our emotions, it is because there are other emotions that bubble up in response to the initial emotions we may be experiencing. These emotions can be categorized into primary and secondary emotions.

Primary emotions are the first, instinctual emotions that we may feel in response to an event. For example, if you get a test back and see an A, you may immediately feel joy. On the flip side, if you studied really hard and put your all into a test, only to turn the paper over and see a C, you may feel a wave of sadness rise up. These primary emotions are thought to have a physiological basis, and they are often the emotions that are instinctual and unaffected by thoughts or analysis. 

Secondary emotions, meanwhile, are the emotions we feel about our emotions. If you feel a wave of sadness at receiving a C on a test, you may become angry at yourself for feeling this sadness because you don’t believe you deserve to be sad. Or let’s say you’re anxious about an upcoming work assignment, and then you start to think about how your anxiety may make things harder. You may end up becoming anxious about being anxious! 

Often these secondary emotions are taught to us and are shaped by the messages we receive about emotions. For many men, we are taught not to feel our emotions, thus giving rise to anger to mask emotions of sadness. It is also common for many women to feel shame as a secondary emotion, especially if they have been taught not to feel anger. In the case of Zuko, some of his primary emotions were grief and sadness, but because he was raised with the expectations of being a ruthless, aggressive man, he developed the secondary emotion of anger. And when he achieved a life that he thought he wanted, with no one to direct his anger to, he directed it at himself. 

Why it’s Important to Address Secondary Emotions

So why is it important to know about primary versus secondary emotions? If we wish to tackle grief, anger, sadness, anxiety, or whatever other emotion that may be hurting us, we first need to make peace with the emotions we have about our emotions. In doing so, we will be able to better accept the emotions we are experiencing. 

Here’s another way to think of it: imagine that inside of you is a house, and one day grief showed up to your door and barged right in. Now imagine that you don’t much want grief in your house, but she just won’t leave. Well, instead of sitting with grief, maybe you throw her in a closet and lock her away so you don’t have to sit with her. 

But what happens when grief rattles the door at night, reminding you she’s there? What if she makes noise in the middle of a sunny day when you’re trying to live your life? Maybe you might start to feel anger at her presence. 

Maybe you take that anger and build a wall in front of her closet, hoping that will keep her quiet. Then when she makes more noise, you build another wall of anger, and another, and another, hoping that these walls will make her go away. 

Eventually, you’re going to find these walls taking up more and more space, and it’s going to be hard to live in your house. Worse, those walls of anger are going to make it harder to finally let grief out so you can sit with her. Because, despite your anger, she’s still in your house. And if you are ever going to heal, you not only need to let grief out, but you’re going to have to accept that there are walls of anger in front of her. 

How to Make Peace with Secondary Emotions

So how do we make peace with these secondary emotions?

First, it’s important to identify what secondary emotions we may have, and what primary emotions they may belong to. You can do this by journaling, practicing mindfulness, speaking with your therapist, or noticing what thoughts and beliefs you have about certain emotions.

Second, once you identify the secondary emotions, you may start to non-judgmentally investigate them. What notions do you have about certain emotions? Are some emotions “good” or “bad?” What messages did you receive from family, friends, teachers, culture, or society about these emotions? Once you can identify the beliefs you have about emotions, you can start to catch them when they arise.  

Third, you can begin to rewrite the narrative and self-talk you have about these emotions. If you often criticize yourself for feeling certain emotions, with thoughts such as, “I don’t deserve to feel this,” “I’m over dramatic,” “I don’t want to feel this way,” or “I’m tired of feeling this,” it may be helpful to rework these critiques into non-judgmental sentences. Acceptance statements may look like “I feel this way, and that’s okay,” “I’m allowed to feel this,” or “Just because I feel this, it doesn’t dictate who I am.” 

By loosening the walls of secondary emotions, only then can we begin to feel our primary emotions and the pain that we may be closed off to. And hopefully, like Zuko, you can begin your own redemption story to find peace. 

Jacob Chagoya is a Therapist with Fleurish Psychotherapy. If you find yourself struggling to manage or process your emotions, it may be a sign to consider talk-therapy. To schedule a consult or session, you can find more information here.