One way to feel better is to increase our repertoire of emotions. A great way to do that is to learn the names of positive emotions in other cultures.
Let me give you an example, the word sisu.
It’s a Finnish word that literally means “guts” or “intestines.”
For Fins the word captures the essence of their county, in particular when they remember how they defeated the Russian Army in World War 2 and remained independent as a country.
To feel sisu, explains Emilia Lahti, a sisu researcher from Aalto University in Helsinki, is to recognize “we all have these moments when we all need to reach beyond what we think we are capable of. At the end of physical, emotional and psychological endurance. And then we have some kind of force that allows us to continue even when we thought we couldn’t.” That’s sisu.
Life can be unbearably hard sometimes. We are all tested and there are moments when we want to give up.
But right when you don’t feel like pressing forward; when you’re on that threshold where faith starts to become doubt, choose to sisu yourself and within that emotion, discover a second wind.
On Emotions 