Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I was lying awake the other night with my thoughts whirling, and decided I needed a more positive frame of mind.

I thought back to my counselling days, and how children were being taught the main emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. The only one of those that is really positive is happiness, and that seemed to be selling us a bit short. Surely there must be as many positive emotions as negative ones? I tried thinking of all the positive feelings I could.

Not all of them fit neatly into a single English word but then why should they?

Here are some of the ones I came up with:

• happiness
• satisfaction
• competence
• doing something that matters
• complete absorption in a task (what's sometimes called "flow")
• euphoria
• peace
• comfort
• affection
• amusement
• hilarity
• being among friends
• enthusiasm
• delight
• excitement about something you like
• feeling accepted
• feeling validated
• feeling valued
• feeling loved
• enjoying cuteness (kittens!)
• feeling like you're floating away among the stars and your body doesn't exist any more
• mastery
• curiosity
• the feeling you get when you learn something new
• the feeling of a lightbulb moment
• the feeling you get when you do something you didn't think you could do

And then I fell asleep.

Which ones did I miss?