emotions

Forgiveness Tips If You’ve Been Wronged

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sad eggIf you’re nursing a grievance, you’re not alone.

Without a heartfelt apology (which isn’t always available), or even with that apology, sometimes it can take a long time to feel better.

Being wronged is like being injured physically. Healing takes time.

No one expects a broken bone to heal overnight, nor should we expect ourselves to be okay with what happened immediately… or ever.

Assuming you want to reach forgiveness, though, remember that hurt feelings can build on other hurt feelings from the past. Read More

Early Experience Affects How We Deal With Feelings

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adult not understanding kid's feelings“Why do we find it so hard to sit with our own emotions?” asked one of the audience members at a talk I gave last Tuesday about constructive wallowing.

I think there are two reasons:

1. We’re hard-wired to avoid pain. If a feeling is unpleasant, we automatically try not to pay attention to it and hope it goes away.

Example: You’re reading on the patio when a thought strays into your mind … something about a letter from the IRS and unpaid taxes. Read More

Emotions and Heart Health

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In my post, Emotional Regulation is Nonsense, I wrote about why it’s more important to control your behavior than to try to control how you feel.

Recently I learned about a new study indicating that trying to control your emotions — especially so-called “negative” ones — can actually harm your health.

You can read it for yourself at http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-05-stress-heart.html.

Note that the article (along with the title of the study) specifically states that it’s EFFORTS TO REGULATE negative emotions, rather than the negative emotions themselves, that create physiological stress. Read More

Almost All Problems Are Emotional

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girl cryingWhen’s the last time you had a problem that wasn’t emotional?

Car broke down? You probably made a call or two and got it fixed; no real problem there except for the annoyance and/or frustration it caused you.

Couldn’t pay your mortgage? Losing your home to foreclosure would be an “oh, well” proposition without good old-fashioned fear, desperation and grief — emotional experiences, to be sure.

I recently wrote a post about how problems are almost always emotional (and so, therefore, are solutions) over at my new blog home-away-from-home on PsychologyToday.com. Read More