Posts tagged with “emotions”

How to Honor Your Sensitivity (Because It’s Actually a Strength)

“The opposite of sensitive is not ‘tough.’ It’s insensitive. Sensitivity is a gift. Let’s nurture it, not squash it.” ~Glennon Doyle

I would run no matter how much snow and ice there was, no matter how tired I was or how much my joints hurt. Even if I was hungover. It didn’t matter. Sometimes I would be in incredible pain, but I wouldn’t stop.

I worked as a tree planter in the summers and got paid per tree. I would push as hard as possible, sometimes planting as many as 3,000 trees in one day. And, not surprisingly, I had …

How Observing My Emotions Helps Me Let Go of Anger and Anxiety

By Jen Picicci

“Even when in the midst of disturbance, the stillness of the mind can offer sanctuary.” ~Stephen Richards

One night my four-year-old daughter woke up crying, startling both me and my husband from sleep. He rushed into her room and I came in shortly thereafter, and I immediately got annoyed with how he was handling the situation. I’ll admit this now: I can’t even remember what he did, but in that moment I knew I would have done it differently and it made me feel irritable and angry.

I left the room and went into the bathroom. While I …

How I Found Happiness by Facing the Past I Worked So Hard to Escape

By Heather Moulder

“Ten years from now, make sure you can say you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it.” ~Mandy Hale

I spent most of my youth trying to escape. From the mother who drank too much and the violent men she dated and from the kids at school who made fun of me for wearing the same clothes every week.

I felt shame and guilt because I believed that my circumstances defined who I was, which meant that I was unimportant, unworthy even.

So, I created elaborate imaginary worlds where I was smart, successful, and often saved the day. Where …

How to Release Emotions Stuck in Your Body and Let Go of the Pain

By Joanna Ciolek

“The human mind is a relational and embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information.” ~Daniel J. Siegel

We are emotional creatures, and we were born to express emotions freely and openly. Somewhere along the way, however, many of us learned to repress emotions, especially those deemed “negative,” in order to fit in, earn love, and be accepted. This was my experience.

I grew up in a home where the motto was “Children are to be seen, not heard.” There was little emotional expression allowed, let alone accepted. No one was there to validate or help us …

The Past May Have Shaped Us, But We Have the Power to Change

By Oñi Adda

“If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.” ~Toni Morrison

Our very first relationship is the one we develop with ourselves. However, even that one is shaped by outside forces.

You may or may not believe that we choose our family. Regardless of your position regarding how your soul made it to your parents’ household, the truth is that the environment we are born into determines a great deal of the rest of our lives. This is especially true about the way we relate with ourselves and others.

We learn by observing …

How I Stopped Emotional Eating and Started Feeling Better About Life

By Sai Aparajitha Gopalakrishnan

“Don’t forget you’re human. It’s okay to have a meltdown, just don’t unpack and live there.” ~Unknown

For the longest time, I wanted to lose weight. I wasn’t terribly overweight but it seemed to me that if I could just have the perfect body, life would be amazing.

So, I threw everything but the kitchen sink at my food and exercise habits.

Never one to settle for small wins, I pushed myself to have the perfect diet—I prepped meals at home, didn’t eat out very much, and worked out as often as I could. Yes, the kind where I …

It’s Okay to Have Feelings, So Stop Saying “I’m Fine” When You’re Not

By Raphaela Browne

“I’d rather be honest and authentic and disappoint some people than to exhaust myself trying to keep up the façade of perfection.” ~Crystal Paine

So many people walk around each day masking their true feelings because they are considered the “strong one,” “the upbeat, bubbly one,” or, since they give so much of themselves supporting others, they’re not seen as having any emotions other than happy. If you’ve ever felt like you had to hold it together all the time to keep up a façade for others, there’s freedom in letting people know that you have feelings too.

Keeping …

How I Learned to Stop Absorbing Other People’s Emotions

By Melissa Renzi

“Sometimes I think I need a spare heart to feel all the things I feel.” ~Sanober Khan

I felt her agony and loneliness as if it were my own. Even as I write that sentence, my eyes well up and heaviness fills my heart. Then, I’m reminded to apply the advice I give others.

My mom was a special person, a sensitive soul just like me. Actually, I’m so much like she was, yet so different. One of the differences between us is that I had an opportunity to observe her life’s challenges. I saw her challenges reflected within myself …

Why Creativity Is the Path to Mindfulness, Happiness, and Peace

By Kathy Rausch

“Mindful and creative, a child who has neither a past, nor examples to follow, nor value judgments, simply lives, speaks and plays in freedom.” ~Arnaud Desjardins

No human being lives without experiencing the duality of life.

Good and bad. Love and hate. Life and death. Acceptance and rejection. Success and failure. Joy and jealousy. Compassion and judgment.

So why do we spend so much time trying to pretend that it’s bad to experience all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly?

Even our weather men and women tell us it’s a going to be a bad day because …

Freeing Yourself from Problems and Habits by Seeing That You’re Already Free

By Dr. Amy Johnson

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Imagine there is a river running through you.

Your entire experience of life flows through you, down that river. Everything you think, feel, and do passes through, powered by the current of the river.

Your emotions, your opinions, your sense of identity … your habits, diagnoses, and choices … they aren’t still or solid, sitting somewhere. They are brought to life, felt, and then they drift away. They …

How I Transformed My Anxiety and What to Do If You Feel Emotionally Stuck

By Dr. Eric Tan

“There is still vitality under the snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.” ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

For as long as I can recall, I have always been a fretful and anxious person. Mine was a low-key anxiety that’s always colored the background of my life, a constant companion of ambiguous dread and imminent doom (just around the corner!)

The annoying part was that I never quite knew why the anxiety hung around. There weren’t any real situations in my life that evoked this constant, nagging fear.

I have tried various techniques to manage my anxiety. …

Why Trying to Feel Good Can Make You Feel Bad

By Joel Almeida

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” ~Paulo Coelho

We’re bombarded by images of people living apparently perfect lives. They suffer no bereavements or breakups or losses or failures. They look perfect, make perfect choices, and act perfect.

Everyone seems to love them as they sail from success to success, with zero misfortunes, mistakes, or regrets.

So, it’s easy to believe that we, too, need to be perfect.

I had a simple definition of success when I was younger. It was whatever made others admire, or at least accept me.…

How to Move Through Feelings of Body Shame

By Corinne Dobbas

“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ~Brené Brown

My husband’s legs are smaller than mine.

I wish I could tell you that when I first realized this (when we were dating) I wasn’t emotionally triggered. And that I didn’t care.

But, I can’t.

Instead, I can tell you that I walked right up next to him, planted my thigh next to his, and awkwardly declared, “Ha! My legs are bigger than yours!”

I can still see him looking right back at me, saying, “So? I love …

9 Beliefs You Have to Let Go If You Want to Find Inner Peace

By Benjamin Fishel

“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~Adyashanti

I don’t know exactly when it happened.

It was probably about eighteen months ago, maybe a couple of years. I can’t really remember, and it doesn’t really matter.

I was up to my neck in stress, and having one of those days.

It was one of those days where you wake up late and your neck is a …

4 Simple Techniques to Erase Subconscious Negativity

By Mukesh Mani

“As you sow in your subconscious mind, so shall you reap in your body and environment.” ~Joseph Murphy

The subconscious mind is like a computer’s hard drive.

It saves whatever information you feed it, without any bias. It does not discriminate between useful information and trash information. It just saves everything!

The subconscious mind learns through repetition. So if it’s fed the same information multiple times, it keeps overwriting it until the information gets etched in.

As you would have guessed, such information is harder to erase.

For example, let’s say you write “I am not good enough” on …

Honesty Is a Gift, So We Don’t Have to Hide Our True Feelings

By Jen Picicci

“Never apologize for showing feelings. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

I’ll never forget my progress report from third grade: “Jennifer shows disappointment when she’s not called on.”

This must have been a bad thing, because my mother sat me down to talk about it. Apparently, when I raised my hand and wasn’t called on, I frowned. I was to work on that, to try to stay neutral, to not show I was upset.

I also clearly remember the day my dad came over to my mom’s house to tell me his father, my grandfather, …

4 Tips for Raising Happy, Emotionally Healthy Children

By Sandra Cooper

“Emotional intelligence begins to develop in the earliest years. All the small exchanges children have with their parents, teachers, and with each other carry emotional messages.” ~Daniel Goleman

I consider myself an expert on the emotional needs of children. Mostly because I was one.

No one goes into parenthood anticipating the ways they will psychologically damage their children. At least I don’t think they do. I hope not. It’s far more likely that most go into parenthood wanting the best for their children, hoping to do more for them than their own parents were able to do.

So, why is …

How We Avoid Our Feelings and How Embracing Them Sets Us Free

By Sandra Cooper

“We numb our minds and heart so one need not be broken and the other need not be bothered.” ~Peggy Haymes

Feelings are important, no doubt about it. They communicate all sorts of information to us. I don’t know about you, but I’ve preferred to ignore some of that information. Raise your hand if you would much rather feel the good feelings and just jump right over the not so good ones.

Okay, so it’s unanimous. We all prefer the good, happy feelings. I expect we are all experts at finding ways to avoid the uncomfortable ones. But …

3 Things That Cause Unhealthy Food Cravings and How to Stop Them

By Arantxa Mateo

“Reminder: food is fuel, not therapy.” ~Unknown

I learned about food cravings at a young age.

My parents divorced when I was six years old. My older brother and I ended up living in another city with our grandmother. We used to spend long hours alone, and we learned soon enough how food could help us lift our mood and suppress our real feelings.

That was when I started having unstoppable food cravings.

Eating would make me feel good and bring me peace and calm. Trying to avoid my favorite foods would make me nervous and unsettled, and would …