Category: Emotions

Spaghetti and Hurt Feelings

I am a pretty clumsy person. Like a keep-an-eye-on-me-around-closed-sliding-glass-doors, probably-should-never-eat-spaghetti-without-a-full-apron-on kind of person. Suffice it to say, my childhood nickname lauded my propensity to accumulate minor bumps and scrapes through incredible feats of un-coordination. I won’t tell you how old I was when I nearly broke my glasses walking into the corner of a doorway instead of through the doorway - although, to be perfectly clear, it was part of the transparent wall of a racquetball court…and that was the problem: it was perfectly clear.

 

Anyway, as my luck would have it, I’m also a pretty relationally-clumsy person. At times I completely miss that I have caused emotional discomfort or harm. I put my foot in my mouth routinely enough that I< ...

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Everyone deals with challenges to their mental health. 

At this moment you may not feel lost in a cloud of depression or ready to jump out of your skin with anxiety, but you may be in the middle of a really hard day, or a series of hard days.

Sometimes we are blindsided by a crisis. At other times, the little things just add up. 

Imagine your alarm didn’t go off, you woke up late for work and your kids were crying through the night so you only slept a few hours. On your drive to work, you suddenly notice a large pothole ahead of you. Someone is tailgating you so you can’t slow down, and someone is next to you in the adjacent lane, so you can’t move over.

You make it to work with a flat tire, but at least you’re there, and thankfully nothing stressful can happen at work. 

Within a very short time, your typical daily stress-load has been amplified, and you feel that it’s bey ...

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What if someone told you that everything you think about emotions is wrong? As people, we like categories. Categories help us make sense of the world around us and ourselves. In an effort to help understand ourselves, we place emotions into such categories. 

Often, people will discuss negative and positive emotions. What if there are no good or bad emotions? When you focus on something being negative or positive, then you are more likely to focus on the positive aspects than the negative. This could lead to behaviors that could be damaging, causing individuals to withdraw when emotions are not considered positive. When you feel happy, you may feel social and want to spend time with people around you. When you are excited you are eager to share. However, what happens when you’re sad or jealous? Do you share those emotions with others, do you allow yourself to explore how the emotions feel in your body, or do you suppress them? 

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