Emotions and Logic: Getting them to Work Together Did you know it’s difficult and sometimes impossible to experience intense anger, sadness, or anxiety and think logically at the same time? I’m not saying that you’re not responsible for your actions. In fact, it’s that responsibility that often leads people to
5 Keys for Building Resilience to Difficult Emotions When you think about resilience, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the ability to bounce back. Most people think of resilience in terms of the physical. But, it’s just as important (if not more important) to have emotional resilience.
Finding the Positives for Reprieve Inside and outside of the therapy office, I see many people struggle to find the positives. We’re a little hardwired to tap into the negatives around us. Our systems are built to protect us. This can mean staying out of situations that can lead to
Emotionally Surviving Black Friday Black Friday, and especially the days leading up to it, can be intense, even if you’re not aware of it. It is important to pay attention to how marketers create a low level of emotion within us to get us to buy their products. This emotion
Identifying and accepting pain and the sources of this pain is not at all a fun thing to do. So why do it? Why do therapists push for this so often? Walking through pain can help with several things. So often, we become reactive with the defense mechanisms that we’ve
Working Backwards from the Emotion Working through an emotional issue is often not easy. There are several strategies that people use, which disguise themselves as success. Some will distract themselves and others will compartmentalize the issue so much that they forget it. The issue is that without fail, the negative
SPOILER ALERT—This review is a critical analysis of the theme of mental illness portrayed in this film. For those who have not yet viewed this movie, this review could give parts of the plot away. A common Holiday activity for many people is to catch a movie during an extended
I can remember an influential teacher from my high school giving us some advice that I hope I never will forget. He said that one of the most important skills that we can learn is to laugh at ourselves. I worked to develop this skill while in high school and
Many times after an extremely emotionally negative event, we will put the thoughts about the event on the back burner. Sometimes we will forget about the event altogether for an extended period of time. Although it seems that having forgotten these feelings for is not harmful, it may be holding
A common, yet underestimated problem that many of my clients face is learning to accept and experience emotions. Feeling “numb” is something that many people who enter into therapy discover as a problem. Often clients will say that not feeling or experiencing emotions is easier to deal with than the