Controlling Anger

The Nature of Anger

Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage," according to Charles Spielberger, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger. Like other emotions, it is accompanied by physiological and biological changes; when you get angry, your heart rate and blood pressure go up, as do the levels of your energy hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline.

Anger can be caused by both external and internal events. You could be angry at a specific person (Such as a coworker or supervisor) or event (a traffic jam, a canceled flight), or your anger could be caused by worrying or brooding about your personal problems. Memories of traumatic or enraging events can also trigger angry feelings. Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Dr. Robert Scaer on trauma and Brain State Technologies

Guest has asked for advice on healing emotional wounds. Taken from Abraham-Hicks audio CD Relationships & Co-creation.

Abraham-Hicks: Find Better Feeling Options

An example of effective thought changing by Magic Dragonflies: 'Also, what helps, if you are observing something that is bad, instead of saying,"this sucks and depresses me" you can say, "this is an annoyance and kinda peeves me."

The Theory and Mechanics of 'Emotional Contagion'

Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others. One view developed by John Cacioppo of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to converge emotionally. A broader definition of the phenomenon was suggested by Sigal G. Barsade—"a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes". Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via: Wikipedia

External links

• Mirrored emotion from the University of Chicago Magazine.
• Mirror neurons
• You remind me of me in the New York Times.
• Imago Therapy
• Albert Bandura
• BoBo doll experiment
• Amygdala (brain)
• Multiple Intelligences
• Bobo Doll
• http://socialsciences.people.hawaii.edu/faculty/?dept=psy&faculty=elaineh@hawaii.edu
• http://www.alexithymia.info/
• http://psychology.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/rlevenson.html
• http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/
• Attunement, imputation, and the scope of embodied simulation, Alvin Goldman
• http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/04/reviews/970504.04tavrist.html

Letting Go

Question:  I live in the past, and I feel so lost in it. I am unable to let go of so many negative feelings and resentments. I can't seem to help it, and it's slowly ruining my life. Or it already has. Sometimes I get so mad about things in the past that I can't even eat. I don't want to live this way, but I don't know how to let go. I can't make friends or date, because I cannot trust anyone....

Answer(s): Most of us has had the same problem...living in the past. The past is "in your mind",, the future is "in your mind" just like a dream..."in your mind". All we have is "Now"....so live in "now"...this moment.
Let go.....let go of attachments and move forward. Otherwise, you are stuck and it's an awful place to be. You cannot change anyone but yourself...

The process of loving oneself is the most intense, confusing, frustrating thing that one can go through if they do it right, you are doing it right, just feel your feelings, don't act on them, just express them, which believe me is more than enough, as you express/feel/be present with your feelings, one by one the old feelings will start to clear out of the inside of you.   Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via:  Experience Project

What Do Mood Swings Feel Like?

Mike, an electrical engineer, seems to go through a range of several emotions in a single day. Sometimes when he wakes up in the morning, he feels excited and positive about the day ahead. He jokes with his family at breakfast and is in a great mood for most of the morning. On his lunch break, Mike suddenly feels depressed. He feels tense and aggravated. Sometimes he even feels aggressive. Later in the day he feels restless and bored with work. Everything seems unimportant. When he comes home from work, sometimes he is short and distant from his wife and children. Later in the evening, his spirits lift and he wants to spend quality time with his family. Every day seems like a rollercoaster. Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via:  The Health Center

Staying grounded: A self-help exercise

It is very important to stay ‘grounded.’ If you are feeling disoriented, confused, or upset, you can do the following exercise:

• Sit on a chair. Feel your feet on the ground. Press on your thighs. Feel your behind on the seat and your back against the chair.
• Look around you and pick six objects that have red or blue. This should allow you to feel in the present, more grounded, and in your body. Notice how your breath gets deeper and calmer.
• You may want to go outdoors and find a peaceful place to sit on the grass. As you do, feel how your body can be held and supported by the ground.

Via  : Gina Ross and Peter Levine, Emotional First Aid

An Interesting Essay on Identity and Loneliness

We all derive identity from the world around us. As infants, we are just a jumble of diverse biological processes over which we have no authority, and our first task in life is to develop a coherent personality which “pulls together” this fragmented confusion. Our first sense of coherence comes from our unconscious identifications with the persons around us. Then, as older children, we look around and see what the world shows us. Some things in the world appeal to us more than others; that’s because some things purport to show us something about what’s missing in our own lives and to offer us some knowledge of what seems to be hidden from us. So, from all the things that appeal to us in the world, we create images of how we want to see ourselves, and then we set about making ourselves “seen” in the world so our images can be reflected back to us through the desire of others. Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

I will take the audience on a tour of recent evolutionary thought, which suggests that our hyper vulnerable offspring rearranged our brains, genes, and social structures. I will detail new research on the vagus nerve and oxytocin, branches of the nervous system that have evolved to enable cooperation, trust, and caretaking. I detail new signaling systems -- tactile communication and vocalization -- which are critical to the transmission of prosociality across individuals. Throughout the talk I integrate the latest science with the wisdom found in Eastern thought.--Dr. Dacher Keltner



Via:  GoogleTechTalks

Conation: One of Three Parts of the Mind, Along with the Affective and Cognitive

...In short, the cognitive part of the brain measures intelligence, the affective deals with emotions and the conative takes those thoughts and feelings to drive how you act on them.

Erich Fromm in his work on “Human Ethics” discussed the conative nature of man by saying the way man achieves virtue is through the active use he makes of his powers.

"Uncertainty (the cognitive) is the very condition to impel a man to unfold his power. If he faces the truth without panic, he will recognize that there is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by unfolding his powers, by living productively; and that only constant vigilance, activity and effort can keep us from failure in the one task that matters — the full development of our powers without the limitations set by the laws of our existence… “to be himself and for himself to achieve happiness by the full realization of those faculties which are peculiarly his — of reason, love and productive work.”

Fromm’s productive orientation was a fundamental attitude, a mode of relatedness in all realms of human experience. It covers mental, emotional and sensory responses to others, to oneself and to things. Productiveness is man’s ability to use his powers and to realize the potentialities inherent in him ... he must be free and not dependent on someone who controls his powers... he can make use of his powers only if he knows what they are, how to use them and what to use them for... they [must not be] masked and alienated from him.  Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via:  Wikipedia

Positive Emotion in the Midst of Stress? It’s Not Crazy it’s Adaptive...

UCSF social psychologist Judith Moskowitz examines how positive emotions can be marshaled as adaptive coping tools during stressful times. Moskowitz's research focuses on coping and emotion in the context of health related chronic stress.



Via: UCTV

Feelings' sway over memory: New research suggests that emotions can strengthen and shape memory.

Where were you during the terrorist attacks of 9/11? For most, recalling this information is easier than remembering, for example, the details of Wednesday morning last week. This phenomenon--along with more than two decades of experimental evidence--has led many psychologists to posit that emotions can enhance memory and recall. Click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading >>>>>>>

Disturbing Emotions: ENVY

Envy (also called invidiousness) may be defined as an emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another’s (perceived) superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. The difference from the word jealousy is that the envious person wishes the other man did not have the envied blessing. It can also derive from a sense of low self-esteem that results from an upward social comparison threatening a person's self image: another person has something that the envier considers to be important to have. If the other person is perceived to be similar to the envier, the aroused envy will be particularly intense, because it signals to the envier that it just as well could have been he or she who had the desired object. Bertrand Russell said envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. It is a universal and most unfortunate aspect of human nature because not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his envy, but also wishes to inflict misfortune on others. Although envy is generally seen as something negative, Russell also believed that envy was a driving force behind the movement towards democracy and must be endured in order to achieve a more just social system...click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via:  Wikipedia

Create An Easy & Playful Flash Animation That Reflects Your Mood

Here is a LiNK to my moods...
Make your own mood in a abstracted and colorful animated painting...

UCSB Emeritus Professor of Sociology Thomas Scheff Explores the Place of Emotion in the Midst of Thought.

Via: UCTV  A 24-hour, non-commercial television channel that broadcasts the best in educational and enrichment programming from the campuses, national laboratories, and affiliated institutions of the University of California. UCTV delivers science, health and medicine, public affairs, humanities, and the arts to a general audience, as well as specialized programming for health care professionals and teachers.

The Darker Side of Therapy - Ten Ways to Deal with Dependency

There is a dark side to therapy that nobody wants to talk about; even therapists. It’s a Catch-22 where emotionally-promiscuous clients quickly fall into dependency with their therapists and problems occur when dependency, instead of the original problem, becomes the main issue. Weaning yourself off your substitute mother/therapist can be like trying to forcibly remove a security blanket from a two-year-old or...click anywhere in this sentence to continue reading...

Via: Psychcentral.com
Exerpts from the article: "Your therapist is not perfect". "Forgive and be kind to yourself for having a biological pre-disposition towards unholy emotions but know that there is something you can do about it!"

Feel your emotions

"The key is to not resist or rebel against emotions or to try to get around them by devising all sorts of tricks; but to accept them directly, as they are."

-- Takahisa Kora

Emotions are energy in motion. They bring us information if we are willing to experience them. Unfortunately, many of us are afraid of the energy of emotions and so we automatically resist them. And when we refuse to experience our emotions, we block them up. They become trapped and that entrapment drains our energy and brings continuing discomfort.

Don't let emotions push you into action or reaction. Just STOP and PAY ATTENTION. Allow them to be and to speak to you. Once they are acknowledged, their energy is released.

"Instead of resisting any emotion, the best way to dispel it is to enter it fully, embrace it and see through your resistance."

-- Deepak Chopra

"We have to become more conscious of our feeling-world. By learning to identify the ‘emotional baggage’ and manage our feeling-world reactions, we can view life based on current information instead of being held captive by our past."

-- Doc Childre

"Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge."

-- Audre Lorde

via Higher Awareness

The Neuroscience of Emotions

Google Tech Talks
September 16, 2008

ABSTRACT

The ability to recognize and work with different emotions is fundamental to psychological flexibility and well-being. Neuroscience has contributed to the understanding of the neural bases of emotion, emotion regulation, and emotional intelligence, and has begun to elucidate the brain mechanisms involved in emotion processing. Of great interest is the degree to which these mechanisms demonstrate neuroplasticity in both anatomical and functional levels of the brain.

Speaker: Dr. Phillippe Goldin