From the category archives:

Emotions

What feelings want

See, it’s not the feelings that are the problem.
It’s what the feelings want.
Primary emotions
I’ve been looking at what I’m feeling, and notice that there are three primary emotions:
Anger, Sadness, Fear.
These have lesser siblings:
Irritation, Pissed-off-ness, Anxiety.
And big Mommas:
Rage, Grief, Terror-Panic.
(For the moment, we’re ignoring weird meta-emotions like guilt, jealousy, antsiness.)
Feelings are an unavoidable fact of life, [...]

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Creating a Trigger List and freaking out less

Feelings are almost never fresh out of the box.
They are almost always (and I’m saying ‘almost’ just to seem all cool and provisional and fair and not-totally-certain but I really mean always) about something that has happened before.
They are (almost) never about what seems to be happening in front of you.
We have a variety of [...]

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Tula… EAT something.

This is on the surface a ridiculously simple piece of advice but it has paid more regular dividends over the past few years than probably anything else.
And it’s a handling/dealing with/managing/opening to emotions week, so it’s appropriate.
And… it’s based around the little problem that our soul is shoved inside a chimpanzee.
Thing is, you’ve got to [...]

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Do I have a Thing about this?

I gotta share something with you that’s helping me a be a lot more sane.
For regular readers, you might remember parts of it.
Here’s how it works for me (I’m going to write this as instructions, but I’m not sure if it’s gonna work for anyone else):
~ You feel something, erm, stressful (anxiety, anger, embarrassment… one [...]

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Go wide

Going wide is a simple practice.
Closing (especially anger/fear) seems to involve a narrow focus (duh). Like a kind of tunnel vision.
I find that putting your attention on the edges of your peripheral vision seems to help keep open, to just get a whisper of perspective.
It seems to work for me as a very very first [...]

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Why you need to work on your (emotional) stuff

I’ve been noticing that a lot of the content here is about me sorting out my stuff.
I mean, yes, blogging is free therapy (thanks Havi).
I’m surprised that despite having about 569 technique article ideas,  I’m not writing much about conflict resolution techniques, but mainly about making me less grumpy.
Knowing your way around your stuff is [...]

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Help! I can’t separate fantasy from reality!

I seem to have found a way into a kind of mindfulness, and a way to stop myself going into crazy emotional reactions quite so much.
And it came from following my own advice.
I know, weird, huh?
And not a little post-post-modern.
I find it difficult to separate fantasy from reality. Evidently.
Now, before you go speed dialling the [...]

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How to be less grumpy

I am not un-smart, quite sensitive, a bit thoughtful, reasonably emotionally fluent, as it were,  and yet I’m still ridiculously.. touchy.
At times.
Here are the major things that have been going around and around for me about being a bit less grumpy.
Obligatory meta-blogging
I’m putting several things in one post, and am going to attempt to just [...]

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Handling your feelings, their feelings, your feelings about their feelings

Part Two of the Grand Manifesto on Conflict Resolution and fighting less is:
Handle The Emotions
Seems a bit ridiculous to be saying that dealing with emotions is important in conflict situations, but, er, it is.
Not being neither a grumpy, over-sensitive arse nor a smug, overly calm arse is a life-long, constant… exploration for me.
In terms of [...]

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