From the category archives:

Emotions

Improve your emotional algebra

I think there is a way we are being fooled by our emotions. It hinges on where we put the equals sign. *** So there I am in Page One, the beautiful enormous sunlit bookshop in our local mall, the place where I wander idly looking at books, thinking things through, making notes for articles [...]

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Permission

Meta-blogging: I have a bunch of posts lined up, but none of them seem relevant today. So I’m just writing from my heart, which is a bit grief-y, to be honest. My Internal Editor wants to provide you with Useful Content, and is scared that I will Ruin My Reputation by writing about touch-y feel-y [...]

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How to worry less

I’ve had a bit of a realisation about the mechanism of worry. As some of you know, I’m moving continents in a couple of months. The Move has been the source of lots of tears, worry, you know, ahngsht. In my notes for a talk I’m planning about the not-freaking-out, there are three things it [...]

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What I’m scared of

Bindu asks that today we write about what we’re scared of. I am scared of: Being alone Not being alone Being stuck in a marriage that is cold Hurting someone irreparably Being cut off from God Feeling my longing for God Feeling how lonely I am in the world Coming up short Finding out I’ve [...]

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What if anger isn’t anger

I have spoken before about how we need to be less certain about people’s intentions. I learned-learned that a couple of weeks ago when I was having the freak-out which started off my first note to my Future Self. Me and a Person I Care About were having a bit of a… to-do, as my [...]

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Recognising emotions as emotions

The good news is my note to my Future Self was received! I have to be a bit circumspect about this, but yesterday I received a communication that set our worlds aspin. And not in an obviously ‘positive’ way. In conversation with S, I felt my panicky-anxious-want-to-pick-a-fight reaction coming up. You know what I did? [...]

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Freakus Interruptus Tool Numero Uno

Dear Future-Freaking-Out-Andrew There is a particularly desperate type of anxiety that grips you at times, isn’t there? You can feel it coming… And you know you need to get out of it before it wants to bite the people around you. Right? Well, put your shoes on. It’s time you walked around the block. No [...]

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The Impact-Intention Trap

There’s a funny thing that happens sometimes and it normally involves me saying (ornery voice): Well, I didn’t mean it like that! I first came across this laid out in the pretty damn good Difficult Conversations by the descendants of the Harvard Negotiation Project (the Getting to Yes/Getting Past No people). In an emotional exchange, [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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